Page 10 of Trial of Deceit (The Family’s Oath #1)

Chapter four

A shari looked around the empty park as they stepped through the gate. Wind whistled through the barren fruit trees, reminding her to stay alert. Jediah Richardson couldn’t be trusted. Not even if he’d been trying his best to woo her.

They sat on an iron bench a short distance away from a hummingbird statue. Ashari crossed one leg over the next, looking at Jediah while stirring the straw in her strawberry milkshake.

“How you manage reserve wan’ entire park?” she asked, pretending as if she didn’t notice his guards attempting to mold themselves into the background.

“ English . I don’t like your bad Patois,” Jediah insisted, and Ashari rolled her eyes. “And I told you… I’m important.” Jediah grinned.

Ashari’s eyes locked onto the pearly white, straight teeth of his smile.

She looked away, focusing on the marble of the statue.

A shuffle came from beside her, and she looked back to see Jediah digging into the bag he’d been holding onto since he picked her up from her apartment a few minutes ago. “What’s that?”

Jediah stretched an envelope toward her. “See for yourself.”

She rested her milkshake on the bench and accepted the envelope.

She withheld a smirk as she scanned the sparse words on the pages.

It was amusing that Jediah thought he was as smart as he pretended to be.

Pushing her glasses up her nose, she looked at Jediah while her brows knitted.

“I-I don’t understand. Why you dig up me personal life? ”

Jediah’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. He tossed his arm across the back of the bench, his index finger reaching for her shoulder to draw small circles on her skin. “Not all of your personal life,” he said. “Why yu neva exist until you a six?”

The fire in Jediah’s eyes rendered Ashari speechless. She gulped hard, suddenly forgetting her fabricated backstory. “I-I-”

“You? Yu think yu coulda get away with lying to me? Your name isn’t Ari Gubler, and mi want the whole truth before mi dig deeper and find out exactly—” Jediah exhaled a sharp breath as his phone rang.

He answered the call, silently listening while Ashari regained her composure.

After a moment, Jediah moved the phone from his ear and tucked it into his pocket.

He grabbed Ashari by the cheeks, squeezing until her lips puckered.

He dragged his eyes from her mouth to her eyes.

“You a play a dangerous game, Ashari. You know more ’bout me than you a let on, and me a go find out exactly who you are. ”

“Me a who the papers say me be,” she forced out while tears pricked her eyes.

Jediah looked at the tear as it squeezed out of the corner of her eye, rolled down her cheek and settled on his hand. He released her and wiped his hand against his pants as if her tears were poison. He stood. “I have something important to do. This don’ over. Find yu own way home.”

Ashari watched as Jediah strolled toward the exit, where a car waited.

As Cameron drove off, she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and looked down at the documents.

“I can do this,” she said. The weakness in her voice was gone and replaced by cold determination.

“Keep thinking you can one up me, stupid Jediah. I’m going to put you in prison and crash your entire organization whether or not anybody believes in me. ”

After Ashari left the park, she returned to her apartment. Charlie was walking across the car park.She joined her and they giggled about this and that while walking to their homes, separated by a door across the corridor.

“Me a go bake some cookies fi the kids. Yu wan’ help?” Charlie asked as they stopped before their doors.

“You a go make the pickney them get diabetes,” Ashari joked, and Charlie laughed.

“Kids should get all the sweets in the world! They only get to be a kid once.”

“And cavities for a lifetime,” Ashari countered, and Charlie waved her off. “But sorry. I can’t. Me have some things fi do, but I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

“Me a go start pop up pon yu without notice, ’cause when me invite yu fi come over, yu turn me weh. Remember me soon quit and open a bakery. Yu naa go have me forever,” Charlie warned, though her tone was jovial.

“Me and the kids will come to the bakery. Yu won’ escape we so easily,” Ashari laughed, and Charlie grinned before they went inside their homes.

As the door closed behind her, Ashari tossed the bunch of keys onto the table by the door.

She glanced at Romar, who sat on the sofa with his feet up on the coffee table.

He had a big bowl of caramel popcorn before him.

Ashari sat beside him and gave him a run down of what had happened with Jediah. “I need to talk to Dad.”

“That’s not the best thing to do right now, Ash,” Romar said, and she gritted her teeth.

“Why not? You guys can’t keep treating me like a baby! I’m the one out there, risking my life with that mad man everyday! The least you guys can do is let me talk to higher ups whenever I request it!”

Romar stared at her for a moment before resting the bowl on the coffee table.

He laid a hand on her thigh, squeezing gently.

“I understand that this is the first case you’ve been on by yourself, but you have to remember that it’s the biggest one for the department, too.

This isn’t just about Jediah. He might be impulsive, but he’s still Kayon’s son.

Kayon has a lot of things in place that’s made his family evade arrest all these years.

Maybe the leak’s another one of Kayon’s games, but the department has never been this close before. ”

“Which is why I think there’s no better time than now to just go in and arrest him.”

He shook his head. “I’m here to guide you, so listen. Don’t show your hand too soon. It’s not time yet. This case isn’t just about you, Ash.”

Ashari pushed his hand away, then crossed her arms. She huffed as she relaxed on the sofa. She was tired of Romar treating her like a baby, but she didn’t want to argue.

“I know how you get, so listen when I say not to go to the headquarters to speak to Dad. I think the informant is still there. You can’t risk the case by—”

“I know.” Uncrossing her arms, she grabbed the bowl.

Romar grabbed the blanket resting on the armrest of the sofa, tossing it over their legs as they focused on the movie. They laughed at the cheesy jokes until the movie ended, and Romar gave her a tight hug before he left.

Ashari idled for an hour before she hopped into her car. She drove to the outskirts of the next community to make a call. “Senior,” she said after the call connected. “Jed showed me something today.”

“What?” came a strong voice.

Ashari glanced at the envelope on the passenger seat. “That I didn’t exist until I was six.”

“What are you talking about, Ashari?”

“Don’t act smart with me,” she hissed while tears pricked her eyes.

Not the fake ones she’d shown Jediah. These were real, heart-wrenching tears, laden with the confusion raging inside her.

“You know I have gaps in my memory and can barely remember anything before my therapy, so explain what Jediah showed to me! And don’t lie that the documents are fabricated.

They’re real. I remember going to primary school here in Jamaica with one of the teachers in the file. ”

Silence filled the line. Ashari closed her eyes. Dread filled her as she awaited Senior’s response.

“Ashari Payne, if you cannot learn to separate your emotions from your work, you will never make it far in the F.B.I. It does not matter what Jediah showed you. Every day you wake up and smell the broken crayons at that daycare you work, you know that you are real. Jediah has figured out the smallest fraction of your life, and that is only what I allowed in order to not make you look too suspicious. It will take him longer to find out about your childhood and what you are hired to do, so get what you need, then get out of there. I did not call my supervisors after every hiccup when I was in your shoes. I did not whine. I did not fuss. I learned and adapted. When Romar was in your shoes, he did the same thing, too,” Senior said. “If you are unwilling—”

“I’m willing,” Ashari butted in. She leaned her head against the headrest. Her grip tightened around the phone, preventing her hand from shaking too much. She fought the urge to sniffle while using her other hand to wipe tears away.

“Then get back out in the field and do what you were trained to do.”

The dial tone filled her ear. Ashari clenched her jaw.

She tossed the phone onto the envelope, then slapped the steering and released a frustrated scream.

She grabbed the folder again and skimmed through it.

Staring hard at the words, Ashari willed herself to remember her childhood, but it was locked away somewhere unreachable.

Ashari slammed the envelope shut before exiting the car. She grabbed her lighter out of her jacket, rested the envelope onto the dirt path, then set it aflame. She watched as it burned to ash before kicking dirt over it. Satisfied, she hopped in her car and returned home.

The entire night, Ashari twisted and turned while in bed. She was uneasy. Enough air wasn’t flowing to her lungs. Something restricted her body, making her unable to move within its tight grip.

Eyes opening, Ashari shot up. Her chest heaved as she looked around. Her eyes locked onto the light crawling along the floor until it reflected off the mirror. Ashari moved a hand to her face, blocking the blinding light.

She stiffened upon realizing she was sitting in the bathtub.

A scream ripped from her throat. She yanked her hand from her face and scurried backward out of the tub. Her palms slammed against the closed door while she panted and looked around.

There was nothing amiss.

It wasn’t even a tub.

It was a normal shower.

“What the—” she trailed off, prying herself off the door and approaching the mirror.