His lips pressed together. “Did you speak with the police?”
“Of course I spoke with the police,” she said, her voice rising. “I’ve known the chief my whole life.”
One of his eyebrows rose. “Who died?”
Tears tried to well in her eyes and she battled them away.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Scott said. “I need you to stay calm, no tears. Tell me what’s going on so I can fix this.” The tone held bite.
She sniffed. “Fine. So when I left the courtroom, my brother called to tell me my great-aunt, who raised us, was in the hospital with a heart attack.”
“Wasn’t a full heart attack,” the chief called out. “She just needed one stent, and stress brought on the slight heart attack, no doubt. Probably because the economy sucks, and everybody in town is suffering. Don’t you remember? You visited her late afternoon.”
“I kind of remember,” Millie returned. “But a lot of the day is fuzzy, and last night is blank.” She’d already told the chief that.
Scott shifted his weight. “What do you remember?”
“I remember getting the phone call from my brother.” She looked down. “But not much else. I came to town, and then I think we went to the hospital.”
“You think?”
She looked up at him again and focused. “I can’t remember much.”
He looked closely at her head and eyes. “I see no signs of injury, and your pupils are not dilated. Tell me what happened.”
“Apparently, according to the chief, last night I went to Snarky’s Bar. I mean, it was St. Patrick’s Day, but I don’t remember anything.”
Scott’s probing gaze exacerbated her headache. “What is the first thing you do remember?”
“This morning, I woke up at Clay Baker’s house in his bed.”
No expression crossed Scott’s face. “Who is Clay Baker?”
“He’s my ex. We dated all through high school and broke up when I went to college.” She swallowed. “It wasn’t a good breakup.”
“So you went home with him?”
She plucked at an embroidered figure of a donkey on the plush-looking blanket. “I don’t remember,” she said. “I woke up in his bed, and he was dead.”
Scott sat back. “What do you mean dead?”
“He suffered a fatal stabbing with a knife I invented. It was definitely my weapon I found in the bed next to me. Blood saturated me as well as the blade.”
Scott breathed out slowly. “You have no idea how you got there?”
“None,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t remember anything.”
“We’re going to figure this out, Millie. So what happened then?”
She tried not to take comfort in his sure and matter-of-fact tone, yet her breathing leveled out. “I called the police and an ambulance. The chief came, saw everything that had happened and arrested me. I tried to call my brother, but I couldn’t get ahold of him. I hope he’s okay.” JT had just returned home, and he seemed off.
“We’ll figure it out.” Scott turned to look at the open doorway. “Chief,” he called out, “I want a blood test on her.”
“I already took care of it,” the chief called back.
Scott kept silent for a moment. “We need a rape kit, Millie.”
Her chin dropped. “I wasn’t raped and I didn’t have sex.”
