The office was unconventionally quiet for this time of day. Velazquez's seat sat empty a few feet from hers; behind her, Corman and Bishop's desks were also uninhabited. It was like a ghost town. She heard hasty footsteps on the corridor, approaching the office. Cody, their data guy, appeared seconds later.
“Hey, Layke. Is it just you here?” The joy in his voice was evident. Layke found it amusing. What did he think would happen now that they were alone?
She peered around. “Looks that way. What's up?”
“I think there's something you might want to see.”
“Sure, why not? I have nothing better to do.” That wasn't exactly true, but she doubted whatever Cody had to show her could have been more tedious than her paperwork.
She followed him to his office.
“So you know how Ambrisi didn't like security cameras in his house?” he said, sitting at his two-monitor computer and proceeding to type at lightning speed, opening up a bunch of files and entering in code, all of which went over Layke's head. “Well, I thought it might be a good idea to check some of the CCTV footage in the area, see if anything came up. The nearest camera was four minutes away from Ambrisi's mansion. It was across the road from a gas station. So I pulled up the footage from eight to two, just to be on the safe side. Check this out.”
Fuzzy, off-color footage popped up, filling both screens. Layke leaned closer. “What am I looking at?” From what she could make of the car waiting at the traffic lights, a man was sitting in the passenger's seat with an overgrown denim jacket on, and a baseball cap that mostly obscured his face.
“It's not a busy road. Only a few dozen cars passed between that time. It's one of two ways to get to Ambrisi's house. This way takes you around the back, the other brings you to the front.”
“What am I looking at?” she asked again.
“Watch.” Cody paused the video, then zoomed in on the passenger in the baseball cap, the head turned slightly in the direction of the camera. “Look familiar?”
At first the person didn't. It could have been anyone. But then her stomach began to tighten, her mouth became dry. The passenger did indeed look familiar: it looked like Willa. The shape of the face, the lips... She knew those features well. But how? Willa was with her, one-hundred-and-sixty miles away, on the night of Ambrisi's death.
“I, I'm not sure–”
“Looks a lot like Willa di Blasio, don't you think?”
“B–but she had an alibi, she was out of town.”
“Unless she can be in two places at once, my guess is she was lying.”
“Or that's not her.”
Cody shrugged. “I'm no good with faces. Maybe you're right. I ran the plate through the database. That license plate isn't registered to that vehicle. The one it does belong to was reported stolen a week ago.”
Layke had zoned out and could only focus on one thing: the woman on the screen. It did look like Willa, but it couldn't have been her. It couldn't have been.
“Hey, Layke, are you there?” Cody waved his hand in her face, trying to get her attention. She hadn't realized he'd been calling her.
“Yeah, sorry. What is it?”
“What do you want to do with this?”
“Maybe we should hold off showing it to anyone else,” she said, thinking fast. “We're this close to a harassment lawsuit from the di Blasios. I don't think we should go poking that hornets' nest until we can be sure. I mean, you said it yourself, you're not good with faces.”
He looked at her skeptically. “You want me to sit on it?”
“Just for a couple of days. That's it.”
“Okay, whatever you want.”
As she walked back to her desk, the world seemed to be spinning around her. Her blood ran cold. It felt as though she was in somebody else's body, watching her life from afar. She collapsed at her desk, her face ashen. It couldn't have been Willa, she knew that. And because of that, she was faced with a tough decision. In a couple of days, when Cody shared his find with the rest of the gang, they would go after her secret lover, and when that happened Willa had two choices: either give the name of the woman she'd been with, or go to jail.
Layke knew what she had to do.
Desperation made her forget her manners; she didn't wait for an invitation into the deputy chief's office after she knocked. Luckily, she didn't catch her father in flagrante, fooling around with some barely legal piece of skirt who had some weird dad fetish.
He didn't even look up from his papers. He didn't have to. “There's only one person audacious enough to enter my office without being asked in. What is it, Layke?” He sounded more father than big boss, which, given the conversation that was forthcoming, was precisely who she needed him to be.
She closed the door. “Dad, I need to talk to you about something important.”
He must have heard the urgency in her voice, because he looked up immediately, discarding his papers. “What's happened?”
She gulped back the fear that was trapped in her throat, making it difficult for her to breathe. If there had been any other way... But this was her only recourse. It was better that she told him before he found out – before they all found out – from the other party involved. That would have been a million times worse.
“I want you to know that none of this was planned. It just... happened.”
“Layke, for God's sake, spit it out.”
“In a couple of days Cody's going to come to you with some footage that he thinks will implicate Willa di Blasio in Eddie Ambrisi's murder. Then you'll all want to arrest her, maybe even charge her.”
“Okay...”
“I need you to stop that from happening.”
“And why would I do that? If the footage shows her on it committing a crime, you bet your ass we'll arrest her.”
“It can't be her on the tape.” Layke knew she was shaking like a leaf, knew that her father would be able to see it.
“How can you be so sure? Because of her paper thin alibi?”
“Because... because she was with me!” she blurted out. If it didn't come out that way, it may never have come out.
For the longest moment her father only stared back at her, blinking in wonderment, as though trying to determine what planet she had wandered down from. Until finally, “Don't say anything else.”
“Dad, I have to. Pretending this didn't happen isn't going to do anyone any favors–”
“I said stop!” He jumped up from his seat, his face as red as a tomato. “I didn't hear any of this.”
“I've been seeing her for a couple of months. That trip I took last week, I went to be with her.”
He looked as though he would vault over his desk and strangle her, the way he was glowering.
“We were in a motel one-hundred-and-sixty miles away from here. She was with me the night of Ambrisi's death.”
He slammed both hands on his desk, causing Layke to jump. Then she watched him shove everything to the floor with one sweep of his arm. This was, without a doubt, the angriest she had ever seen her father. Although he'd always had a temper, it was only then, for the first time, that he actually scared her. She knew it would be a while before she got over that feeling.
“You stupid little girl! What the hell were you thinking?”
“I wasn't, that's just it. It just happened.”
“This isn't the kind of thing that just happens, Layke.” He screwed up his face in disgust. “You're engaged, to a man! You're a detective. I'm trying to understand how careless, how fucking stupid one person can be to want to throw all of that away for... Maurice di Blasio's filthy spawn.”
“Don't you think I know what's on the line?”
“Are you sure you do?” he demanded. “Sleeping with the daughter of the man who tried to put me down. This has to be the dumbest, most selfish thing you've done yet.”
The shame she felt confessing all to her father was suddenly replaced by something else: anger.
“Then I guess I got that from you. All right, I can take the admonishment. I deserve it. But don't you dare make out that I'm the only person in this family who's made mistakes.”
“Taking the wrong exit on the highway is a mistake; sleeping with that filth, after everything that family has done, is a reprehensible sin.”
“Which good book did you read that from, huh? The same one that says thou shalt not screw around on their wife?”
“You watch your tone, Layke,” he said, pointing a threatening finger at her.
“You don't get to judge me, not when you've been sleeping with half the women in Miami behind my mother's back.”
“We're not talking about me.”
“Maybe we should be.”
Now they were both huffing and puffing, seemingly all screamed out. Passing judgment and pointing fingers was a tiring affair.
“If this gets out, you would lose your badge. I hope you know that,” he said, once they had both calmed down a little.
Layke rested her face in her hands, and let out a long, exasperated breath. “I know.”
“I hope she was worth it.”
“It's not about that, Dad.”
“Then what is it about, Layke? Help me understand.”
“I fell for someone I wasn't supposed to. I'm not the first to do it, and I won't be the last.”
He snorted derisively. “Yeah, but how many detectives fall for the criminals they're supposed to be taking down?”
She shrugged helplessly. She didn't think her situation was unique to her, though she doubted the number was high. She did believe that Willa's charms were universally effective; and had Willa been straight, any one of the male detectives in her department, including her father, would have fallen victim to them.
“I never planned on this ever getting out, but with the whole Ambrisi thing, I didn't have a choice.”
“You said Cody's the only person who knows about the footage?”
Layke nodded. “I told him to keep it between him and me for a couple of days until we knew more. Spun him a line about a harassment suit.”
“And the woman on the tape, you saw her?”
She nodded again.
“Does it look like the di Blasio girl?”
“Yes and no. The footage is fuzzy. But there's enough of a resemblance to make a case against her.”
He plopped back onto his chair, studied her carefully. “And you're sure it can't be her? She was definitely with you the whole night?”
“We were asleep by eight, eight-thirty. It was a three-hour drive from Miami.” Of course, now that she thought about it, how could anyone ever be sure what went on while they were asleep? For all she knew, Willa could have sneaked out in the middle of the night, driven back to Miami, offed Ambrisi, then returned in time to give her a good morning kiss.
Her father combed his hand through his fair hair. He looked to have aged ten years since she'd seen him this morning. This couldn't have been easy for him either. If it got out that his virtuous daughter was screwing a di Blasio – any di Blasio – it reflected badly on him also.
“And nobody else knows about... whatever this is?”
“Dustin knows.”
“For God's sake, Layke! You told your fiance about it? It's just some rebellious phase – he doesn't have to know about every goddamn indiscretion.”
For a reason she couldn't determine, this comment offended her more than being called stupid and careless. It somehow cheapened what she and Willa had, made it seem frivolous. What the hell did he know about it?
“It's not a phase,” was all she could say without launching into another verbal attack on him.
“You bet your ass it is. This is you all over, doing things for the shock value.” He mumbled something else under his breath, then said, “I'm going to take care of this.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I'm going to take care of it. The less you know about it the better. Plausible deniability and all that.”
“And you'll keep her out of this?”
“Let me make one thing very clear,” he said, with the kind of severe expression typical to a prison warden. “I'm not doing this so that you can live out some sordid fantasy with that scumbag. I'm doing this so that you still have a career left when you come to your senses and realize how ridiculous you've been. Now get out of my sight. I can't even look at you.”
Despite everything that she'd seen him do, with all the women, despite her age, nothing hurt more than the look of disappointment from her father. She left hurriedly and had to fight back the tears as she returned to her desk. She wanted someone to hold her, to assure her that everything would be okay. Basically, she needed someone to lie to her, give her a false sense of security. She needed Willa.
Her father used to say, “People are like root canals. If you ever get to a point where you need any, you can be certain that you screwed up royally.” Maurice di Blasio was a man who had built his business pretty much single-handedly, starting off as a poor kid from a rough neighborhood, and transforming himself into one of the most feared men in America, with a portfolio to match his ambition. He'd never needed anyone, he claimed, and that was the secret to his success. Having heard it regularly growing up, Willa had internalized it so much that she'd constructed her life around the ethos, building a foundation around herself that was self-supporting. That came to a head ten years ago, and she'd had to start again, this time around making herself even stronger.
But no amount of independence could have prepared her for Layke Owen's entrance into her life. That knocked her for six. No longer something Willa wanted, but something she needed in order to feel whole. That another person was capable of making her feel this way frightened her. Most importantly, it highlighted how flawed her father's rationale was. People needed other people, that was how the world operated. Pretending otherwise had led to her breakdown a decade ago. She wouldn't make the same mistake with Layke. There was something real here; if she continued to live by her father's wisdom, she would end up alone.
She would tell her. Whether or not Layke already knew was immaterial. Sometimes people liked to hear a thing said out loud so that they knew where they stood. So she would tell her that she needed her. It was easier than saying the other thing, in any case.
Two days had gone by since they'd seen each other, following the interrogation. Despite Layke's promise to call, Willa still had her doubts. Only when Layke's face showed up on the video entry system did she allow herself to relax again. But the calm feeling didn't last long.
“I didn't think you would come,” Willa said. Her smile was big and bright when she opened the door. She wasted no time snaking an arm around Layke's waist and stealing a kiss from her. It felt foreign; different, as though it lacked soul. When Willa stepped back, she regarded Layke quizzically. Something was wrong. “You know kissing isn't a one-way street, don't you?” she joked. Layke didn't even crack a smile.
“I wasn't going to come,” she said, stepping past Willa, wringing her hands. “I thought long and hard about it. Then I decided that I had to know the truth, one way or another.”
“What truth?”
“The truth about Ambrisi's murder.”
“Layke–”
“Don't!” She pointed a trembling finger at Willa. “Don't lie, don't even think about lying. Because I may have tried to deceive myself into believing it wasn't you on that tape, that it couldn't have been you because you were with me the whole night, but reason won over in the end.”
Willa's blood turned to ice. “What tape?”
“The one with you sitting in the passenger's seat wearing a baseball cap, only a few minutes away from Ambrisi's house, on the night he was killed. That tape.” The venom in Layke's eyes, her voice, was all-consuming, and caused goosebumps to run along Willa's flesh. “It was you, wasn't it?”
Right then, Willa could have given Layke a run for her money in the pale department. The blood drained from her face, her throat felt like sandpaper. Caught red-handed with no place to run or hide.
“Answer the goddamn question!”
“Yes! All right, it was me. I went back to Miami, I went to see Ambrisi...” Everything her father had ever told her about confessions went out the window. She could no longer lie; and honestly, she was tired of lying to Layke. Every time she did it she felt a little piece of her soul crumbling away.
Layke covered her mouth with both hands, looking as though she would throw up. “Oh my God,” she mumbled, over and over. Then, as if a thought came into her head, her gaze drifted back to Willa, a look of horror in them. “Wait, how would you have known I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night and find you gone?” Her tone was accusatory, as though she already knew the answer.
Willa's silence spoke where she was unwilling or unable to.
“That was the night I slept for eleven hours...” She brought her hands to her mouth again, tears clinging to her lashes as the realization hit her. “Oh my God, did you... did you drug me?” The words got choked in her throat.
“Layke, please–” Willa tried to reach out, touch her, but was thrust away violently.
“Don't touch me,” she bellowed. “You're insane. I knew it. I knew you were lying. I vouched for you. I told my father about us because I believed in you and didn't want them to arrest you when I saw the video. But you're just a murderer like your father.”
“I lied about where I was, but I didn't lie about killing Ambrisi. He was already dead when I got there.” She tried to embrace her, to touch her, to get some kind of contact, but Layke moved away, again and again.
“I don't believe a word you say anymore. You're a compulsive liar. Everything that comes out of your mouth is fabricated. Are you even capable of telling the truth?”
“I'm telling the truth about this. I was there, I admit that. But I didn't kill him, I swear.” The desperation and urgency in her own voice sounded alien to her. Di Blasios weren't known for their tendency to plead (only to make others plead). Drastic times. Even if Layke despised her now, she had to get her to believe. A liar you could, in time, forgive; a murderer you stayed away from.
Layke threw up her arms. “I don't even care. You were there and now you've made me look like, not only a fool, but a dirty cop who's willing to cover up her girlfriend's crimes.” She started to the door.
“Layke, wait, don't.”
“I need you to stay away from me from now on. Don't call me, don't show up at my apartment. Just leave me alone.” It came off so level that she seemed unfazed.
“Don't say that. Layke,” Willa screamed after her, stopping the door before Layke could slam it behind herself. She followed her into the hallway. “You don't want to do this, Layke.”
She didn't turn around, simply carried on down the hall, moving hastily without breaking into a run. “Clever move, threatening me. That's really going to work in your favor.”
“I'm sorry, all right, I'm sorry.” Her anxious words fell on deaf ears – Layke was already gone.
Willa kicked the front door shut, screamed in frustration then proceeded to toss and shove everything out of her way, and even those things that were not in her way received the full force of her wrath.
At the back of her food cupboard she found an unopened bottle of fifty-year-old scotch. Maurice di Blasio's favorite poison; this particular bottle he'd kept stashed in the garage. She'd discovered it when they were clearing out his things. Being the only other person in the family who had a taste for the stuff, there had been no objection to her taking it.
As she popped open the bottle, filling her glass with an amount that would make her forget, she recalled her first encounter with scotch. It was the day her father was released from jail, the day the case against him collapsed. She found him in his study, the bottle open, his glass in his hand.
“Don't be fooled by sweet-tasting poison, Willa. No matter how good it tastes, at the end of the day it's still poison.”
The words rang through her head as she downed the orange-colored liquid. She could barely taste the stuff, though felt the burn as it slid down her throat. It took ten minutes for the self-pity to kick in. This was the only time she ever allowed herself the privilege.
She took the party to her bedroom, collapsing on her bed with the glass still clutched in her hand. “Screw you, Detective Layke Owen!” she shouted into the air. She couldn't help but feel a grave injustice was taking place here. She almost wished she had killed Ambrisi, seeing as she was being punished for it anyway. Telling the truth had done her no favors. “You won't do me the courtesy of letting me explain, so I won't do you the courtesy of crying over you.” Sadly, that was out of her control. As soon as she allowed one tear to fall, the floodgates opened. Seeing the tears fall only made her more vexed, feel more weak, more resentful.
She'd been prepared to do whatever it took to bring retribution for Little Johnny's death; she'd been prepared to kill Ambrisi, once he'd confessed to his involvement in it. But hearing Layke call her a murderer had crushed her in a way she never imagined possible. That repulsion sparkling in Layke's eyes, she never wanted to be looked at like that again.
Well, she didn't need Layke Owen now anyway. No siree. She had scotch, and scotch would be her best friend and lover. Scotch would numb the pain of loss, the feeling that everything was slowly slipping out of her control.
She fell asleep sprawled out on her bed, glass turned over, its contents having seeped into the bedsheets. Fell asleep having experienced, for the second time in her life, the type of heartache her father had tried to protect her from with his words of wisdom. In this, he had known better.