Murder in the Magic City by G.P. Sorrells (speed reading book TXT) 📗

to see hadn’t landed as intended. This one seemed different. Genuine. “I believe you.”

“That it was a joke, or that I’m stupid? I’m kind of at a loss at this point,” Micah said. He chuckled and took a sip of drink number three. The liquid coursed through his body like the flames of Hell, yet he found himself increasingly interested in reaching his limit.

Valerie looked at him pensively, as if she hadn’t given the notion much thought. She smirked. “Well, now that you mention it…”

Micah laughed. It appeared he had avoided disaster for the moment. “So, about that case…”

“Right,” Valerie said. She took the last sip from her glass. Frankie came back with refills as she considered how much she wanted to tell this stranger. She hadn’t expected him to be legitimately interested in anything outside of the fleeting possibility of sex. This could all be an angle, but she found herself increasingly disinterested in whether it was. “The case dealt with a police officer who had used excessive force to subdue a suspect. My client had been minding his own business, waiting for a cab, when the cop approached him and mentioned a warrant.”

“I’m guessing the warrant didn’t actually exist.”

“Correct. But that didn’t stop him from taking things a step further. He told my client to put his hands behind his back. Never produced a warrant, never gave my client any reason as to why he was being held up. Just waited for the look of confusion to cross my client’s face before body slamming him to the ground, asphalt mind you, and leaving his mark. Several of them, in fact. My client ended up with a busted jaw and a couple broken ribs.” As she told the story, Valerie became visibly upset. She could feel her temperature rising and her eyes watering, but she pushed on. “Not only did the warrant not exist, but the officer in question wasn’t even responding to a call. He just saw my client standing on the side of the road and decided he wasn’t okay with it.”

“What happened?”

“He got off,” Valerie said. They both took a drink and ordered another round.

“That’s bullshit.”

“Turns out he’d been a member of a local police union. Had been for quite some time and was cruising toward a nifty little pension. His department simply pulled him from the street and put him into a little desk gig. Last I heard, he had been a good enough boy to get bumped up to detective for however many years he has left. My client, meanwhile, became a pariah. Tons of death threats from people who didn’t have a reason to put that into the world outside of an absurd abundance of hate. He ended up changing his name and leaving the city.”

“All because the system failed him.”

“Yes, we did.”

“No, Valerie. That sort of situation, there’s not much you could have done. You went to bat for him when the deck was stacked against you. Surely that’s got to count for something.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said, taking another gulp of her drink. It had been so long since they started, she had lost count of how much they consumed. She dreaded the thought of moving from her seat. But the alternative was far more enticing. “I don’t know what it is about you, Micah, but you’re different from most of the guys that come through here. A lot different. I like that.” She placed a hand on his thigh, both aware and unaware of her movements all at once. It was a strange, out-of-body experience that threatened to force her to make an offering to the Porcelain Goddess if she wasn’t careful.

“Want to, uh, go back to my place and… discuss hairstyles?”

“More like ways to destroy one,” Valerie answered, a sly grin on her face. She stood up and immediately drifted into Micah, feeling a warmth in his embrace. He kept an arm around her and placed a pair of hundred-dollar bills on the bar top, mumbling something incoherent to Frankie as they walked to the door.

Chapter 30

Ross Sheridan sat alone inside a cold, steel box. His head hurt like hell. For a moment, he wondered if a pair of wild gorillas were fighting to the death beside his brain. Barreling into it intermittently with blatant disregard for his well-being. Why that seemed plausible in the moment was the least of his concerns. He hadn’t the foggiest idea how he ended up sitting on the plain steel chair in front of the equally plain, steel table. The last thing he remembered was taking some nondescript, white pills. Everything after that was hazy.

When he had first woken up inside the room, he found the lights to be uncomfortably bright. So much so that he felt certain Death had come for him in his slumber. The dull ache in his wrists and ankles seemed to thwart that prospect, but it wasn’t until the headache announced itself as more than a mild nuisance that he knew for certain life hadn’t escaped him. A plethora of thoughts rolled through his mind, most of them making little to no sense. Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the once obnoxiously bright bulbs. His head continued to ache. The distant sound of knocking at the one door in the room was the one thing capable of disrupting the cacophony within his mind.

“Come in?” Sheridan said, confused. He watched as a thin, albeit muscular, older gentleman entered the room. A manila folder in hand, the man sat down in front of Sheridan and combed through the contents without averting his gaze toward his new companion. Eventually, he placed the folder down and slid it over to Sheridan. “Who the hell are you?”

“That’s a rather unpleasant way to greet your boss, Mr. Sheridan.”

“My boss?”

“Yes, I,” he tilted his glasses down and stared hard at Sheridan, as though analyzing him for a reason unbeknownst to anyone else. “They really did a number on you with the sedatives. I’ll