78. Proud

Genre: Paranormal romance, drama

Type: Series

Characters: Krisis, Jessica Rubin, special agents

Prompt: 81. Proud

Word Count:  960 +

Warning: language, and horrible shots

Rating:  M- (coarse language, adult situations, nudity. N.B-Applies to the whole series)

Summary: Krisis is taken in for questioning.

81. Proud

________

Bridgeport, present day...

On his way to the Vampire Law Enforcement Agency’s (VLEA) satellite office in downtown Bridgeport, two blocks from the Vampire Council’s headquarters, Krisis replayed everything his sister had told him when he'd called her to make the arrangements for their return. 

She had made the gruesome discovery. Lily had seen it too. Thank God she was too young to understand. As much as he had hated Jacqueline, she was a good mom and he couldn’t take that away from her.

From what Krimsyn had told him, J.D. had found a cryptic note on the crime scene, evidently meant for him. The message was clear enough... This was only the beginning. 

He didn’t have a lot of enemies, so it wasn’t hard to figure out who had killed Jacqueline and why. Beau was back in town, and killing the good doctor was just a warning shot. The real target was Leigh. Beau loved kids, he wouldn’t go after Lily. 

But Leigh was fair game...

At the VLEA offices, Krisis was taken in to one of the interrogation rooms, like the ones he always saw on crime TV shows. It had the same one way window, same grey walls, the same hard chairs, his on one end and two others on the opposite side of the steel table, he and J.D. called them the good cop and bad cop chairs.

The good cop walked in then, sipping plasma juice. He smiled kindly at Krisis.

Jerome Wade. Krisis made out his name from the badge hanging on his breast pocket of the jacket.

“You must be thirsty. Would you like some?” He asked, nodding at the plasma juice on the table next to the file.

Krisis shook his head, and held his stare. Was this the part where he rolled over because they were being nice to him, and offering him something to eat? He’d seen this scene too many times in movies, it was old and boring.

He knew any second now the bad cop would swoop in, rough him up a little to make him talk. But he wouldn’t until the good cop, Jerome, had had a go at him with his kindness and it had failed.

The first question Jerome threw at him was of his whereabouts the night Jacqueline was killed.

Krisis explained he was in Barnacle Bay, stopping Leigh from marrying her bisexual best friend. Jerome stared at him, a flabbergasted look on his face. Krisis didn’t know what had shocked him the most, stopping the wedding, or the part about the bisexual best friend.

Was there anyone who would support his alibi?

Of course there was. Leigh. And a whole lot of wedding guests. Not to mention the crazy fans at Barnacle Bay's International airport.

Did he hire someone to kill Jacqueline?

No…But he did wish her dead lots of times.

The flabbergasted look again. Jerome was baffled by his frankness.

Is it true he had threatened to kill the good doctor?

Yes. Lots of times. But he didn’t get a chance to kill her. Someone beat him to it. By someone, he meant Beau, but he made a point of keeping that minor detail to himself.

The good cop lost it then. “This is not a game! You are in a world of trouble. Now is not the time to be glib!” He snarled, baring his fangs. Krisis bared his own, ready to get into a pissing contest. He knew they had nothing on him for Jacqueline’s death, and the Vampire Council was handling Vlad’s case quietly. He’d agreed to the meeting because if he hadn’t they would have kept hounding him, and maybe start harassing Leigh too.

He’d done a lot of terrible things since his involvement with Leigh, a lot he wasn’t proud of. In retrospect, now that he’d had time to think, and if he could, he would do a lot of things differently. The last thing he’d ever wanted was to cause her any trouble.

The door burst open then; the bad cop walked in, followed by Jessica Rubin, the Frosts’ attorney. Krisis knew Krimsyn or JD must have sent her.

After a few minutes of the hissy fit between his lawyer and the agents, they cut him loose, but not before they’d drilled it into his thick head he was a person of interest in a double homicide case, and he couldn’t leave town.

“How many times have we talked about this Krisis? You can’t talk to cops without legal counsel,” Jessica snapped as she escorted him out of the building into the waiting limo.

He’d been on the wrong side of the law before. Once for assaulting a tabloid journalist and again for a DUI case. Jessica had barked like a pit bull, both times, to make the mess go away.

“Jess, I don’t need your pep talk right now,” he groaned, keeping up with her angry paces.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. They have nothing on you for Jacqueline. But Vladimir’s case doesn’t look good,” She told him, throwing a file in his lap. 

So this was what got him in trouble with the council?  He mused as he looked at the file, not the least surprised by its contents, he’d suspected as much. It was so like Jacqueline to put together a dossier. She was too smart, too devious...

“Do you know who sent it to the council?” He asked curiously. He would have loved to know who was in bed with Jacqueline.

“I think that’s the least of your concerns. Did you get a chance to work on your testimony? You know you’re on your own on this one. It’s a closed inquest and legal representative is not required.” Jessica explained what he already knew.

He thought for a while about what she said; there was no point in denying anything, they knew the whole shocking truth anyway. The way he saw it they should just skip right to his sentencing…

Continued in next prompt...read more.