“Take him your phone.” I interrupt her.
Becky and I are running out the back door. We’re in my car before his voice snaps through my speakers. “Cole.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Now I’m glad I left him there with her. “Do they expect her to listen to that fucking tape?”
“I think so.” He sighs, and my Bluetooth picks up the conversation. “They mentioned that she stabbed him. And by the amount of blood loss they found in the house, they said he would either be dead or in an ER.”
“So?” I snap, flying down the road. Becky remains silent in the passenger seat.
“So they’ve called all surrounding hospitals, and he’s not a patient anywhere.”
I glance in my rear-view mirror, making sure I’m not about to get pulled over since I’m doing twenty over the limit. “They think he’s dead.”
“Pretty much. Austin’s eyes went wide with fear when they said that was their conclusion. You could tell the cops know what we did, and they think she knows what we did. So he told her they knew it was self-defense because they heard the tape … and she just lost it. I mean, hell, the bastard has been dead for four days now! They have to know they aren’t gonna fucking find him!” he whispers harshly.
I look over at Becky, and she’s looking straight ahead out the windshield and a tear runs down her cheek. Deke just told on himself. She knows I lied to her, and that I didn’t kill Kellan on my own.
“I’m almost there. Let me talk to her.”
“Cole?” Austin’s broken voice comes on seconds later.
My chest tightens. “Hey, sweetheart. I’m on my way back. Don’t say anything else until I get there. I’m gonna call my father’s attorney.” I kick myself for not already doing it, but I didn’t think they would go to her. The recording should have been enough for them to wrap up the damn investigation.
“What? Why?”
“It was self-defense, Austin. They can’t—”
“No, Cole.” She interrupts me. “I don’t care about that. They have it on tape.” She begins to cry again. “Kellan told me that he watched me burn Jeff’s body.” Becky’s head whips over to look at me. “The car we stole …”
“Austin …”
“And that your final dare was to kill Bruce.” She sobs. “They know everything. You can’t come back up here. They’re gonna … arrest you.”
I ignore Becky, knowing she’s thinking what the fuck? “Babe, listen. It’s all okay. The one we gave to the police isn’t the original copy.”
“It’s not?” She sniffs, trying to calm her sobs.
“No. Bennett altered it. They know nothing.”
After a long moment of silence, she whispers, “Okay.”
“Let me talk to Deke for a second.”
“Yeah?” he asks, coming on the line.
“Don’t let them in her room. I’m on my way.” I hang up and look over at Becky. She arches a brow at me. I just shrug. Motherfucker! “Well, you wanted to know.”
She turns to look back out the windshield. “When Deke came to my house yesterday, I asked him about Kellan. I had a feeling you had killed him because it was strange he wasn’t around and then how things went down with Shane at the hospital. Deke informed me he had spoken to him that morning.” She sucks in a long breath. “Which would have been hard to do, considering the two of you killed him three days before that.”
Fuck!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEKE
THE DOOR FLIES open to Austin’s room, and Cole enters followed by his attorney. “Where are they?” Cole demands.
“They were right outside her door.” The cops may have allowed her a few minutes to gather herself, but they didn’t go far.
“They’re not now.”
“What all did you say to them?” Jacob asks her, not even bothering with introducing himself.
She sits on her bed, her eyes narrowed. She cried at first, but now, she’s pissed. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that Cole told her he was safe or the fact that she didn’t already know he would have covered his ass. I gotta give it to the girl. When push comes to shove, she will knock your ass down.
“They asked me to start from the beginning. I told them I had just gotten home from a movie date.” I watch Cole’s shoulders stiffen at her words because he was not the guy she was out with. And it’s my fault. I blame myself because I told him to push her away. “I walked in, and they were already arguing. They brought me into it, and I said I just wanted to go to bed, and that’s when Kellan started telling me all this stuff. He pushed her down the stairs, and when I tried to save her, he threw me to the ground.” Cole’s hands fist. “Choked me. He had dropped a knife next to my head, so I grabbed it and stabbed him.” Her narrowed eyes move to Cole’s. “And that’s when they told me they had a tape. A recording with evidence on it that what I did was in self-defense but not the cause of death. He was murdered.”
“Bullshit!” Cole snaps. “They lied to you.”
Jacob gestures for him to quiet with his hand. “Go on.”
“Deke told them to get the fuck out. I started crying. Shelby made them leave.” She sighs.
Jacob pats her leg softly over the blanket. “Don’t say another word to them. I will take care of it. They have all the evidence they need.” He looks at us. “What did you guys do with his car?”
We both frown. “What do you mean?” I ask.
“He was at the Lowes’ residence, so he must have driven there.”
“We never saw his car,” Cole admits.
The old man’s brows crease. “Then how did he get there?”
Cole and I look at one another. “The fuck if we know,” I answer.
“I didn’t see it either,” Austin adds. “When I pulled up, there was no other car in the driveway. Just mine.” Cole looks at me, and I can tell what he’s thinking just by his fisted hands—we’ve missed something. “Maybe Celeste picked him up and brought him back to my father’s,” she offers.
“Maybe.” Jacob agrees, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
Cole jerks his head toward the door, and I get up to follow him out. “I didn’t think about it,” he growls.
I sigh. “There was so much going on. It’s not like how he arrived there was our first thought.”
He runs a hand down his face. “We missed something. Goddammit.”
I place my hand on his shoulder. “I’ll look into it.”
He nods, then his eyes meet mine. He looks exhausted. Cole has never been someone to get a lot of sleep, but it’s catching up with him. Once he finally crashes, he’s going to be out for days.
“I have to tell you something.” Cole sighs.
“Okay.”
“Becky knows that you helped me kill Kellan.”
I shake my head. “I lied to her.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, she knows that too.”
“How?”
He lets out a long breath. “I told her I killed him, and then when she asked if you were involved, I lied and said no. Well, then when I was talking to you on my way here, I had the Bluetooth on in the car.”