She backed up off the end of the bed. He tried to make a grab for her, but she shuffled out of his reach, then pushed him back onto his back and pillow as the drugs really took hold and sent him flying into euphoria.
He had a vague notion that she was in his closet, in his stash, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He was too high. He vaguely hoped she hadn’t administered an overdose or he’d be really fucked.
And that was the last truly coherent thought he had until he was shaken awake by the cops, being handcuffed, read his rights, and wondering what the fuck happened.
Lucky didn’t know what to say and the silence between them stretched.
“I know you hate me. You have every reason to, but I want you to know it wasn’t my choice to be with her. I never wanted her. She is so repulsive to me that even thinking about her, makes me want to vomit or punch something. I did what I did because I wanted to save you. All I did was fuck everything up.”
“How many times did you have to…you know?”
“Nearly every fucking day for three months.” He hung his head and put his hands over it, looking completely dejected and pissed with the stiff set of his shoulders and tightly laced fingers. Then his head came up and he met her gaze. “You know what really sucks?”
“All of it.”
“Yes. But when I found out she was pregnant, I raged. Mostly because I didn’t want my kid to have a mother like her. But also because I always wore a condom. Every damn time. I needed that barrier between us, thin as it was. It helped me mentally have some sort of distance, even though I was…intimately close to her. But about a week before the murders, she crawled through my window and I’d already worked myself into a good mad. I wanted to rage, but my parents were home and I didn’t want them to find out what was going on.
“She gave me that damn smug smile and called me lover and I just lost it. I shoved her up against the wall, pulled down her leggings and panties, and I fucked her from behind, barely any of me touching her. It was punishing, without any kind of finesse. I just wanted to get it done fast without all the vitriol we went through every time she came over. I finished in a couple of minutes, not caring that she didn’t get off. I never cared. Even though it often lit her up to know she was fucking your boyfriend.” He scrubbed his face with his hands again. “That was how my daughter was conceived. It makes me so angry that she wasn’t born out of love and that I hate her mother with a passion so strong that I don’t know if she’ll be able to see it on my face and know it’s in my heart. But still, I want to see her. I need to see her. I can’t stand the thought that she thinks I’ve abandoned her the way I abandoned you.”
“You didn’t really have a choice.”
“I could have gone to her father. I could have found one of the cops she wasn’t blackmailing.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“She bragged about it. She had like four or five guys on the force under her thumb. How do you think she got away with so much shit?”
“Damn. Are they still in the department?”
“I’m sure they are, or she’s got more of them on the hook.”
Lucky needed time to think about that later. Right now, she needed to get the details on how her family was killed. “So she drugged you that night and left you in your room.”
“Yes. The cops picked me up the next morning. I presume she gave her father some version of what my plan was to save you and used that against me.”
“So she left your house, came to mine, drugged the glasses on the table my mother had set, waited for everyone to pass out, then slit their throats.”
“And probably walked out smiling, a job well done. She’d saved her friend from being hurt ever again or from having to raise a kid.”
“Something that sounds like she didn’t want herself, but ended up doing anyway.”
Neil shrugged. “I was surprised she kept the baby, to tell you the truth. Though now I see how much enjoyment she gets from keeping Krystal away from me.”
“Can’t you file for visitation?”
“I did, but she works in the courthouse and has the judge under her thumb. He keeps moving the court date. I don’t think I’ll ever get my case heard.”
What the fuck!
Desiree had all the bases covered. She got away with everything, because she had connections in the sheriff’s department, the courthouse, even a damn judge in her pocket. She wondered what Desiree had on the judge.
No wonder she always had money.
“How would you like to take her down with me?”
“You’re never going to get her. There’s no evidence. And even if there was, she’d just walk into the evidence locker and get rid of it like she did with the knife. Or worse, she’ll plant evidence, send in one of the cops she owns to arrest me again. Or you.”
“She tried to kill me.”
