Page 152 of Not Quite Dead Yet

Warrant!That was the fucking word.

Jack was still speaking. ‘The prosecutor has to decide whether to move ahead with charges.’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘So charge me and let me go – I don’t care, it won’t matter after tomorrow.’

A slight shake of his head. ‘If you’re charged, we have to hold you until morning. You’ll go to an arraignment before a judge to enter your plea. You may request bail, and the judge may grant it, but you’ll be held in the county jail until it’s posted.’

‘I don’t have time for that.’ Jet’s voice rose, but the fire went out, just a trail of smoke from her gut, soot coating the back of her throat, making her cough. ‘What about now? Can I leave? Is there any way I can leave?’

Another small shake of his head, the other way. ‘We have to hold you until the prosecutor makes a decision about filing charges.’

‘How long can you hold me?’

‘Forty-eight hours.’

Jet’s throat closed up the rest of the way, cutting off her breath, the room tilting, doubling, tripling, suffocating her.

She closed her eyes.

‘So, this is it,’ she said. ‘This is how I die. Alone. In a cell. That’s how it ends.’

Concrete floor, white-painted brick walls that weren’t white at the bottom, grimy and gray. A metal toilet in the corner, connected to a drinking fountain, where Jet could refill her plastic cup.

But she’d broken it. Ripped it in half. Then into tiny pieces, scattered around her like snow, like ash.

Sitting on the floor, because it hurt less than the bench. And if Jet stretched out her legs, she could reach the other side of the holding cell. It was tiny, less than Jet squared.

Too cold, a draft blowing in through the black bars from the corridor beyond, the exposed flesh of her arms rippling into small bumps, a shiver up her spine.

Jet was going to die in here.

She was going to die in this tiny cold room with bars instead of a door, and she just had to get used to that, stop crying.

Stop crying now, Jet.

She couldn’t.

She blinked and they just kept coming.

It was over.

She’d failed.

Jet always failed; why had she thought this time would be any different?

So many unanswered questions she was going to die with.

What did Nina Diaz-Smith know about Mom? What was the secret Emily overheard about Luke? Did Luke kill Emily when they were kids, hold her underwater until she drowned? Did Luke mean to kill Jet when he set fire to Mason Construction, to the company he’d worked his whole life to takeover? Was he sorry that he sent the cops after Jet to save himself, stealing her final hours? Who owned the Coleby tool kit? Where did the red wig hair come from? Who killed Jet on Halloween and why?

Had she deserved it?

Jet sniffed, wiped her nose on her sleeve.

But there was something worse than all of that put together.

That she was going to die while Billy hated her.

That was worse.