Publicity!: Six Scandalous Adventures of Hollywood's Crisis Manager Laurel Quinn

Borger County Federal Prison (12:40pm):

  A heavy metallic door to the Visitor’s Wing slid open and Laurel walked inside of the room followed by a husky Prison Guard. The room had eight circular metallic tables and three metallic chairs on each side of the circular tables. Every furniture in the room was bolted to the ground a fact that didn’t really shock Laurel.

  “Is this room more suitable for you to meet your client in?” The guard asked as Laurel walked over to a large table that had a few dents in it. She looked at the guard and smiled nodding at him. “Yes it is. Thank you so much for the accommodations, I do apologize for coming here on such short notice. There was a new lead on his case and I couldn’t wait to get to tell him all about it.” She knew every word coming out of her mouth was a lie but this was what she lived for, spinning stories and telling convincing lies.

  The guard nodded his head, “That’s good. David is a pain in my ass. The faster he’s out of here the better.”

  Laurel hid her true emotions behind the smile she had famously put on whenever the wheels in her mind were spinning.

  The guard turned around as another guard, this one shorter and bulker in size, entered the room with David Jimberson by his side.

  David’s eyes widened as he saw his ex-wife and he couldn’t believe how beautifully radiant she was. It was about three years since he saw her, since he held her, since he kissed her and since he was able to call her his.

  Laurel sat down on one of the metallic chairs that faced the door. David wasn’t wearing any handcuffs which was expected since he wasn’t imprisoned with assault or murder charges, just money laundering which was nothing more than a White Collar Crime.

  He slowly walked over to the chair across from her and he sat down slowly. His brown hair was longer than she remembered, his aquamarine eyes were filled with regret and sadness and he wore a yellow prison jumpsuit.

  “L-Laurel? Is that really you? What are you doing here?”

  Laurel had a lot of things she wanted to say to this man but she kept her cool and most importantly she kept calm. After all, she wanted to leave the prison and not be arrested in one. She flipped her Auburn hair back and smirked at him. “I am really here. But I’m not here to see you. I’m here to get answers from you.”

  “Answers? About what? Are you okay?”

  “I know what you did.”

  The statement caused David to gasp as if Laurel punched him in the gut taking all the air out of his lungs. He looked over his shoulders as the guards left the room and closed the door behind them. Most prisons would be worried about leaving a convict alone in the room with someone, but David wasn’t a threat and since he was speaking to his “lawyer” they decided it was best to give them privacy to discuss the case at hand; it helped that Laurel had acquaintances in high places.

  David turned back to Laurel and glared at her, “What the hell are you talking about? I was arrested on a Ponzi scheme last year. Everyone knows that.”

  “Don’t play stupid-or in your case, don’t be stupid! I’m not talking about your sad little crime. I’m talking about how you killed my son!”

  David shook his head denying the accusation. “No, not that is not true! You killed him! You and that damn job! You’re so damaged you don’t know how to make friends, you just make enemies. With everyone! One of which killed my son!”

  Laurel couldn’t help but smirk at his words. For the past two years Laurel had done nothing but blamed herself for the tragedy. She believed it was her fault Elijah died and to make matters worse David blamed her as well.

  “Are you still playing that pathetic card?” She asked not even phased that he was once again blaming her for what happened.

  “It’s not a pathetic card! It’s the truth! That’s why I left. I couldn’t bare to live in the same house as you…with the same woman that had my…my only son killed!”

  Laurel wished she had an award to give David because he was an amazing actor. His leg shaking under the desk, his eyes tearing up and his voice cracking remembering Elijah, was an impressive performance. She wondered if he had been taking acting classes in the Prison’s Performing Arts program.

  “Your son? The same son that you missed his funeral and burial? The same son you never once mentioned when you decided to file for divorce the day after he was buried? The same son you never once went to visit his grave site? That son?”

  David was starting to grow angry at her words. They were true and certainly stabbing him in the right places but he didn’t want to relive those forgotten memories again.

  “You need to be quiet.” He warned her.

  “Or what? Hmm? You’re going to have me killed like how I was supposed to die that night? And if the idiot you hired actually had great aim, I would’ve been dead and you would’ve taken over Publicity!. That was the plan right? Marry me and then kill me to inherit my business?”

  David shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he heard the words coming out of Laurel’s mouth. “Why, Why would I take over a stupid company anyways?”

  “I asked myself that same question. Also I asked why you didn’t try to fight for it in the divorce. But then I remembered you never once put in a dollar toward my company so legally you had no right. Then I asked, what sense would it make for you-a college dropout- to take over my company? Then I discovered you are exactly $36.5 million in debt. Well at least with a bookie. You have five years to pay all that money back. And my company is worth more than that. Which is why I refuse to buy a bigger building. But you knew that already.”

  David had no words to say and even if he did have something to deny or justify her claims, Laurel wasn’t going to let him get a word in edge wise.

  “What really hurts me, isn’t the fact you tried to kill me, because you weren’t the first and you certainly won’t be the last. It hurts me more that after Elijah died you left town. You never once faced that crime. You never once faced that guilt!”

  David leaned in closer to her lowering his voice to a whisper. “If you’re looking for a confession you’re out of luck. I’m not talking. I’m here for money laundering. And don’t waste your time, Brendon’s not going to talk either.”

  Laurel smirked again this time it was sinister and her hazel eyes twinkled with victory. “You’re right about that, Brendon won’t talk at all. Not because he has some loyalty to you, but because he’s currently….tied up at the moment…well at the bottom of the San New River that is.”

  “What?” David asked letting out a shocked gasp.

  Something shifted in Laurel’s eyes. There was always a sense of innocence in them, of a woman that was caring and brave, but this time David saw something dark in them. Something that scared him in ways he could never imagine. “I told you the day you met me. I’m not like most girls. I really wish you would’ve listened to that warning. Now here we are.”

  David couldn’t hold back his emotions and he started to cry at the thought of his best friend Brendon currently suffering a very painful and slow death.

  “S-so are you here to kill me too? If so there are cameras and you’ll never make it out of here.” he informed her slowly.

  Laurel shook her head slowly at him. “Oh Gosh no. I have too much blood on my hands already. Besides, this wing is known as the ‘Blind Wing’ because the cameras don’t work. They haven’t been working for six years. I’m just here to tell you that I know the truth. I know that you killed my son and that...I forgive you.” Her tone changed as she said the three words she never thought would ever come out of her mouth.

  It was then that David realized the guilt he felt for how that night turned out was starting to lift off of his shoulders. He had spent many nights sleeping in his cold cell wondering how his life would’ve turned out if he hadn’t hired Brendon and if he was still happily married to the woman of his dreams.

  Laurel got up from the chair, walked over toward the metallic door and she turned around to look at David for one last time. “Goodbye David. I really ho
pe you enjoy your life.”

  He didn’t bother to look back at his ex-wife and she didn’t want him to. She knocked on the door and it slid open as the guards stood by and they watched her leave. The shorter guard entered the room as David rose to his feet ready to go back in his cell.

  But something happened. The metallic door closed again and David only saw the shorter guard in the room with him. “What’s going on? Aren’t I going back to my cell?”

  The guard smirked, “Not today buddy.” Without a second to think, breathe, guess or react, the guard lunged at him and stabbed David in the stomach with a sharp blade.

  “AGH!”

  The Borger County Federal Prison was unaware that in the Blind Wing one of their prisoners was being killed. He wasn’t going to make it back to his cell after all, he wasn’t going to finish serving the time he was sentenced and worst of all? They wouldn’t be able to pinpoint who killed David Jimberson because his murder is the sixth death in the County Prison in less than a week. Since they didn’t want the negative publicity, the media would never find out the truth about the other five prisoners who mysteriously were killed and now…David just joined that growing list of unsolved deaths.