Courtney rubbed her irritated eyes. She’d been on the couch crying for hours. She pulled herself into an upright position, trying to clear her head. Her mind ached from going back and forth between missing Tia and trying to figure out why she would shoot Stanley. She just couldn’t believe she had. The shooter had used Stanley’s own gun. So if it had been Tia, how in the world could she have gotten hold of his gun to shoot him with? She kept questioning her mother, but all her mother would tell her was that she’d run into the room just as Tia fired the shot. Despite her mother’s insistence, something was off. Something was simply way off, and Courtney had no idea what it was.
She missed Tia’s presence immensely. She missed her laughter, her sweet voice, her sense of humor, and of course, the intimacy they had shared as well. She just couldn’t bring herself to see the girl as a cold-blooded killer.
Her eyes came to rest upon the laptop now back on its shelf. Curiously, she got up and brought it to the kitchen table. After plugging it in and firing it up, she waited, unsure of what to do. Courtney had never had much interest in computers. The familiar picture of colorful tulips appeared with the strange icons off to the side, which she’d seen before when Tia would use the laptop in her presence. At first, she wasn’t sure what to do, but after clicking a series of icons, she managed to bring up the internet browser. She knew there was a way to check a person’s recent online history. She remembered Tia talking about it. After a while, she found what she was looking for and clicked the link with the word ‘journal’ in it.
Tia had kept a journal?
Apparently so, Courtney saw, wondering why she’d never mentioned it before. Had they not been as close as she thought they had been? Maybe not. After all, if she was right about Tia hiding something from her past, it would probably be in the journal, which would be why she hadn’t mentioned it.
Feeling a little guilty for “trespassing” into Tia’s world, she read the last entry Tia had made. It was short and definitely sweet. It brought a smile to her face just to read it. She spoke of the time they shared together and how happy she was with her and how much she loved her. She wasn’t sure if she liked having their sex life thrown online for all to see, but it’s not like Tia had anything bad to say about it, and she doubted anyone who knew them both read the journal.
She decided to read some of the earlier entries next.
After about fifteen minutes of reading, Courtney understood why it was so hard for Tia to talk about her past. Of course, it was easier to let strangers read about it. She didn’t have to live with them to worry about how they may judge her.
Courtney sighed. The sting of tears threatened to well up again in her eyes. She felt bad for Tia and for her own self. Nothing had been mentioned about Stanley. Nothing at all. So why would the girl suddenly up and shoot him for no apparent reason at all while her mother waited in the kitchen for her to arrive so she could see this dress she’d gotten for her? Something had to have happened. Yet her mother, who had been home the whole time, seemed just as clueless.
A very disturbing thought then crossed Courtney’s mind at that point. Someone had to be lying. Either the girl she loved was a cold-blooded killer, or the mother she had always known, loved and trusted was hiding something.
Something horrible.
“So what do you think?” asked Hanna. “Does it show?”
“Turn around,” Tia told her.
Hanna turned and faced Tia.
“Nope. I don’t see anything obvious in any way.”
Hanna faced Tia once again and said, “Then I guess I did a good job.”
Tia laughed. “Who’d have ever thought of hiding junk food in their socks and bra?”
“Someone who’s never been to jail before and had to go to court and wait all day in a cold, empty holding tank with nothing but a cement bed and a toilet.”
“I guess having candy and cookies will make the waiting time a bit easier. And you never know, you may have company this time around.”
Her current cellmate, the only one who seemed sane and kind so far, took on a worried expression. “Company or not, I just hope they lock the bastard up and throw away the key.”
Tia empathized with Hanna, even though she couldn’t imagine having a husband demand that she choose between him and her child, then beat her child nearly to death when she chose her child. And now, because Hanna was the forgiving type who had previously forgiven the guy for other things, she was paying the price herself. Because she had been too kind and too forgiving, and because she was already aware of the guy’s temper, she was being blamed as well for his abuse. Would she put her foot down in the future? Tia did not know. She only knew the anguish and frustration the woman was dealing with, even if it was in a different way and for different reasons.
“Me too,” Tia said. “He deserves it for what he did to that poor little guy of yours.”
The key was inserted into the metal door, and then it swung open. “Ready, Hoyt?” asked the officer.
“Yeah, I’m all set.”
“Then gather any legal papers you might need and let’s get a move on it.”
Tia wished her cellmate luck, then she was alone.
But not for long.
She was just finishing up brushing her teeth when the door opened again. She looked at the pudgy, stern-looking officer who now filled the doorway.
“Hi there, Smythe,” Tia said, trying to be friendly.
“Legal visit,” Officer Smythe said matter-of-factly.
“Oh, ok,” said Tia, quickly slipping into her shoes. “I’m ready.”
Tia followed the officer, heartbeat speeding up in anticipation of her name being cleared somehow, some way, and herself being released from the zoo she was in.
The walk to the visiting area seemed to take forever, but when she was finally locked into her side of the visiting booth, she greeted Lorelei Connors with a mixture of hope and concern.
“How ya doing, sweetie?” Lorelei asked with a bright smile.
Tia gazed through the Plexiglas at Lorelei. Her shoulder-length dark hair was down loose today and she was dressed more casually. She noticed something else as well for the very first time: that she was actually attracted to the lady lawyer that some mysterious person had hired to help her.
Tia cleared her throat and said, “Well, other than freezing cold showers, horrible food, and a whole bunch of noise, nerves and lost sleep, I’m still alive for some reason.”
Lorelei smiled, pleased to see that the girl had somewhat of a sense of humor despite her situation. “And I’d say you look pretty good for someone in your shoes, too.” Then her face turned a bit serious and she said, “Well, Tia, I’ve officially decided to take your case.”
Tia smiled appreciatively. “Thank you.”
“For starters, we have a lot to talk about.”
“Yes, we do.”
“How about you start off by telling me what you remember.”
Tia told her about walking up to the house after Morgan had called her, and then what had ensued from that point on. “Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a jail infirmary.”
“Pretty scary,” Lorelei said with a dubious expression on her face.
“It was. This is the kind of thing you think only happens to other people.”
Lorelei nodded sympathetically. “Anything else you remember about that day?”
“Nothing in particular, but I sure do have a lot of questions for you. Not just about you seeing Morgan, but I’d really like to know if you have any idea who hired you yet?”
“I might,” Lorelei said, arranging some papers that were laid out before her. “I still can’t get a name, but it appears to be someone in Massachusetts.”
Tia’s eyes bulged.
Lorelei didn’t seem surprised. Instead, she simply looked at Tia expectantly. “You know someone there, huh?”
Tia nodded slowly.
“You want to tell me about it?”
Tia hesitated, then slowly began to recount a whole different kind of horror story in a whole different time and place.
“I was actually born and raised in western Massachusetts. My dad was having a hard time making ends meet when I was sixteen.”
“Mhm,” Lorelei said, listening intently as she leaned on the palm of her hand with her chin.
Tia, noting Lorelei’s long bony fingers and alert brown eyes, went on. “Dad got laid off from his job as a carpenter, and my mother’s drinking was getting so out of control that she could barely function. Things had been getting worse between my parents for quite some time. They fought all the time. Nothing violent, but lots of screaming. Sometimes, Dad would be gone for days. We figured he had to be sleeping in his van because they didn’t have any real friends, and the only relative was Mom’s sister in Oregon.”
Lorelei nodded slightly as if she figured there was a connection to Oregon somewhere along the way.
“We certainly didn’t have any money, so there’s no way he could have stayed at a motel unless he was seeing someone.”
“Was he?” Lorelei asked.
“We never knew for sure.”
“Go on.”
“Well, one day things came to a head, and my father shot himself in the bathroom. From there on out, everything is such a big blur in my memory. My mother screaming, me running to call 9-1-1, sirens, lights flashing, cops all over the place. Mom and I went to stay with someone she vaguely knew from a past job as a waitress, who had seen it on the news. Then my mother informed me that I had been in an accident, and since she didn’t take care of it properly way back then, now she was going to do just that while she had the chance, insisting she couldn’t care for me anyway. I offered to try to get a job on weekends and even after school, but nope. She was determined to ship me off to my aunt’s place in Oregon, and she did.”
“Oh, that’s pretty unfortunate. Did you like living with your aunt?”
Tia shrugged. “I didn’t really like or dislike it. Meaning, my aunt didn’t stand out in any good or bad way of any kind. She was just sort of there, you know?”
Lorelei nodded. “So how long did you live with her?”
“I lived with Aunt Tabby until I was nineteen when I decided it was time to strike out on my own.”
“Aunt Tabby, huh?”
“Yeah, that was short for Tabitha.”
Lorelei smiled and shuffled through her papers again, then asked. “What’s your mom’s name?”
“Greta.”
“Greta?”
“Uh-huh. And if it’s her paying you, I can’t imagine where she’d get the money. We were always broke, or pretty close to it.”
“So what happened after you left your aunt?”
“I was making enough money at my job singing in a nightclub to live in a studio apartment and save some money as well. Meanwhile, it had always been my dream to live in California. So when Aunt Tabby died of cancer just last year, I decided to get out of Oregon altogether.”
“Did your aunt leave you any money?”
“No. She didn’t have much money either. And the few things she did have went to her kids.”
“So you’re a professional singer, huh?”
Tia nodded, then said, “Well, bars and nightclubs were as professional as I decided I ever wanted to get.”
“You any good?”
“Good enough. If you’re looking for Celine Dion or Mariah Carey, you won’t find either of them within me.”
“Oh, no? Who would I find instead?”
Tia thought about it a moment, shrugged and said, “Wynonna Judd, perhaps, but with one slight twist.”
“What’s that?” asked Lorelei.
“My voice isn’t as deep and throaty as hers, though we are both contraltos.”
“I always wondered what made people’s voices high or low.”
“I’m thickly strung.”
Lorelei looked confused. “Huh?”
“Ever notice that the thicker strings on a guitar are lower-pitched?”
“No, but I’ll take your word for it. So you’re saying your vocal cords are too thick to sing high notes?”
“Yup. And I also don’t like the cold and snow, which is the main reason I left timber country.”
“I hear you on that one. That’s why I’ve lived here all my life. So now on to Morgan and Courtney.”
Tia’s expression now looked worried as well as hopeful and curious.
“Courtney’s very concerned about you.”
Lorelei noted that Tia’s eyes began to water.
“She says she doesn’t believe you would do what you’re accused of and that she too, had no reason to believe there were any problems with you and Stanley Hagan.”
“Did you meet Morgan?”
“Yes, I did,” Lorelei said with a nod. “I met her first, actually, and she didn’t seem happy to see me.”
“You know she did it, don’t you?”
Lorelei hesitated a moment, unsure of how much of her thoughts she should let Tia in on. “I’m aware that something fishy is going on.”
“You’re aware?”
“Well, let’s just say that between some discrepancies involved in the phone call and the fact that the cops failed to test you for gunpowder residue, you have a good chance of getting out of here.”
“What discrepancies?”
Lorelei glanced at her notes. “What did you say Morgan called you up to the house for?”
“Something she bought at a yard sale.”
“But what was it?”
“She told me it was a skirt.”
“You sure?
Tia nodded.
“You absolutely positive?”
Tia nodded again.
“Yeah, well, she told me it was a blouse. And when I asked to see it, she took a little too much time to produce something that anyone could see was much too big for you.”
“As in her own blouse, right?”
Lorelei nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. Then, when I interviewed Courtney shortly afterward, she said that she had been told it was a sundress.”
“That ought to tell you something,” Tia said with disgust.
“And the fact that Morgan appeared to be very nervous by my presence, as I said earlier.”
Tia shook her head sadly. “I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. They seemed like the sweetest people. How could I have been fooled like this? I’m usually quick to sense both good and bad in people. Yet if I can’t trust people who seemed as nice and as caring as they did, who can I trust?”
“Well, hopefully, you can trust me long enough to get you out of here.”
“Courtney was the first person I ever really truly loved. Do you have any idea how heartbreaking this is for me, as well as infuriating?”
“Yes, I do, hun. I don’t usually discuss my personal life with clients, but I can tell you that I know firsthand what it’s like to love and lose. I don’t know how innocent Courtney is in all of this, but I know that when I discovered my first love had stolen from my grandmother, whom she was caring for during the daytime before she died, and then had given the cash and jewels to her husband to sell for God knew what, it was pretty damn devastating. I’ve been single ever since, and that was almost three years ago.”
“How horrible of her,” said Tia, taking in the fact that Lorelei Connors was also gay. Somehow she wasn’t too surprised. She didn’t look anything like Courtney, but she looked the part just the same in some ways. Maybe not quite to the degree that Courtney did, but the body mannerisms, the overall looks, it was there.
“So what are we going to do?” Tia asked next.
“Well, we’re going to have to find a way to prove that you didn’t do it.”
“And how are we going to do that?”
“More than likely it will be through the lack of gunpowder testing or through Courtney. I think she’s our best bet as far as getting to Morgan and getting to the truth.”
“You think Courtney can prove that Morgan did this?”
“We don’t need to prove her guilt. All we need to do is prove your innocence. Or cast some serious doubt about your guilt. Meanwhile, it’s up to the state to prove her guilt.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to just sit tight and try to be as patient as you can. I know it’s hard,” Lorelei said with a touch of empathy in her eyes, “but I’m going to need a little more time to delve further into Morgan’s background. Do not, under any circumstances, contact Courtney, ok?”
Tia nodded.
“Anything you get from her or from Morgan, just hang onto it and give it to me the next time we meet.”
“Ok.”
Lorelei studied Tia. A solemn expression took over the girl’s face. She found herself wishing she could reach through the Plexiglas and hug the girl, something she’d never felt before with a client. Her other clients were just clients. Just jobs. But this girl was a person. A genuine human being whom she wanted so badly to help. And she would see to it that she did everything within her power to get the girl released. “You really loved her, didn’t you?” she asked a moment later.
Tia nodded. “And it hurts like hell to know that I could never go back to her even if I could walk out the door right now. If Morgan was locked up forever and Courtney never had anything to do with this – and I can’t believe she did – there’d be no going back for me. I simply wouldn’t be able to.”
“I can understand that. Most people would find it rather awkward to return to someone whose mother tried to frame them for the murder that she herself appears to have committed.”
“The question is why? Why did she do it?”
Lorelei shook her head. “I don’t know. Only she can answer that, although I am checking into a few theories. For now, would you like me to see about getting your belongings and storing them at my house?”
Tia’s eyes lit up. “You would do that for me?”
“Sure. You’d have to sign a property release form, but if you’d like, I can bring it to you the next time we meet in another day or two.”
“I would appreciate that very much. You’re so kind to do this for me.”
“It’s no problem. I hate to rush along here, but our time is limited. What I wanted to ask you is why your mom – assuming it really is her who’s retained me – would go about it so secretly?”
Tia shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I guess she still doesn’t want any direct contact with me. Or maybe she feels I’d refuse her help if I knew it was her.”
“Yeah, maybe so,” Lorelei said as she glanced at her notes again. “And also, just so you know, I checked out your laptop while I was at Courtney’s place just in case there was anything that could give me a clue as to how to proceed with helping you.”
“Checked out the laptop?”
Lorelei nodded. “The laptop is still with Courtney, but I copied down some sites from your recent online history, and I did see the journal. Again, just so you know.”
Tia didn’t react.
“Wow, I’m surprised you’re not even just a tiny bit pissed.”
Tia smiled slightly, then said, “Nah, it’s ok. I wouldn’t have an online journal if there was just one person in the world I didn’t want stumbling across it.”
“I get the impression you didn’t tell Courtney about it.”
“Not in detail. I guess it just didn’t seem important. Courtney wasn’t into that sort of thing. She’s more of a music and TV kind of person. I love music too, but I’m also big on writing and languages.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lorelei smiled.
Tia nodded.
“What languages?”
“I learned Spanish and sign language many years ago and also dabbled in a little bit of French. Not too long ago, I found a really good language-learning site and began teaching myself Italian.”
“Oh, well, good for you. And now we just have to do what we can so you can be back out there and at it again.”
Tears began to well up in Tia’s eyes. “I hope so. But how soon? When do you think I’ll get out of here?”
“There are no guarantees, and so I don’t want to even begin to give you any time frames. But I won’t lie to you. It could take several months and…”
“Several months? Several months?! What good is having a kick-ass lawyer like you’re supposed to be if I’m going to have to be here for months?”
Lorelei smiled. She found it flattering to be referred to as “kick-ass” as much as she wished to hell she could speed up the wheels of justice. Or injustice, as what appeared to be the case with Tia Karson.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offend you, but…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Lorelei said, raising a reassuring hand. “It’s just that I’m not exactly used to being referred to as kick-ass every day, and it’s kind of nice for a change, you know?”
Tia nodded. “We’ve got to figure out something before this place drives me crazy. The food isn’t fit for a pig. I can’t get any sleep…”
“I know, I know,” Lorelei was quick to say. “I’m going to do all I can as fast as I can.”
Tia could no longer staunch the flow of tears that spilled down her cheeks, and it pinched Lorelei’s heart to have to see the girl suffer in any way.
“I’m going to get out there and see what more I can dig up. As soon as I know anything, I’ll be right back in to see you, ok?” Lorelei smiled widely, trying to brighten Tia’s mood.
Tia simply nodded.
“Just remember to hang onto any mail you may get from these people, although I wouldn’t expect anything. At least not from Morgan.”
Tia hated to see Lorelei go, but she knew she needed to in order to get to the truth. And she certainly hoped she would! For now, all she could do was await her return, even if it seemed like an eternity.
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