“We prepare,” he admitted. “Because I have a feeling that detective is going to come back and ask us some questions.”
“Prepare for what? How do you prepare for that?” I gasped. “That’s not something you can prepare for!”
I was slightly freaking out, and you could tell because of the way my voice had risen about five octaves.
“We have to sell the lie we told that night that he came knocking, looking for your brother,” he said. “You think you can do that?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Sell what lie?”
I mean, logically I knew what ‘lie’ he was talking about. But what did he mean by ‘sell’ it?
“We have to act like we’re a couple,” he grunted. “And I have to break it off with Mimi.”
I felt my insides stir.
“What?”
“I have to break it off with her,” he repeated. “Because it wouldn’t be fair to her otherwise.”
No, it wouldn’t.
But was it really necessary?
That question was answered a few seconds later when there was an insistent knock on my door.
Bram cursed and yanked off his shirt, then started to toe off his boots.
“What are you doing?” I squeaked. “I need to be putting clothes on. You don’t need to be taking them off!”
Bram shot me a grin. “Gotta look the part.”
That grin did things to my insides I’d never felt before.
“Bram…”
He disappeared through my bedroom door, then out into the living room.
I could hear men’s voices, and I cursed.
Pulling on some sleep shorts, I hurried out of my bedroom to find Bram facing off with two of Intercourse’s finest. One of which being Detective Alto, the man that always looked at me as if I was crazy pants.
The one that’d shooed me away more times than I could count, thinking that I was full of shit.
I hope it weighed on his conscience, my friends’ deaths in addition to the deaths of our parents and my foster parents.
Had he taken me seriously, they might be alive right now.
I might not have lost my only two friends in the world.
“What’s going on?” I asked quietly, my voice shaky and filled with fear.
Detective Alto turned his gaze to me, and I felt like I was being stripped alive.
His eyes lingered on my unrestrained breasts—hello, didn’t everyone sleep braless?—until the other man beside him cleared his throat.
Detective Alto looked away from my tits to the man that’d done the throat clearing.
“This is Detective Green. We’re here to ask you about your whereabouts on the day of Amon’s trial,” Detective Alto growled.
I shivered under his intense gaze, then looked over at the other detective, who was glaring at his partner.
“We were here,” I said quietly, fearfully. “We already told you that. When the trial was over that day, we left together and came straight here.”
Then the detectives commenced asking me every question under the sun.
Had I seen my brother lately? No. Would I mind coming down to the station and answering a few questions? Yes. It’s the middle of the night. Had either of us heard about a commotion at the river today? No.
Then started the back-and-forth questioning about our relationship.
“Are you still seeing Mimi?” Detective Alto looked contemplative.
I wanted to throat punch him.
“We are on the verge of breakup,” Bram lied. “Ever since the time I was held… I… she… I can’t deal with her overprotectiveness anymore. And her obvious abhorrence of Dory has put me in a position where I’m having to choose. So I’m choosing Dory.”
“Dory,” Detective Alto drawled. “Not Dorcas?”
“I can’t stand that name,” I blurted out. “Amon used to taunt me with it… I can’t stand hearing it anymore.”
And that was the one hundred percent truth.
I hated being called Dorcas.
Hearing Bram call me Dory felt like a weight had been lifted off of my chest.
“Okay,” Alto snorted as if he couldn’t quite comprehend that a name could have any negative effects on a person.
But, oh, could it.
I would know.
“Detective,” Detective Green growled, “I think that we’ve established an alibi for both of them.”
“What’s going on?” Bram asked as if he didn’t already know the answer to the question.
Detective Alto started to say something, but Detective Green spoke over him.
“Amon, your brother, was found in the river this morning. He has a knife wound to the chest. We believe he was murdered,” Detective Green explained.
So did that mean that my knife wound won? That I killed him?
I’d seen Bram punch him in the throat, and likely that’d affected him greatly. But if they weren’t looking past the knife wound…
“That’s…” I hesitated, unsure what to say.
“I think the word you’re looking for is horrible,” Detective Alto snapped.
I looked at him for a few long seconds before saying, “Detective, Amon has—had—done nothing but torture me my entire life. He killed those two girls—girls that were my friends. He almost killed Bram. And I’m fairly sure he killed my parents and then my foster parents when I was younger. So, though you think it’s ‘horrible,’ I certainly do not. I feel like karma is a bitch.”
I could see that Detective Green agreed with me. It was Detective Alto who didn’t.
But before he could say anything more, Bram put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his naked chest.
One that I’d been dreaming about since I’d seen it last.
Mimi’s chest. That chest belonged to Mimi. You can’t think about that chest.
It didn’t matter.
No matter how many times I told myself to control myself when it came to Bram, the more my body and my mind screamed that I was nuts.
“We’re sorry to bother you so late.” There was a long pause as Detective Green considered us for a moment. “Do you think that Mimi could’ve done that?”
My mouth fell open, and Bram’s body tensed.
“No!” I blurted. “Mimi is a kindhearted person. Plus, she’s all of a hundred and thirty pounds. Do you honestly think she could lift someone my brother’s size?”
Detective Green shrugged. “She could’ve had help.”
“Mimi didn’t do it,” Bram promised. “She’s been staying with her dad at the racetrack in town. Most likely, if she needs an alibi, she’ll have one. She’s been helping run that place.”
Racetrack in town? Mimi’s family owned that?
I shivered.
That racetrack was cool and all, but it was a dirt track. Dirt tracks unequivocally equaled dirt.
And I didn’t do dirt.
Not even after all these years could I stand to be dirty.
One of my teachers from when I took psych last year called the inability to deal with dirt a trauma response when I gave her a ‘hypothetical’ situation during class.
Needless to say, dirt and I didn’t get along too well.
When I got dirty, I freaked out. And that wasn’t a good thing.