He woke up on a Tuesday. Two weeks after. I was in the chair next to his bed when it happened and I almost missed it because I had fallen asleep sitting up. Gia called my name and I opened my eyes and Jordan was looking at the ceiling with that expression he gets when he is trying to figure out where he is.
I grabbed his hand. He looked at me.
Hey, I said.
Hey, he said back. His voice was wrecked. But it was his voice.
I started crying before I could stop myself. He looked at me like that was the most inconvenient thing I could possibly be doing right now. Which was so him that I laughed through it.
He was back.
* * *
Jordan Bennett
The first few days were just getting my body back online. Pain management. Tests. Doctors explaining what had happened in that careful way they have where they are giving you information and monitoring your reaction at the same time. I listened and nodded and asked the questions I was supposed to ask.
On the fourth day the detectives came.
Two of them. Plain clothes. One did most of the talking, older guy, patient, the kind of patient that is a technique. The other one mostly took notes and watched me.
They told me what they knew first. Which is what they do. They lay out the shape of it and watch where your eyes go.
A man known as Zen had been running a significant drug operation out of East Highland for several years. On the night in question he had attempted to intercept a large cocaine shipment from a rival. Someone inside his own organization had sold the information for a hundred thousand dollars, which was why the other side was waiting. Everyone in Zen's convoy was killed. Two of the attackers survived and were in custody. Jordan Bennett, a local musician, was the sole survivor from Zen's side.
They asked me why I was there.
I had been thinking about this since before I was fully awake. Not the details, the details I had locked down already. The frame. The story needed a frame that made sense of everything true about me without touching anything I could not explain. The label offers were real. The music was real. Zen knowing people in the industry, I could make that real enough.
I told them that Zen had approached me about six months ago. Said he had connections in the music industry, people at labels, managers who moved in those circles. I was coming up, I had momentum, and I was looking for any door I could find. He was plausible. He knew enough names, enough details, that I believed him.
The detective asked what kind of relationship we had.
"Mentor type thing," I said. "He showed me how to work on cars I pointed to the z he had a full shop and talk employees . I thought he was a legitimate guy who moved in certain circles."
"Did he ask you to do anything for him?"
"No. Not until recently."
I let that land. The detective leaned in slightly.
"What happened recently?"
I told them about the label offers. Interscope and Atlantic, which they could verify because those emails existed on my real phone. I told them that when Zen found out about the meetings he changed. He told me I needed to sign with a management company he was connected to before I took any meetings. Said it was the only way I would survive the industry, that without the right people behind me the labels would eat me alive.
"I said no," I told them. "I told him I had a lawyer I was meeting with and I was going to handle it myself. He did not take that well."
"How did he respond?"
"He said I owed him. For the time he had put in, for the connections. He said I needed to come with him that night to meet someone, that it was important, and that we would talk through the arrangement after. I thought it was a business meeting. I thought if I went and heard him out I could close it out clean and move forward."
The detective was quiet for a moment. Then: "You had no idea what you were driving into."
"None," I said. "I thought I was going to a meeting."
The other detective looked up from his notes. "You were found with gloves on. There was a weapon in the vehicle unregistered"
I had prepared for this one.
"The gloves I had because I work on cars. I had been at the shop that afternoon. The weapon I did not know was there. I was in a vehicle that was not mine, that I was told to meet at a location. Whatever was in it I had no knowledge of."
They went back and forth with me for another forty minutes. I kept the story clean and I did not add details I did not need to add. The less you say the less they have to work with. I answered every question they asked and volunteered nothing.
At the end the first detective closed his notebook and looked at me.
"We may have more questions as the investigation continues. You understand you should not leave the state."
"I understand," I said.
They left.
I lay there after and stared at the ceiling and ran through every answer I had given and checked it against what they could verify and what they could not. The label emails were real. The lawyer meeting was real. The part about Zen approaching me about the industry could not be disproven. The part about not knowing what was in the truck could not be disproven either. The gloves were explainable.
It was going to court. My lawyer had already told me that much from the hallway, before they came in. The DA was building a case around the surviving attackers and the investigation into Zen's operation. As a surviving witness I was going to be in the middle of it whether I wanted to be or not.
But I was out on bail pending the proceedings. I was going home.
I looked at the ceiling and thought about Rue sitting in this chair for two weeks.
I thought about the label meetings still sitting in my calendar.
I thought about Zen and whether he was alive and what that meant if he was and what it meant if he was not.
Then I closed my eyes and let myself rest.