The Devil Herself

As the cuffs tightened on his wrists, Damien scanned the crowd with desperate eyes searching for the one person who could clear his name. He wasn’t a killer, for fucks sake. All he’d done was ripped the son of a bitch off his woman and hit him once. Ok, twice. Maybe it was a half dozen times. But he hadn’t killed anyone. And she knew it. 

As the cop gripped his arm and dragged him towards the cruiser Damien finally saw the face he was looking for. Rage flowed through him again at the sight of her beautiful face bearing a bruise from that bastard. He wanted to race to her. To pull her into his arms and hold her tight until he could chase all the bad away. But the look on her face when she watched him stopped him short. 

She wasn’t crying or pleading with anyone to let him go. She wasn’t telling the police they’d made a mistake. That he’d only defended her from the slime ball then they’d gone back into the club together. Someone else had put a bullet in his skull and walked away, not Damien. No, Tricia watched the cops force him into the back of the cop car, the slam of the door echoing through the night, even over the excited chatter of the crowd. 

When he stared at her through the window, Damien saw a small smirk form on her perfect red lips. She stared into his eyes, the dark chocolate of her eyes looking black in the dim light, and the smirk grew into a self-satisfied smile. Confusion flooded through him. Had Tricia somehow set him up to take the fall for a murder? 

No way. There was no way the woman he’d been sleeping with for the last few weeks was trying to frame him. She didn’t even know that guy. Did she? Damien fidgeted on the hard back seat of the cruiser. The cuffs were tight, but not to the point of cutting off circulation. His arms behind his back made it hard for him to get comfortable, but he figured that was the point. Having never been arrested before, Damien had no idea what was going to happen now. But there was no way in hell he was going to ask the cop. Knowing he’d get a phone call – at least that’s what every movie and book told him – he would wait it out until he could call Tricia and see what the hell was happening. 

The ride to the police station was mercifully short. The cop let Damien slide out of the backseat before gripping his arm and led him through the station to a holding cell. The miserable cuffs were removed and Damien gratefully shook out his arms before rubbing his hands on his wrists. The cuffs had left red rings on his skin, but he figured the marks would fade quickly enough – if he could keep out of them. 

After an hour a different officer marched over to the cell and unlocked it. Damien felt a quick flash of hope that Tricia had come to bail him out, but that was quickly extinguished. 

“Hands behind your back,” the officer said. Damien stared at him for one long moment before sighing and turning around, hands tense behind his back. 

“I take it I’m not free to go?” Damien asked, resigned. The cop only snorted. After the cuffs were secured, the man gripped his arm and led him past two other holding cells - one holding a scruffy old man sleeping on a cot, the other holding two women who were glaring at each other - before bringing him to what he assumed was an interrogation room. The officer released the cuffs from behind Damien’s back and secured one wrist to the metal chair bolted to the floor. Shit. This was actually getting serious. 

The officer took out a tablet and scanned Damien’s fingerprints without a word. Damien watched the officer with wary eyes as he left the room, closing the door with a snap behind him. It didn’t take long for two people both dressed in suits – a man and a woman – to enter the room and take a seat across from him. He spotted the guns holstered on their belts and the badges. He stared from the woman’s impassive face to the man who looked an awful lot like he’d joyfully to kick the shit out of Damien right this minute. 

“Can you tell us why you were at Club nineteen?” The woman asked, her voice cold as ice. Damien swallowed nervously even though his mouth was dry as dust. 

“I was out with my girlfriend. The girl I’ve been seeing,” he corrected. “She wanted to go check it out.” 

“It was your girlfriend’s idea?” The male detective snorted. “Typical.” The female detective threw an irritated look at her partner before turning back to Damien.

“How’d you get the bloody knuckles?” She nodded her head towards the hand that was cuffed to the chair. His bloody and bruised knuckles showed prominently against his skin as he gripped the arm of the chair. It took effort, but he relaxed his hand and wiggled his fingers. 

“My girl - Tricia - wanted to go out for a smoke. I don’t smoke, but I went with her. When we were beside the club she realized she left her smokes in the car and asked me to get them for her. So I did. When I got back there was a guy pinning her to the wall by the throat. She was crying and as I got closer I saw the handprint on her face where he’d hit her.” His hands tensed on the chair again. Damien glanced down at his bloody knuckles. “I ran to them, grabbed him off her and hit him a few times. Tricia pulled me off the guy,” he grimaced, remembering how badly he wanted to keep beating on the man who’d hit Tricia. “He was alive and on his feet and wiping blood from his face when we went back into the club.” 

The female detective raised an eyebrow at him but otherwise showed no reaction. The male detective, well… if looks could kill Damien figured his brain matter would be splattered all over the one-way glass behind him. 

“You’re telling me that Officer Matthews was physically assaulting the woman you’ve been seeing?” The female detective asked him. 

“Officer?” Damien choked. “He was a fucking police officer?” The male detective surged to his feet, startling Damien enough that he slammed back into his chair with such force he was thankful the damn thing was bolted to the floor. 

“Yes. The man you murdered was a decorated fucking hero, cop killer.” Damien didn’t dare move as the detective rested a hand on the butt of his weapon. The female detective – damn he wished he knew their names – gripped a hand on her partners arm, restraining him. 

“Sit down Detective Matthews, before I kick you out of this interview.” He heard the cold snap of authority in her voice and Damien watched Detective Matthews struggle to pull himself back under control. Matthews and Matthews. That couldn’t be a coincidence. 

“He was your brother?” Damien said quietly, barely daring to breathe. The detective just glared at him, not bothering to confirm or deny. 

“What happened after you went back into the club?” 

“We got drinks. Danced a bit. I didn’t realize my hand was bleeding until I got blood on Tricia’s dress. She was pissed so I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. When I came back out, I couldn’t find her so I went outside to see if she’d went out for a smoke. She wasn’t answering her phone, so I started to get worried. I heard panicked voices from the alley where the man had been attacking Tricia.” Damien ran his free hand through his shaggy hair.

“There were a lot of people standing around. Some had their phones out. I could see the man, Officer Matthews, laying on the ground. He,’ Damien ran a hand over his mouth, trying to fight back the nausea. “He had a hole in his forehead. And even from where I was, I could see part of the back of his head was blown off.” He winced before sneaking a look at Detective Matthews. “Then I heard the sirens getting louder. People started to panic and ran. When the officers arrived on the scene someone pointed to me and screamed “That’s him!”. Next thing I knew I was cuffed and in the back of the cruiser.”

Detective Matthews didn’t look like he believed a single work Damien had said, but the woman looked thoughtful. He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with Matthews, so he focused only on his superior. 

“What the hell is going on?” He snapped after a few minutes of silence. “I didn’t have a gun on me. I didn’t shoot anyone. There has to be cameras or something showing what happened.” Damien heard the desperation in his own voice but couldn’t control it. He was being set up for murder! How the hell was he supposed to remain calm. 

“There are cameras,” Detective Matthews told him. “They conveniently turned off after you were caught on tape assaulting Officer Matthews.” 

“Then they saw what happened between him and Tricia too, right?” He asked, feeling relief for the first time. 

“No. They only show you straddling a downed man and punching him repeatedly until your girl stopped you.” 

“What? I don’t understand.” 

“The cameras,” the female detective began, “only show one side of the alleyway. What ever happened between Officer Matthews and Tricia,” Detective Matthews snorted but she ignored him, “Wasn’t caught on camera.”

Damien ran a hand over his mouth again, desperately trying not to be sick. There was no way this could be happening to him. All he’d done was defend a woman he was seeing from some jackass who was smacking her around. There was nothing wrong with that; not in his mind. But someone was trying to make it look like he killed a man. Not just a man – a police officer. 

“I didn’t shoot anyone.” Damien muttered quietly. “Can I call Tricia? She will tell you I didn’t kill anyone.” 

The female detective pulled a picture from the file she’d set on the desk. “Is this Tricia?” Damien had to look closely at the photo. At first, he would have said no. Hell no. The woman in the photo with her hard brown eyes and a murderous smile wasn’t the woman he’d been dating the last couple weeks. Tricia didn’t wear skintight leather skirts or carry guns for Christ’s sake. She was just a normal woman he met at the damn bookstore of all places. But the more he looked, the more he could see Tricia in her face. The more he saw that smirking woman that watched him get loaded into the back of a police car. 

Damien nodded slowly. The dread he’d been feeling since the first moment he was arrested taking over. “Who is she?” He asked, his voice thick. 

“Lucy Watkins, aka Lucifer. She’s been a person of interest in multiple murders, human trafficking, and drug trafficking. Officer Matthews was undercover attempting to find evidence we need to take down her and her entire operation.” The detective took the picture from Damien and slipped it into the file folder. A knock sounded on the door and the female detective gestured for Detective Matthews to answer it. Damien sat staring at the woman unable to read anything from her blank face. 

“They found a gun at the scene,” Matthews began as he walked back to the table reading the file whoever was at the door handed him. “They ran your prints against the ones found on the gun. They match.” Matthews threw the file down on the table so Damien could see the papers inside. A positive match between his prints and those on the murder weapon. 

“But I didn’t shoot anyone!” Damien exploded, struggling against the cuff binding him to the chair. “You have to know I didn’t shoot anyone. This woman, Tricia or Lucy or whoever the hell she is must be behind this.” Detective Matthews rounded the table and forced Damien back down into the chair. The hand on the back of his neck squeezed so had that Damien gasped in pain as he sat. 

“Matthews!” The woman snapped and the hand released him. “Damien Trenton, you are charged with the murder of Officer Dale Matthews. Anything you say can be used against you…” she droned on, but Damien couldn’t focus on a word she was saying. He was being charged with murder. He was being framed for murder. “Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?” she finished and his attention snapped back. 

“There must be something you can do,” he pleaded, his gaze moving from Matthews to the other Detective. She gave him a small sad smile as she shook her head. 

“There is nothing we can do. I recommend you call a lawyer.” Both detectives stood, leaving Damien, pale faced and shaken, staring after them. 

“And what the hell do I tell him?” He screamed after them. “No lawyer is going to believe I was set up for murder.” Matthews paused and looked back at Damien. 

“You tell him you were framed by the devil herself.” With a snap of the door Matthews was gone.