Damned

Jesse paced his apartment restlessly a couple nights later, paying no attention to the mind-numbing hum of his television. He couldn't eat. He couldn't sleep. He had no friends to lean on. He absolutely, under no circumstances, could call his mother and who knew where his dad was? He would never understand why an accountant was required to travel that much.

They still hadn't found Lily Driver. Honestly, Jess was hoping they would, since she could clear everything up. Obviously, all of this was an intensely bizarre case of mistaken identity and, once Lily saw him face-to-face, the whole mess could be put behind them. He was so desperate for that.

Finally, physically and mentally fatigued, he took a few Benadryl and sat down to watch…what was on? Oh, old episodes of Hollywood Squares. Well, if Paul Lynde couldn't bring him a little solace, who could?

Twenty minutes away, Mark slept fitfully. He tossed and turned, unpleasantly unconscious, but still unaware of the intruder who crept through his halls. He did awake, however, when he heard the sound of a gun safety click. The gun belonged to the person at the foot of Mark's bed, outlined in light from the bathroom across the hall. He looked familiar and dangerous, although the sleepy man couldn't tell much in the dim light and without his glasses.

"Hello, Mark."

Mark's eyebrows hit the roof. "Jesse?"

"Why did you have to ruin everything? I spent so long working my way into medicine and struggling through the long hours and sleepless nights to have you take it all away from me."

"Jesse, why do you have a gun?"

"Why do people normally have guns? I'm here to shoot you—you, who just had to take it upon himself to bud into my business."

"Your business? You sexually assaulted a patient!"

"She wanted it!"

Mark couldn't believe his ears. This was not the Jesse he knew. "Who are you?"

"I'm the Jesse who's a lot smarter than you ever imagined, Mark. It's amazing how much you can get away with if you're best friends with the Sloan family. It's like a magical, "get out of jail free" card." He paused and his voice turned gravely more threatening. "Until now."

"Having spent so much time with us, you should know by now that killing me will only compound problems."

"I'm okay with that, because from here, I'm off to pack and leave the country." He aimed the gun at Mark's left knee and pulled the trigger. "This is for ruining my entire career!" he shouted. "One slip up and you take it all away from me!" Mark almost felt too shocked to be pained by the intense burning and piercing in his knee. The gun moved and fired at the doctor's right knee. "This is for putting me through an interrogation!" The other knee exploded and Mark gripped his sheets as a substitute for biting a bullet. His life flashed before him and he wished desperately that he could say goodbye to Steve and Amanda. "This," the soon-to-be-murderer sneered as he aimed at the other man's, "is for interrupting a perfectly good molestation." He fired.

As soon as the shot rang out, he shoved the gun in his coat and ran out the bedroom door. He raced down the steps and into his car, which he used to disappear into the night.

In mental and physical shock, Mark reached for the phone beside his bed. None of the three shots had killed him; he couldn't recognize then how odd that seemed. Instead, he dialed 911 and prayed he wouldn't die from exsanguination before the ambulance arrived.

"Jesse shot me," he told the operator, afraid he might not live to tell Steve. "And he molested Lily Driver. He manipulated all of us. You have to tell my son."

"Okay, sure," the operator promised, confused. "Just stay with me until the ambulance gets there. Okay? Sir? Sir, are you there?"

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Jesse blearily grabbed at his phone. Those Benadryl packed a wallop and for a moment, he thought the ringing might only be a product of a dream. It wasn't, however, although it seemed unusual to be getting a call at half past two in the morning.

"Yeah, wha'?"

"Dr. Travis, this is Roger Guiles; I'm calling from the fire department. We recently received a call involving a gas leak and are advising residents to leave the immediate area as soon as possible until the matter is under control. It shouldn't take more than a few hours. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

"No," Jesse assured him, pleased to hear a relatively friendly voice. He hadn't heard any of those in a while. "I understand. I'll leave right now."

"Thank you."

He hung up and scrounged around for his jacket. The late September nights had turned chilly, even as the days stayed warm. He grabbed his wallet and decided to head for the nearest diner, which brewed a relatively good cup of coffee. Locking his door, he headed in the direction of his car and fumbled with the car remote while trying to simultaneously slip into his coat.

Jesse looked up at the night sky and hated it. The stars shone with unusual brilliance in their black canopy; the moon smiled down on him with its crescent. Not a single cloud obscured the spherical majesty. But he wanted rain. He wanted nature to mirror his pain instead of mock him with perfection. Nature sucked.

Three things struck him as odd as he opened the driver's side door. The first was the obvious lack of other people leaving their apartments. Shouldn't everyone have been exiting for safety? The second was that the fire department called him in the first place; why didn't they merely knock on his door after arriving? The third odd instance was the large duffel bag, stuffed nearly to bursting, sitting in his backseat. He hadn't packed any bags lately. Yet, it was definitely his. Eyes narrowed in consternation, Jesse flipped his seat back, bent down, and opened the bag. There he found his own clothes, toiletries, personal items, and passport.

Jesse righted himself into a fully erect position and was about to head for his apartment when the sound of sirens caught his hearing. They didn't sound like fire engines, though.

They weren't fire engines.

They were four police cars racing into the parking lot, heading in the direction of him and his car.

In less than a minute, Jesse Travis found himself surrounded by cops, all with their guns pulled and aimed at him. He didn't move. He didn't raise his arms. He didn't say anything. He merely gaped and clutched his passport.

"Put your hands up!" an officer with a bullhorn commanded.

His hands darted into the air and his eyes looked wildly around at the eight officers.

"Get on the ground!"

Jess didn't comply immediately. "What—what's going on?" he asked meekly.

Suddenly, and apparently out of nowhere, a cop rushed him and knocked him to the ground, causing his palms and knees to scrape against the pavement. He looked up to find…

"Steve!"

"Shut-up!" the detective snarled, pushing a knee into Jesse's back and reaching for a wrist to cuff. He roughly pulled both behind the doctor's back and secured them as tightly as possible without breaking bones. He hauled Jesse up by them and shoved him against a police car. "You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Do you understand?"

"Steve, I—"

"Do you understand?"

Jesse felt too shocked to cry or protest. This unequivocally had to be a nightmare. "Yes," he whispered.

"Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?"

He couldn't breathe. "Yes."

"You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. Do you understand?"

His wrists and palms and knees and back hurt. "Yes."

"If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. Do you understand?"

He hurt too much to be having a nightmare. "Yes."

"If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney. Do you understand?"

Why wouldn't Steve stop yelling and shaking him? "Yes."

"Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?"

He half expected rain to start falling and wash everything he held dear into the sewer. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you "don't know?" Just answer the question!" Steve enunciated his demand by drawing his ex-friend back and then slamming him against the car again.

"Whoa, Sloan," a uniformed cop warned, stepping forward. "Man, I empathize with you, but there are eight of us here; I can't vouch that someone won't side with him if he claims police brutality. Just reel it in, okay?"

Steve relented and stepped back, letting the uniform take care of Jesse. The numb doctor let himself be brusquely placed in the car. As the door slammed, he realized he couldn't control the horrible shaking that wracked his body. It was a sign of things to come.

Her Honorable Judge Bonnie Stephens presided over her courtroom with a certain unpleasant boredom. Truthfully, she thought eight in the morning was too early to have an arraignment hearing—or any hearing for that matter. Besides, she'd only just had an argument with her youngest, Jonathan, about transferring high schools. He seemed to think the decision rested with him. Well, she and Mr. Stephens were not paying $25,000 a year for him to attend one of the best schools in the state just so he could decide otherwise. Oi, such chutzpa that boy has, Judge Stephens (neé Fein) thought to herself.

"Okay, Jim," she said, turning to her clerk. "Let's get this show on the road."

"Sure thing, Your Honor. First on the docket is case LA32772: The State of California verses Jesse Travis."

"Bring him on up."

An armed guard walked Jesse, still in his clothes from much earlier that morning, toward the front. There stood his lawyer, whom he didn't really know that well, since he'd never much needed his services. As Jess walked up to the judge, she commented favorably on the shoes her reporter wore.

"D'you waive the reading, Counselor?"

Tim McClark, Jesse's lawyer looked up from his paperwork. "Yes, Your Honor."

"How's your client plea?"

"Not guilty, Your Honor."

"All right. Let's take a look at this case," she murmured, taking the file from her clerk. She perused it and raised an eyebrow when she came across Mark's name. She'd heard of him. She turned her attention to the prosecutor. "What are the charges and the State's position, Mr. Reitman?"

"This was a premeditated attempt on the part of Mr. Travis to take the life of Dr. Sloan, which still hangs in the balance. If Dr. Sloan dies, this is first-degree murder and warrants the death penalty. Furthermore, he was found leaving his apartment with luggage, his passport, and a plane ticket to Brazil. We seek that the defendant is remanded into the custody of the State."

"Mr. McClark, what do you have to say?"

"Your Honor, my client is an upstanding member of the community who has strong ties to his place of residence." He failed to mention that the ties Jesse had were to the victim, the victim's son, and the victim's friend.

Bonnie didn't waste any time thinking over an obvious decision. "Bail is denied; the defendant is remanded into the custody of the State. Would your client like a preliminary trial, Mr. McClark?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"You got it. Jim, pick a day and a person."

Jim scrolled through the computer to look for the right time and the right judge, who wouldn't feel annoyed at getting more work from his. "It looks like Judge Morrison in two weeks will work."

"Two weeks? That's cutting it kind of close, don't you think?"

"It's Morrison in two weeks or Guthrie a week after tomorrow."

Bonnie cringed. She didn't need any harassment from Guthrie; he was always second-guessing the decisions of female judges. "Gotcha. Morrison it is." She struck her gavel on the desk and wondered if she could somehow get out of that evening's charity event with her husband. Maybe they could just skip it and spend a nice evening not thinking about kids and charities and business and law. If she played her cards right, she just might get lucky.

"What's the next case, Jim?"

A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews! They are greatly appreciated and treasured. I really appreciate those of you who gave me your frank, yet kind, opinions. Please continue to encourage me in this story. Thanks. –your humble author