Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 128812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
I walk from room to room, more concerned with finding him than exploring a place I know the owners would roll over in their graves to know I was inside.
The ground level gives me nothing tangible, only the realization that these people had more money than I realized. The walls are covered with expensive paintings, and pretentious gold gallery lights hang above each one. The surface of every table holds at least one heirloom, positioned to highlight just how much money they spent on the things in their lives.
A light coat of dust has settled over everything it could reach, and that makes me feel a little better. I don't wish for pain and suffering for people. I just don't let my head get in that place. Even the degenerates I've worked my life to take down and put in prison don't get much of a second thought.
I'm there to do a job, and that involves making sure they're prosecuted and sent to lockup so they can't continue to spew hate and hurt people. Past that, I don't let them get inside my head.
In recent years, I haven't wished pain and suffering on them, although at the beginning, working those kinds of jobs, I couldn't help but picture every arrest, every bad thing that happened to them as some form of justice for Dakota, even if the cases weren't connected.
I've grown wiser as I've gotten older. Wishing pain and suffering on someone delivers nothing to that person, and it has a way of eating away at you.
I know, without actually knowing Sheila Jenkins, that she would be livid to sweep her finger across the top of the Tiffany lamp in the corner and pull it away, leaving it dusty.
I find just a tiny hint of joy in that as I climb the stairs, not having found Zeus on the lower floor.
The house is wide open, every door giving me access to see inside. None of the bedrooms looks like rooms a son would've had in the past, or like ones he would be welcomed back into.
Sadness fills me as I walk down the hallway, and it's a gut punch to get to the last room and find Zeus sitting on what's clearly his parents' bed. There's a forgotten half-full cup of water on the bedside table next to a pair of reading glasses. An open book lies facedown on the far side pillow.
This room is a snapshot of someone's life, and if Casper had done some research, doing some less-than-legal online searching through police reports, I'd think she stepped out of here the day she died and had every intention of coming back.
Instead, Sheila Jenkins walked out of this room and dismissed every single staff member on duty before going to the garage and cranking the old Bentley she owned. She sat in the backseat as if she were ready to be chauffeured to an appointment until the fumes took her life.
The autopsy Casper found spoke volumes. Toxicology showed no drugs in her system to impair her. She had no wounds that made the police think she was forced into the back seat of the car. She left no note about why she acted the way she did.
The business card for her estate attorney was left on top of a copy of the obituary she'd written for herself.
She had time to think about what she was doing. The report said she was found in a six-car garage. It would've taken a very long time. It was a slow death, one she had a long time to change her mind about.
Zeus's eyes are angled down, paperwork in his hands.
He doesn't look up at me, but somehow he knows exactly who has joined him.
"She wrote her own obituary," he says, his eyes slow to lift to mine. "She didn't even mention my name, but she left me everything. The house, all the money, the fucking real estate portfolio."
I stand there, unsure of the best way to help him. I don't want to be one more thing that disappoints him.
"I spent most of my entire fucking life trying not to be the one to disappoint them, and this feels like a bigger slap in the face than anything else."
"I'm sorry for your loss," I say, risking that it's the wrong thing.
"Don't be," he snaps, shaking his head as if he's trying to rid it of more than just my words. "I'm finally free to be the man I've longed to be my entire fucking life."
I hate that, even after he cut off contact with the Jenkins, he still felt he couldn't be that man.
I try my best not to let hope fill my chest. Being who he wants doesn't automatically include me, and it would be foolish to presume it does.
He drops his eyes once again, the paper in his hand crinkling as if he's struggling with the idea of just balling it up like trash.