Lust Demented

{XXXVI}

FADED DEVIL IN MY POCKET, I stood lonesome squeezing the carved oak of Chiara’s crib. I flicked the mobile’s dangling stars one more time. It was still spinning as I stuck my head out the window facing the street.

Kiko kicked her legs wildly knocking trash into the street as the two cops shook her around like a vending machine that ate their money. I didn’t have to say much to get their attention. The three of them looked up at me in anticipation.

“It was a fucking hoax. A false flag attack. A marketing ploy. I’d known Percy a long time. He was overdue to put something out for me. He could afford the patience due for the perfect moment to arrive. He told me that my technique finally caught up with my passion in A Greater Truth. I wrote two different endings. He liked them equally and we figured out a way to use them both. We hustled Missy because of her charisma. She breathed sex. She wanted to be a writer and took the credit. We set her up to be the thief and for me to be the victim. Percy put enough money behind it to turn it into a best-seller and while I was waiting for the scandal to break: I got restless. Somebody else got homicidal.”

“Who’s that somebody Farrow?” Sgt. Bethany Powers yelled up to me filled with satisfaction.

“You already know don’t you?”

“When will you ever learn that life’s only a mystery if you want it to be?”

A new look I had never seen before. The pages were in Missy’s hands. Haphazard scribbles and stains. I went out to wander away from my edit. I returned to catch her in the act. She saw me writing, but never asked to read. Now she was deciphering it. Connecting pages to a man. She might as well chew on all my pens until the ink runs down her chin.

Sgt. Bethany Powers played with Kiko’s hair a little before she took the cuffs off. Furious Kiko’s spit flew everywhere. Sgt. Bethany Powers wiped it off her eyebrow and flung it back at the inconsolable girl. Then she threw Kiko on her ass and hopped in the passenger side door. Detective Anderson looked up at me, chuckling behind the steering wheel. Embodying heartbreak, Kiko hammered her fist into the cement swallowing fumes to the sound of squealing tires.