“Then who did?” I chance again, knowing damn well I’m pressing my luck.
Peyton looks at his hands and starts twisting his fingers together. “What do I get if I tell you what I know?”
Miles looks to the one-way window, and it’s then that I realize that Captain Visser and he already had this conversation. I’m a little annoyed I wasn’t given that information before coming in here.
“Treatment.”
Peyton snaps his gaze up. “That’s it?”
“It’s better than prison,” I mutter.
“I don’t think you realize the shit show you two walked in on,” he says in a threatening sort of way.
“Then tell us,” Miles urges, unaffected by the hostility. He leans back in his seat once more.
“I want more than treatment.”
“What is it you want?”
“A new life,” he demands. “I want out of East Harlem. Somewhere quiet. A sleepy town, maybe. Anything but this.”
Miles is utterly still as he processes this information, but I know for a fact, because I know him so well, that this partwasn’t discussed with Captain. He stands from his chair, looks at me, and strides out the door.
A heartbeat goes by, and no sound is made except for the click of the door as it latches.
“Where’s he going?” Peyton asks, a little panicked.
I shrug even though I know that he’s going to the other side of the glass to ask Visser if it’s even possible. A DA has to be consulted if she’s not behind the glass already. There are legal hoops to jump through, but even I know his request is a long shot. Someone has to pay for the woman, and it’ll likely be Peyton.
“Jesus,” Peyton hisses. He turns pleading eyes from the door to me. “You have to believe me that I didn’t touch that woman.”
I shrug again and glance at the window, hoping Visser is too busy to see me defy him once more. “Why should I believe you?”
“I’ve never killed anyone in my life!”
“Not even for the drugs?” I ask, pointedly looking at his track marks.
“No!” He jiggles the cuffs as he thumps the table. “I’m not a killer, and I’m certainly not a rapist.”
“Then you have a conscience.” I push off the wall and come to stand on the left side of Miles’s abandoned seat. “Do you have a big enough one to tell the truth?”
He shakes his head. “Not until I get my deal.”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “What are you so afraid of, Peyton?”
“Dying!”
I wave a hand in the air dismissively. “Besides that.”
He chuffs and flares his nostrils. “I don’t think you understand what they’d do to me if I told a soul.”
I grab one of the pictures of the woman and hold itup. “I can imagine, but I can also imagine that someone like you knows how to hide.”
He twists his lips to the side as he considers my words.
I shrug again and gently place the picture back down. “If it were me, I’d take the deal I was given. Chances are we can convince them to put you in a treatment center far away from here, and then you can start your new life there on your own.”
It isn’t hard to tell that he likes the sound of that because, this time, he wets his whole bottom lip in thought.
