The Bars Between Us

32. Missed Calls

"So?" I ask, letting a small amount of excitement and hope show. Piper flips the file closed before looking up at me.

"DeeDee," she starts slowly and gently, but when I wince at the name she quickly apologizes. "The file is pretty damning, but I agree that it is biased. It might not be the outcome you want. He has no alibi – he was seen going into the apartment building. There was blood on his clothes... the list goes on. All fingers do really point at him, even without the biased file. There's nothing that was overlooked which could put doubts with Nixon being guilty."

"But don't you agree that we should at least investigate the things that the cops overlooked because of the bias?"

She sighs deeply, flicking through the pages again.

"The cops usually do a good job. They would have looked at everything."

"But maybe they missed something. What if we were to find an alibi?" I mumble the excitement and hope disappearing.

"Things could potentially be different then. It'll be hard. We have no crime scene, or forensic evidence. We would just be relying on memories, and that's not going to pass in court."

I stare down at my hands, fiddling with the hem of my shirt. Piper places her hand on mine.

"Look, I didn't say we wouldn't do it, I'm just saying be prepared for our work to be for nothing. I see cases like this going through our office all the time. Let's just see what we get."

*^*^*

After a couple of days of living with Piper I fall into a comfortable and almost normal routine with her. I don't return to work, and instead I mostly sit around trying to gather as much extra information on Nixon's case as possible. I place the papers and laptop down on the floor, needing a break. I stretch, rolling my neck. All the information that I have been able to gather has only been expanding on what I already have.

I look to the clock and see that I have a couple of hours before Piper returns. My eyes move down from the clock to the table under it, holding my phone. I haven't looked at it since I left Roman, and it has been on silent, so I don't know whether Roman has tried to contact me, and if he's angry. I stand up and start to walk towards it, before turning back. The part of me which has been ingrained to pick up the phone whenever Roman calls has me turning back again, and reaching for the phone. I know Piper told me it was going to be a Roman-free zone, but now, after a couple of days, the fear of what Roman will do to me has come back. The adrenalin I felt on the night, which made me able to go against him, has gone.

I eventually get the courage to look at the phone.

The oldest thing on the screen is a missed call from my parents. They don't know what happened, and I don't know if I want them to know. The day after I left Roman, and text him saying I was staying with Piper, I got a response from him:

You can have your little break, but I expect you to be back by the end of the week. If not, I will come and get you.

He didn't call or text me after that, he is just assuming that I will follow his orders. I have a couple more days before I have to decide whether I'm going to risk going against him, again, whatever the consequences.

Other than my parents and Roman, I notice that I have a missed call from the prison yesterday. Was it Nixon?

With everything that happened, I forgot about how I hurt Nixon with looking into his case. I stare at all the papers I have on the case. If he doesn't want me to do this, should I stop?

I've been away from work for a couple of days, so maybe he's requested to see me again, and I don't know. I want to be able to at least see him once more and let him know that I am sorry, and to get confirmation from him that he's alright with me trying to help him. I'm trying to convince myself I'm doing it for him, to get a potentially innocent man out of jail, but am I really? What will happen when he's out? We wouldn't see each other again – I'm still with Roman. Or am I hoping that the connection I feel with him, is the same for him and we might get the chance to be together? Nothing has specifically happened which says that he does. It's just a crush on my side, which is slowly creeping into me being obsessed.

The only way I can find out for sure is to talk to him, if he allows me to.

I bring my laptop closer and log into my work email, to see what I have missed. I promise myself that that's all I'm going to do. I'm not talking or interacting with Roman, all I'm doing is looking at emails. I scan through the many emails for any requests for visits, but see none. Nixon won't be able to have any more visits this month, but he could request them for next month.

Maybe Roman is not sending them through as I'm not at work. I rub my forehead. I'm not going to email him to find out. I push the lid of the laptop down, as I see my phone lighting up next to me. I check the caller ID before I accept the call to make sure it's not Roman. It's not, it's the prison.

"You have an incoming call from inmate..." The female automated voice starts. I wait for Nixon's voice, but am surprised when another voice replaces the automated one.

"Mason Walter."

"... at the Boston Correctional Institution. Do you wish to take it? Pr-" I wonder whether to take it. Did Nixon give my number to someone else, even when he said that he was the only one to know it? If he didn't, how did Mason get it? Curiosity takes over and I press 1.

Here you go! I am so sorry about the long wait, I posted this on Radish a month ago, and I had to wait to post it on. Unfortunately, I was unable to post anything else after that, so it means another long wait. I have been feeling a bit uninspired recently, and as result haven't been doing much writing, however I am now feeling a lot more inspired so this means that I should be able to get some more updates up on Radish and ultimately here. I won't promise that the updates will be regular, just in case something happens which means I can't, but because I am feeling inspired and am back in the writing mode, the hope is to get a more regular schedule. This weekend I will be writing for my books, so should have some things up next week on Radish, and it could possibly be more than one chapter, as I can schedule future chapters.

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