My gaze flicks down to the photo again. Maybe it’s the way it was shot—the contrast or something—but the bruises on my neck are definitely larger than I’ve seen Haven leave before. Then again, she was pretty pissed off with me.
Still…a dread feeling swells inside me until Thatcher slides the photos back into the envelope.
He sits back in his seat with a sigh. “And she’d obviously be happy to corroborate your statement.”
It’s not a question, but I mutter out, “Obviously. Since she fucking did it.”
“Think she’d be able to convince a judge?”
I flinch when his eyes dart up to mine. “I didn’t fucking touch Melissa!” I wince at a stab of pain from my lip. This time when I touch my mouth, my finger comes back smeared with blood.
“Miss Parker explicitly named you, Mr. Jordan.”
“She’s—“ I flail my hands as best I can in the chained-up handcuffs. “—fucking confused or something.”
Thatcher glances down at his notepad, using his pencil to point out one scrawled line after the next.
“We have you trying to flee the scene.” The pencil moves down a line. “Resisting arrest.” Another scrawled sentence. “You were found with a weapon—” he taps the knife with the back of the pencil without taking his eyes off his notes “—and no reliable accounting for your whereabouts last night or this morning. That’s not even considering what we’ll find when the lab results come back on the blood we found under your nails.”
Jesus. It feels like I swallowed a bowling ball.
So itwasblood.
Whythe fuckdid I have blood under my fucking nails?
There’s a sharp light in his eyes when he looks up—an odd contrast to the soft smile still on his lips. “I know you did it, son. What I’m trying to ascertain iswhy.”
My mouth is open. I close it. Clench my teeth.
He just keeps staring, looking content to sit here all fucking day if needed.
“If I did it, then why would I show up at the library, huh? Why would I walk right into—” I cut off, because nothing on his face changes.
Can’t he see it doesn’t make sense?
If I kidnapped and assaulted Melissa, why the fuck would I stroll onto campus like nothing happened?Witha weapon. But that’s the problem with being innocent. You don’t think like a guilty person, so you end up looking like one.
I saw cops, and instincts honed from a rough childhood and years of petty thievery flipped switches in my brain. So I ran. And it makes me look guilty as fuck.
There’s another knock at the door.
Jesus, what now? Camera footage of me stuffing Melissa in the trunk of a car?
Thatcher gives me a double take on his way to the door, and I hurriedly wipe the grim smile from my mouth.
“Deputy? Need you for a minute,” someone outside the door says.
Thatcher takes one step out of the office, then turns back. “Better safe,” he deadpans as he slips the knife and photos back into the envelope, taking it with him when he leaves.
Damn. I was gonna use that to break out.
I crash down into folded arms, gripping my biceps.
Guess this is another interrogation technique. Leaving me alone in this coffin of a room, nothing for company but the fluorescent buzz and the image of Haven walking into those woods playing on repeat behind my eyelids.
Why the fuck did she leave me? Was she scared she’d be arrested too?
Whythe fuckdid Melissa say I hurt her?
