Page 83 of The Alibi Club

Scumbag. The term clattered around in his brain, trying to land, always trying to land.

Cliff had to accept that he was a thief to his core. The kind you swear about after they steal your bike and say, “I hate fucking thieves.” In the beginning, he and his father stole other people’s bits and baubles, their heirloom jewelry, their precious gems to pay for thier threadbare life where they could rent a sailboat or short-term rental or whatever cash-only arrangement his dad could manage until the next gig came up.

It was glamorous when his father explained how he boosted some of his wealthy friends’ valuables, made it almost romantic, almost like they were the wily duo of Robin Hood and Little John stealing baubles from people who could afford it. It worked on Cliff’s young mind. Back when the thrill was almost worth more than the take. Back when he felt like he was in on a secret no one else knew. Back before he knew the stink of someone else’s shit in a shared toilet in a twelve-by-twelve–foot cell in a California State Prison.

But it hit different at forty-four. When other men his age were settling down, signing up for mortgages, placing rings on polished fingers, and sharing the joy of a positive pregnancy test, Cliff emerged from prison with a plastic bag of his belongings and a criminal record that would follow him wherever he went. He knew nothing of a normal life. How did he ever think he could belong out here?

As bad luck can turn most men bitter at the sheer ferocity of life, Cliff remained hopeful beyond all logic. He had a few precious memories of his mother, and it was enough to sustain him in the belief that love was enough. In the belief that people were redeemable. Maybe even him.

So, he couldn’t exactly blame Jamie for fingering him once she figured out who he really was. People rarely change. It was a hard lesson. What stung, however, was watching her opinion of him change right before his eyes. He went from watching the light in her eyes dance when she looked at him to watching that light dim and then disappear. He would have to live with that loss.

As he sat in the back of the cop car, the back door still ajar, the question that kept coming back to him was: How and why did this happen tonight? Of all nights?

The CB radio in the cop car crackled to life. “Johnson, are you there? Over.”

The young cop sat up and replied, “Copy that, yes sir, suspect secure in the back seat.”

“Get over to Ocean and Fourteenth. We are in pursuit of another suspect on foot. Short. Stocky. Dressed in all black. He’s traveling south down the alley behind Piccolo.”

“Copy that, on my way.”

Cliff felt a chill go down his spine.

The voice crackled over the radio again. “He’s armed and considered dangerous.”

The young cop nervously dropped the CB, fumbled for it on the floor of the driver’s side, and started the car. By the time he looked in the back seat, Cliff was gone.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

A Jolt from the Past

JAMIE

Jamie gasped for air and tried to wrench her entire body away from Ott, but his hot, sweaty hands only squeezed tighter around her throat. She struggled, but the only air she got was like sucking on a straw someone was pinching. He had her pinned against a garage in the darkened alley near The Strand, his hand closing like a vise around her airway, stopping her ability to breathe.

A primal scream lay on the tip of her tongue, if only she could get enough air to let it out.

She clawed at his arm, feeling the edge of a knife pierce her rib cage, which threw her into a larger full-blown panic. With every squirm or movement his grip tightened, and the knife went deeper.

Jamie was losing focus from lack of oxygen, bright stars appeared in flashes before her eyes, and she felt her windpipe giving way, being crushed by the sheer force. Her vision blurred and she could only hear faint grunts coming from Melvyn Ott’s rage as he pressed his thumbs harder into her windpipe.

Jamie felt herself fall to the ground. Almost out-of-body-like. In that moment, regret, deep and unabashed, crashed through her. Regret over losing her father at a young age. Regret for never having an honest relationship with her mother. Regret that she would never meet her niece, or see Rip’s smile as he held his daughter, that she herself would never have a child, or experience an overpowering love, or fully give her heart over to a man she could truly trust. As her life force waned, Jamie regretted what she had done to Cliff, the one man she’d felt a flicker of something more profound for, regret for what might have been. She was on the verge of blacking out when she heard another noise and realized the intense pressure on her throat had lifted. She coughed, gasped violently, and put her hands to her throat, because it felt as if some of the pressure was still there. Over her own wheezing, she heard another noise.

A scraping across pavement, the sound of flesh hitting bone, more grunting, but there were two voices this time. As her hearing returned, the melee went up decibels and understanding bloomed in Jamie’s fragile mind.

Jamie rolled over and saw a taller, darker figure wrestling with Ott. She could only make out that the man had a chain across Ott’s neck. She scrambled and tried to get her bearings. She blinked to clear her vision and saw that it wasn’t a dark stranger. It was Cliff.

Cliff straddled Ott with the chain from his handcuffs clamped down around Ott’s throat as they struggled.

“Who hired you for the gig!” Cliff shouted down at Ott, who was desperately grappling with the chain around his neck. “Who! Who hired you? Was it Reeves?” Cliff thundered. He kept pressure on but just enough not to kill him.

Finally, Ott croaked out, “It was a broad. She set me up!”

That news caught Cliff off guard, which left an opening for Ott. In one swift move, he squirmed away and escaped Cliff’s hold. He scrambled like a giant spider across the alley and retrieved the knife that had been flung down in the tussle. He turned around, blade in hand, and launched at Cliff.

Melvyn Ott was a split-second away from knifing Cliff in the jugular when his attack was stopped and he abruptly crumpled to the ground where he started to convulse, his muscles involuntarily contracting, lit up with thirty thousand volts.

The two electrified barbed probes stuck out of Ott’s upper back and led directly to the trembling hands of Jamie Frisco and her police-grade taser, a gift from Derick Hampton.