Infuriating - Onley James Page 0,85

even felt bad about it. By the time Jackson had made it up to the motel room, Day’s face had been almost unrecognizable. The swelling. The blood. And all Day had wanted was to explain to Jackson how he hadn’t let Carl touch him. It shattered Jackson’s heart into a million pieces. If there hadn’t been an ambulance and three officers down below, he might have taken his time with Carl, made him feel everything Day had and then some, but he’d only had a small window of time to make a quick decision. He’d decided Day’s mental health was more important than his vengeance. Day would only have peace with Carl dead.

Jackson believed in the justice system. It was more than possible that, after a long drawn out trial, a jury would have found Carl guilty of aggravated battery or something equally infuriating. It was likely that winning that verdict would mean Day being forced to relive every trauma this man had put him through starting when he was just fourteen years old. It was likely that a defense attorney would force Day to admit he was a sex worker. He would insinuate that, despite Day’s age when Carl’s abuse began, it was an arrangement and Day had not only wanted it but instigated it to negate getting a ‘real job.’

If convicted, Carl might get a slap on the wrist, a few years in prison, but he wouldn’t get the death penalty. Those other boys, whoever they’d been, wouldn’t get justice, even with Carl’s mediocre confession. No bodies, no crime, and Carl had no incentive to give up any names of the others.

In the end, tossing Carl over that railing had been as easy a decision as loving Day had been, and he’d never regret either. “Yes, Mama.”

She nodded, patting Jackson on his shoulder. “Good boy. Good,” she said again with another firm nod. “I’m driving.”

Jackson looked at his five-foot-nothing mother with wonder. She was literally the strongest person he’d ever met. He thought about his sister and her request to finally tell their mother the truth so that Jimmy no longer had this hold over him. “Mama. Can I tell you something?” he asked once they were sitting in her SUV.

She gave him a look at the seriousness in his voice. “Is it that you’re gay? I figured that out when you were twelve and I caught you out back with that Roger boy from down the block.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “No, Mama. I’m being serious. I need to tell you something. Something about Dad.”

For the first time in as long as Jackson could remember, his mother looked wary. “If you’re about to tell me your dad cheated on me or something, please don’t. I don’t want to know that. It’s best things are left where they are.”

Jackson frowned. “What? No. At least…I don’t think so. No. It’s about Dad and Jimmy. You know how Jimmy said Dad died from some unknown killer? It’s not true. Dad…” Why was this so hard? “Dad killed himself.”

She turned in the driver’s seat to look at him. “Is that what’s had you twisted in knots all these years? That you thought I didn’t know your daddy took his own life? You think I didn’t know the demons he wrestled with? That man was my everything. I knew how he struggled. I tried to get him to see a therapist, but that just wasn’t done back then. He was afraid they’d kick him off the force. He was always a deeply thoughtful boy. It’s why I loved him. He was too soft for the special investigations unit. Each case broke his heart. And there were too many people on the take.” She paused, her gaze looking out the window. “I know the things they did weren’t always on the up and up. Your daddy had to work ten times harder than everybody else just because of the color of his skin, and sometimes, he cut corners or turned a blind eye to the shit Jimmy and the others were doing. There’s a blue wall that you just don’t cross. It was self preservation, but he didn’t see it that way. I don’t know everything that happened, but I do know, in the end, it was too heavy a burden for him to carry alone and one he wasn’t comfortable forcing me to shoulder. He left me a note. I never told anybody, especially after Jimmy and the boys went through so much