The Fight for Us (38 page)

Isaiah wasn’t letting his guard down. In fact, he expected the man to do something. He was being cornered, and his livelihood was being threatened. But Isaiah hadn’t lost sight of his hands yet. As the sirens got closer and closer, Todd’s hands started trembling. “How about you put those palms on the table for me.”

Isaiah watched as Todd complied, but the man was sweating. If he was going to fall apart it was going to be now. The sirens were pulling up in front of the house, and as Todd’s eyes shifted to the side, he lunged toward Isaiah. Isaiah dodged to the side, grabbing him by the back of his neck and slamming his face to the tabletop. When he yanked Todd’s head back up, his nose was dripping with blood.

“That was for my daughter. Who has more class and strength at fourteen than you’ve been able to master during your entire pathetic life.” And then just as the door open, Isaiah leaned in to study Todd’s eyes. “And if there’s any question in your mind at this point, let me assure you. I. Set. You. Up.”

Todd’s lips were twitching as Isaiah righted his posture, released Todd’s collar, and stepped away from the table.

“Isaiah, where are you?” The chief hollered from the entryway.

“Kitchen.” He yelled back, and then he waited.

“Jesus, Isaiah. I thought you said the damage was minimal.” The chief muttered as he walked in and caught sight of Todd.

Isaiah waved his hand in front of his face. “Those are just scuffs. I didn’t hear any bones break.”

The chief cocked his head in warning at Isaiah even as he was yanking Todd to his feet and cuffing his hands behind his back. Isaiah stepped back to the counter behind him.

“What am I going to find when I search you, huh, Todd?”

“That fucker attacked me.” He spat the words. “You should be arresting him too.”

The chief had one of the more sarcastic approaches to life that Isaiah had ever seen, and Isaiah enjoyed it immensely when Jeffries responded.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll search him too. Of course, seein’ as he’s supposed to be here and you’re not, eh…” He shrugged and rolled his eyes at the same time.

It was almost comical to watch the man mock Todd, but Isaiah wasn’t in quite the mood to appreciate comedy at the moment.

The chief started patting Todd down. Todd’s attention snapped to Isaiah who remained quiet, letting it play out on its own, and when the chief patted over Isaiah’s front pants pocket, he stilled and Todd’s face turned to an angry snarl of rage.

“Well, what have we here?” He glanced to Officer Bailey who had accompanied him in. “Gloves please.” He slipped on the latex gloves the officer handed him and then fished inside Todd’s pocket.

Isaiah had stopped breathing, and as he held his breath, he studied the chief’s hand as it was pulled out. He set the contents on the table top. A cell phone, a small dark brown vial of powder and two condoms.

“You son of a bitch,” Isaiah muttered as he turned to the counter, gripping the edge harshly. He was fighting the urge to attack the man again. He wanted it so bad his jaw was aching as he clenched it tight. Not that he’d expected them to find otherwise, but there was something about seeing it laying on Joss’s fucking kitchen tabletop that had sent him over the edge for a moment. So he gripped, willing the sudden surge of adrenaline to calm.

“Evidence bag please.” The chief was eyeing Todd as he slipped the items in the bag. And when he picked up the cell phone, Todd squirmed and fought against the restraints. “Now, what are we going to find in here?”

Isaiah played it cool, even though he knew that damn cell phone could prove to be the weakest link in his plan. But as Isaiah forced himself to behave, Todd did the opposite.

“You can’t touch that without a warrant.” Todd was still yanking on the restraints. The text messages could be damaging to one
or
both of them, and Todd was quite obviously realizing that. Isaiah’s eyes narrowed as he studied Todd while more sweat beads popped up on Todd’s forehead.

The chief actually smirked at Todd. “Your cell phone is well within my jurisdictional rights to search.” He started sliding his finger across the screen, still smirking as his eyes took in the screen. “You can thank the Seventh Circuit for that one…” The chief’s voice trailed off as his brow furrowed. He’d found the text messages if Isaiah were guessing, and as he studied the screen, he exhaled a deep breath and glared at Isaiah for a moment. “Evidence bag. We’ll call the judge tomorrow morning. Get the search warrant. Let’s get an officer to sit on his house tonight until we can execute the warrant.” Jeffries was speaking to Officer Bailey who nodded. “Fucking hell,” he muttered as he yanked Todd toward the door.

“I should call Joss.” Isaiah mumbled.

The chief stopped Isaiah before he could even fish his cell phone out of his pocket. “How about you take a ride to the station with me first. I’d like to get your statement out of the way.”

What the chief was really saying was he didn’t want to give Isaiah the chance to coordinate a story with Joss. It’s exactly what Isaiah would do in the same situation. Isaiah nodded, grabbing the two duffel bags of clothing from the floor and following the chief from Joss’s house.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Joss had paced so long she thought there might legitimately be a track worn into Isaiah’s kitchen floor. When Steph called, Joss asked that the girls stay until later in the evening, saying she had a raging headache. Steph sounded worried, and after assuring Steph she was fine, she hung up quickly. It was inappropriate. It was nearly eight o’clock already, and it was a school night—even if she wasn’t sure Nat would go and knowing full well her own daughter would be serving in-school suspension the next day. But she didn’t want the girls there to see her acting like a lunatic—at least not until she knew what the hell was going on.

She’d nearly called 9-1-1 three times. All three times she’d made the mistake of letting her mind wander to very graphic and vivid images of Isaiah being hurt. She didn’t guess he was easy to get the upper hand on, but it didn’t make her worry any less, and when she finally put the cell phone in the dining room, it was just to keep herself from picking it up again. She felt oddly excited, and not at all oddly horrified. Most of all she just felt trapped and helpless.

Not having any idea what was happening or what Isaiah even intended to have happen was maddening. She caught herself mumbling, arguing out loud with Isaiah even though he wasn’t there, and practically scolding him like a child as she paced.

“How dare you—” She snapped at no one, followed by, “You have no right to keep me in the dark.” And when she actually went so far as to mumble, “Gonna kick your ass when you get home,” she knew she’d lost her mind.

She shrieked when her cell phone started ringing, and when she saw Steph’s number pop up after allowing herself to hope it might be Isaiah’s, she groaned.

“Hi.”

“So the girls are settled down watching a movie. You wanna tell me now why you sounded like you were going insane when I talked to you a while ago?”

There was no hiding these things from Steph—mainly because she was observant, but perhaps because Joss had no filter and was ridiculously bad at pretending to be fine when she was so clearly not fine at all.

“Nothing, Steph. Really, it’s just this damn headache.”

“Bullshit. Fess up.”

“Nothing to say. I’m really fine. Just not feeling well.” Her voice was shrill. There was no chance she was going to have this conversation with Steph, and there was also no chance that would go over well with her best friend. “Listen, I have to go.” She hung up before Steph could ask her to explain something that Joss in all truth knew very little about.

And then she started pacing again.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Isaiah was left to sit in the chief’s office for a good fifteen minutes, and his brain was spinning the entire time. They had evidence. Evidence would help protect her, evidence would help them build a case against Todd, and whether Isaiah liked it or not, he had a confession. The confession would never see the light of day in a courtroom. It would be virtually pointless to even try to rehash the conversation and then deny his part in it. But the evidence he liked.

“Thanks for waiting.” The chief entered alone, closing the door behind him. “Already bitching about his phone call. Too bad Carl McCaffrey ripped the damn payphone out of the wall when he was drunk as a skunk New Year’s Eve and in for drunk and disorderly. Probably not gonna be able to find him a phone until tomorrow morning at this rate. Probably not until after I have a search warrant in my hand, in fact.” The chief smirked as he rounded his desk and sat down.

“What did you find on the phone?” Isaiah played stupid. He might be able to smell a lie a mile away, but he was damn good at telling them too when he needed to—not that he suspected the chief was believing anything he said at this point.

“Ah…” The chief eyed him hesitantly. “You don’t miss much, do ya?”

“Please, chief. I’m tired, and I just want to get home to Joss. So, are you going to tell me or not?”

The chief studied him for a moment. “Motive. We like motive around here. More bargaining power for the prosecutor, you know?”

He did know.

“You’re a smart man, Isaiah. Knew you’d be perfect for this job the moment I met you. Now let’s see if your statement is going to screw that up for me.” He studied Isaiah as he pulled a small digital recorder from his pocket. He set it on the desk between them, and he hit the record button, introducing the statement details.

“Why were you at Joss Verna’s house today?”

“To get some clothing for her and Harper. They have none at my home and needed some, because I don’t expect either of them to be returning to that house anytime soon.”

“Who sent Todd Verna the text messages earlier in the day from Joss’s phone?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re telling me you know nothing about the messages that were sent?”

“I don’t know anything about any text messages. If they came from Joss’s phone, you should really be asking her. I wouldn’t mind hearing the answer to that question myself.” He acted a bit put out for a moment. He wasn’t, of course, but if he was going to fucking lie to the Chief of Police and be recorded doing it, he was going to do it up right.

The chief watched him for a moment. “Why did you take Joss’s car and not your own?”

“Hers was behind mine. I haven’t had enough time to get to the boxes in the garage yet. Too busy snow blowing. I knew she wouldn’t mind.”

Jeffries studied him for a moment. “And you didn’t expect Todd to show up at Joss’s residence today when you were there?”

“Are you asking if I’m surprised the man let himself in? He’s been doing
that
for years.” He rolled his eyes to drive the point home. “No, I wasn’t expecting him. I told you, I was there to get clothes—which I’m still lugging around by the way.” He cocked his head toward the bags on the floor. “She fell asleep, and I decided it would be a good time to run over there and get some things for her.”

“So driving Joss’s car had nothing to do with making it look like Joss was there?”

“Of course not.” He stared at the chief as the man looked calmly back at him.

“And the text messages that were sent to him earlier in the day weren’t some ploy to make it look as though Joss was there alone?”

“Again, I know nothing about any text messages.”

“Mr. Verna’s been claiming you set him up since we arrested him. Do you have any idea why he would say that?”

“No, but I’m not surprised. In my experience, it’s a fairly common response to getting busted for just about anything.”

“He’s even claiming you admitted it to him.”

“Well, I didn’t.” Huge ass lie. “I’m guessing he didn’t acknowledge he admitted to raping Joss when we were alone?”

The chief’s eyebrows shot up, but he remained silent for a moment. “Is there anything else he said to you?”

“Nothing else.”

“That’s all the questions I have for you at this time, but there may be some follow up questions later on.” After the chief turned the recorder off, he steepled his fingers under his chin again as he appraised Isaiah. “He really admitted it?”

“Yes.”

“He could have just been taunting you, Isaiah. I know the man well enough to know he’d not be above that.”

“He wasn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Am I to assume we’re off the record?”

“Do you see the tape recorder on? I assure you, we’re off the record, but don’t push it with me. If you tell me something I can’t ignore, that challenges my integrity or good judgment, so help me God, you will regret it.”

“I’ve done nothing but protect my family, and I never once forced him to do anything he wasn’t perfectly willing to do on his own.”

“Continue.”

“He was surprised I knew what he’d done. I could tell the moment I called him out on it. He wasn’t aware she’d gone to the hospital, knew she’d been drugged, and he obviously wasn’t aware that Joss had reported the incident to you and you were investigating it.”

“Well, we were dragging our feet on questioning him for some reason that’s only just now becoming clear,” the chief muttered.

“My point is, if he drugged her with no intention of violating her, it would serve no purpose to him unless she found out and he intended for her to. It would be one thing if he drugged her with the intention that she find out just to prove he could get close to her if he wanted—scare her. But that wasn’t the case. He went to great lengths to hide the fact that it happened. And he did that because he intended to make it happen again. There has to be a motive to his actions, and if it’s not scare and intimidate her, then it was violate her. He may well have intended to let her find out at some point but not at this point.”

The chief nodded his head. “You realize his confession is going to mean nothing in court.”

“About as much as his contention that I set him up, yeah. I’m aware. But I’m guessing the evidence will mean something.”

Isaiah did his best to look calm and irritated while he waited for Jeffries to say something more. He was certainly irritated if nothing else, but the calm was becoming a struggle. The Joss hurdle was going to come next. That much he knew for certain. Jeffries wouldn’t be worth his salt if it didn’t, and as if on cue, the man opened his mouth.