Shock.
Panic.
Fear.
And then... anger.
“How... How do you know?”
“You...” she swallowed and hoped that her family was making a break for the door or getting as close as they could. “You saw me in the news, right?”
She tried to sit up on the floor, but the sudden movement of her hand sent pain screaming across her palms.
“You know that we found her body.”
He started to shake his head.
It wasn’t a big movement.
It was hardly a whisper or an echo with the sunlight streaming through the front gates behind him.
The late afternoon sun made it hard for her to see his expression clearly, but that wasn’t her concern at the moment.
She wanted... needed him to focus on her.
To give other people a chance to get out.
“They talked to your cousins, Tony.”
Noelle bit the inside of her cheek.
She had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to say any of this to him, but she was working off the cuff.
Throwing whatever thoughts she had out into the world, hoping that it might focus his attention on her.
“They’re the ones who told the Rangers that it was you.”
She felt her whole face go hot and then cold a moment later.
Her words were mostly the truth.
Mostly.
They hadn’t laid the blame completely on Tony, but they hadn’t exactly given them another name to investigate, either.
She might literally be shooting herself in the foot by saying these words, but her only thought at the moment was keeping his attention focused on her.
“They told them what?”
The rise in his voice was more than just volume, the pitch was higher, too. Almost breaking at the end.
“The Rangers talked to your cousins. They told them that you were the one closest to Aracely.”
Tony’s arm jerked at the mention of her name.
Maybe it had before, but she hadn’t been staring at his arm then.
The gun pointed almost at her face made it hard for her to think about anything else.
