Inside, Raquel abruptly pushed her way through the crowd and shoved reporters to the side until she stood right in front of Garrett.

"Excuse me Councilman." Raquel stepped out from the crowd and made her way directly in front of Garrett. "Would you like to address the issue of Detective Hart being arrested in connection with several robberies of drug dealers around the city?"

Garrett didn’t know what Raquel was trying to do, but he wasn’t going to play games with her. "No comment." He stepped away and made his way over to the polling stations.

"So, you’re not willing to discuss how you had me falsely accused and arrested." Raquel’s intention was to put Garrett on the spot.

"No comment." This time Garrett had a look in his eyes that said beware because she was about to push him over the edge.

"Well tell me this, Why did you skip out on Blair’s custody hearing?"

"What?"

"You never showed up to the custody hearing for Blair a couple months ago. The court never legally appointed you his guardian."

"What difference does that make now? The boy is dead and buried." Garrett was annoyed by Raquel’s presence.

"Oh!" Raquel held up one finger. ‘"He may be dead, but he’s not buried. As of yesterday I had his body exhumed from out the ground."

"Are you insane?" Garrett said.

Even though there were plenty of reporters around, no one said a word because they wanted to be the first to report what was about to go down.

"Then I had his body cremated, and these are the ashes." She picked up the box and hugged it close to her bosom.

"Cremated?" Mecca said from across the room. "Please tell me Blair is not in that box."

"He sure is." Then Raquel spoke to Garrett. "Now I know for sure there is no way you can ever take him away from me."

What did you do?" Garrett was livid and seconds away from strangling Raquel. "You must’ve dug him up yourself, because there’s no judge in their right mind who would give you the right to exhume a body."

"See, that’s where you’re wrong." Raquel sang with vindictiveness. "I sat and had a nice long talk with Lady Lanier." Raquel turned her back to Garrett and faced the crowd of reporters so they could hear every word she had to say. "I explained my side of the story to her and she seemed pretty convinced that I was telling the truth. Once Detective Hart verified a few things she pushed the paperwork through and authorized that Blair’s body be handed over to me.

Garrett was furious. How could she disturb his son’s final resting place? Garrett acted off of impulse and grabbed Raquel by the throat and pushed her up against the wall. They fought, and in the midst of their struggle, Raquel lost hold of Blair’s ashes and the box flew in the air. A huge cloud of dust composed of Blair’s ashes filled the air around them.

"You want to know the truth." Garrett screamed one inch away from Raquel’s face. "Yes, I told that cop to have you locked up and to throw away the key. You didn’t deserve Blair and you still don’t." In his anger, Garrett had just told on his self.

The realization of what he had just done didn’t come to light until he saw all the news cameras filming him live. This was being broadcast all across the region. He let Raquel go; she quickly fled from Garrett’s wrath.

Garrett looked around, and he saw Mecca on the floor trying to gather as much of Blair’s ashes as she could. The circle of reporters that had once surrounded him opened up and allowed Garrett to leave without any interference from them.

***********

Author's note: This is an excerpt from Dynah Zale's latest novel, Skeletons In My Closet on Sale Now at Amazon.com {Kindle Only}. Follow my on Twitter @DynahZale and like me on Facebook