Sally pales considerably. “That’s my uncle doing it, not Arthur. You can’t take that money from me.”
“So you took the fall. You get out this year, right? You took twelve years for a million dollars? Is that it?” I ask.
“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Everly leans forward, drawing her attention to him. “Sally, I know what it means to hit rock bottom. I know what it means to have fuckingnothingleft,” he says. “Leland here does too. I… I fucking… I was a teenager walking the streets with nothing. I sold myself to any man who’d offer me a roof or a meal for the night. I would purposefully put myself in the shittiest situations just to feel something. I’m not quite sure Leland’s life was much better.”
He glances at me, and I realize he’s expecting me to say something. But… I’m not good at saying things. I’m good at pretending the shittiest parts of my life don’t exist. Yet, I can’t hide behind those lies forever.
“No… I had nothing. I was kicked out young and was manipulated by a man who knew my weaknesses. A man who knew how to control me because I wanted someone to care about… or something to care about,” I say.
Everly thankfully takes over. “What I’m saying is when I was walking up and down those fucking streets looking for something to eat or just something to convince me to keep moving… I would have taken twelve years in a place with a roof, food, a bed… while knowing that when I got out, I’d never want for anything,” he says. “So many times I would have fuckingtaken it. I’d have taken anything to get out of that loop. That… fucking loop of bullshit.”
She’s just staring at her hands. Just absolutely fixated on them.
“Would you have taken it, Leland? To get out of what you got wrapped up in?”
I think about it honestly. At times, I thought Lucas was my savior. At times, I thought he was my monster. But if I could take back the people I hurt? The ones who didn’t deserve it like Everly? I would. If I could take back the fear of that first hit I went out on, the man who took me home to kill me and nearly did, I would. Twelve years is a long time, but if there was absolutely no hope before then… would it have mattered?
“I think I would have… I was young. I was naive. To me, any way out would have been a good way out. The path I picked was a pretty shit way,” I say.
She’s wringing her fingers now, anxiety written across her face. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I just want to know if you really killed her because it’ll help us figure out why Arthur wants Ellis. And what involvement his father Zachary has in it. No one will ever know besides us what we say here today.”
“Oh? And what happens if they do? Say if I did take such a deal, if you told someone, he’d take it all away from me. I would have done all of this for nothing,” she retorts.
“You don’t have to say any more. That’s answer enough for me,” I realize. “He’ll never know that we even came here. He’ll never know we bothered you about it. What’s yours is yours, we’ll make sure of it. Before we leave, though, can you tell me how you knew Jasmine?”
“She…” Sally looks down in shame. “She sold me drugs. I was… I was doing really fucking bad. I’d destroyed all of my relationships. I was turning out just like my mother, whodragged me from house to house of different men she was fucking. She’d take me with her and leave me in the corner as she shot up. She overdosed and died when I was fourteen. I walked in and found her dead, and instead of vowing to never be like her, I became just like her. By the time I was eighteen, I was running right down the same path. And then… I got pregnant. I knew if I had that baby, one day that little girl would walk right into what I had, and the cycle would never break.
“I wanted to get better. I wanted to so fucking badly, and I tried. I really tried. After I used up the last of the drugs I’d gotten from Jasmine, I tried for a few months for that baby but in the end, I couldn’t do it. I went back for more. It’d been a while since I’d seen her, so I had no idea that Jasmine had been killed in a hit-and-run. Her father told me if I took the fall for it, he’d make sure I’d get out in under ten years, and he’d pay me. And… and even though it ended up twelve years that I’d serve, I just knew my baby girl had a better chance away from me. My aunt took her. I was forced into an environment where it became significantly harder to get my hands on drugs, and it was the push I needed to get clean.
“My aunt brought my baby girl to see me, and I got to see her grow up. Something my mother never got to see because she was so fucking… fucked up. But not me. I got clean. And when I get out, I have a house set up if she ever wants to visit me or live with me. I’ll have a college fund set up for her. And she might never want to live with me, but I’ll be there for her. So please. Please, I’m begging you with every part of my body. Please don’t take that away from me.”
“We won’t,” I promise.
She wipes at her tears with shaking fingers. “I honestly don’t know more. I’m pretty sure I was just in the right place at the wrong time and that’s why Arthur offered it to me. I never asked questions. I’d gone seeking her out; I didn’t know she was dead.But I came begging for drugs and found him instead. And found a way out of this vicious cycle that I couldn’t get out of alone.”
“Thank you for talking to us. You’re out soon?” I ask.
“Two weeks… two weeks and I can hug my baby girl anytime I want.”
“Good,” I say. “Thank you.”
We’re quiet as we leave the facility, having gotten pretty much the answers I’d been expecting.
“So Arthur really did want someone to take the fall for it,” Everly states.
“Is he trying to protect the one who killed her?” Jackson asks.
“Possibly,” I say as we head out to our cars. “I want to look into this drug thing. I don’t think Arthur’s wound up in any drug trade… I don’t know… was he trying to protect his daughter’s image? Because nothing we came up with said anything about drugs.”
We reach Everly’s car where I turn to him. “I really, really appreciate this. I’m sure it… took a lot to be willing to help me.”
“Hmm… I don’t know why I did it… not sure it was to help you.”
“That’s fine.”
