Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Then, she grabbed her keys, coat, the red book of whispers, and her purse. She drove to the jail, following the speed limit with the car but not with her heart. She pulled into a parking lot, and parked. Picking up her phone, she dialed Captain White.
“Hello, Porsche. We’re still waiting on the DNA analysis. I put a rush on it, but it still may be a while. Any new news on your end?”
“I need you to get me in to speak with Nikolai. Privately. I need clearance. He will refuse. So, I need you to get this message to him: Just say, ‘Porsche read it.’ He’ll know what that means. I need you to do this immediately.”
She was met with a long pause. As each second ticked past, her anger soared to an unbelievable level.
“Okay. I will, however, I need to be present.”
“That’s fine. Please do what I asked right now and let me know when it’s done. I’m already here and need to get inside. Thank you.” She disconnected the call and turned on the radio in her car. ‘Is it True,’ by Tame Impala, was playing. A few minutes later, her phone rang.
“It’s done,” Captain White declared. “Go inside. I will be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Great.” She disconnected the call, gathered her belongings, and headed inside the jail…
Twenty minutes later
She didn’t expect this.
Porsche believed she was going to walk in there, her head held high, and sit across from this man to have a serious discussion. As soon as she saw him being led out in handcuffs, wearing that damn gray jumpsuit, yet still as self-assured and beautiful as ever, her insides crumbled. She bit her lower lip and fisted her hands, trying to compose herself. His mouth twitched, then morphed into a slanted smile.
She turned away and leaned into Captain White. Looking into his eyes, she was pleading before she’d even gotten the chance to speak.
“Please let me do all of the talking,” she whispered in his ear. “You can sit close by, but just fade into the background. He has a temper whenever you or the police department as a whole is brought up. He may lash out at you if you give him the opportunity. We have to focus on the objective. He’ll be more open if you don’t speak.”
He nodded in agreement, then followed her to the table. Nikolai sat across from her and White. Two correctional officers stood nearby, one inside the room and the other guarding the door.
They stared at each other for a while, then he said, “I told you not to come here.”
“I had to, and you know why.”
“Yes, I know…” he said in a low voice. He dragged his shackled hands across the table, looking as if he were trying to control himself… as if he were in desperate need to touch her.
“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” he whispered, then shot White a dark, nasty look after the man cleared his throat.
She offered a nervous nod, then reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the Book of Whispers, placing it between them on the table. She simply looked down at the book, then at him. He followed her gaze, then nodded.
“Where to begin…” He sighed. “My homelife had challenges. No one knew about it. We kept it all in-house. It wasn’t my mother. It wasn’t me or Mark. We were fairly typical. The dysfunction, as you now realize, was between my youngest brother, Dmitriy, and our father.”
“I had the words you said in your interview translated by a Russian interpreter. It was all about loyalty to family. I have read this book, every page.” She tried to control the quiver in her voice. “Why didn’t you or your brother say anything, Nikolai?”
“We were a family who believed you didn’t air your dirty laundry, Porsche. It is part of our culture. It was how we were raised. If you have a problem, some sort of issue, you handle it inside the family.” He formed his hands into a circle. “My brother, Dmitriy, is sick. He has been to several therapists as a teenager, but my father made certain no one ever found out.” He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment. “He was even institutionalized for a short period of time as an adult. You see, when we were growing up, my father was very hard on him.”
“A lot of parents were hard on their kids, Nikolai.”
“I’m not making excuses for him, Porsche, but Dmitriy was different from me and Mark. He was different from most of society. He was broken.” His eyes darkened as he glared at her. “Something was always off, even before what happened. Regardless, he remained pretty harmless. Until he wasn’t harmless anymore…”
“What clicked? What made him change?”