I was one of the last ones to go.
Keene was dead last.
When I came out, I was overly frustrated and knew that this investigation wasn’t going to go our way.
Simi came out of the room almost at the same time as I did, her having to deal with a deputy and not the sheriff. Which I thought might be a good thing because at least she didn’t look like she wanted to commit murder like me.
Not that I had anything against killing when it was deserved.
I’d done a lot of it in my time in the Navy. Did some things I wasn’t too proud of, too.
But ultimately, the things I’d done, I’d done to bad, bad people.
And Bright… was a bad person. He may be pretending to be a good one, but it was overly obvious to me, after ten minutes of being in a room with him, that he was going to do something I wasn’t going to like.
“Let me go talk to the others,” the lawyer that’d been with me said. It was one Keene had brought in. I’d gotten a junior partner while the senior partner that’d come in had gone in with the sisters.
Needless to say, the lawyer, Stratt, had suggested that I not say anything to Bright at all. So for the last thirty minutes after giving my statement of “I wasn’t here and here’s my alibi,” Bright had made up more and more worrisome stories about what happened and why.
Needless to say, his first eight suspects were us. And Simi was the main one.
“Everything go okay?” I asked her as she got closer.
She looked at the lawyer, then at Bright, who appeared at the door, and said, “I’ll tell you later.”
So not all right. But likely not as bad as my experience.
At least it was Keene and me that had to deal with Bright.
Stratt and Mac—the other lawyer—came out to the waiting area and said, “Y’all are free to go.”
“I didn’t release them,” Bright grumbled.
“The deputy did,” Mac, the lead lawyer, replied. “Are you contradicting his words?”
Bright sighed. “Don’t leave town.”
“My clients leave town in four days,” Mac said. “Which you know. They have no choice and have seven booked-out shows. They’ll lose thousands and thousands of dollars, which I’ll then sue you for if they miss it. They can leave, or they can stay, but that decision is up to you and your department and whether or not you think you can afford it or not.”
“You can leave,” he amended quickly. “But make sure they stay in touch.”
“They’re very hard to hide,” he said. “You can see where they’re going to be for the next eight weeks if you look at their schedule online. And, like I told you before, since the murder happened in Mississippi, this is now a federal matter since it crossed state lines.”
I didn’t know if that was true or not, but the lawyer sure sounded confident, so I didn’t contradict him in any way.
We chose to leave while we still could.
Once back in the van, we drove away before the doors had finished swinging closed on the station.
We were half a mile away before Val said, “Why the fuck are you here?”
I assumed she was talking to me.
Turning to her, I was just about to explain when Simi cut in.
“He’s here because I invited him to come cook,” Simi snarled. “Y’all add people and workers all the time without questioning me and them, so maybe you could extend the courtesy to us?”
Val held up her hands. “I wasn’t necessarily questioning you hiring him, Sim. I was questioning how he got here at such a convenient time to have our backs, that’s all.”
Simi was still holding herself stiffly when she sighed and deflated.
“This is horrible,” she murmured. “Not only was it Mary, who was one of the people I’m closest to in the entire circus outside of family, but it was a shock to find her. I just…”
I wanted to reach back and wrap her in my arms.
I wanted to throw her onto the back of my bike and help her forget everyone and everything.
I wanted…
“It can’t be easy,” Zip—I’d finally put names to faces and voices while waiting in that waiting room all day. So there was one good thing to come out of today. “But is anyone else slightly worried about that sheriff?”
“My guess,” Keene said, “he’s not going to do shit about shit. As far as he’s concerned, he’s already found the murderer. Now, whether or not he pursues that, I don’t know. But I think it’s a very good thing that we won’t be in town for long.”
“That lawyer was talking about this being FBI business now. Is that true?” Tony asked.
“No,” Keene grumbled. “At least I don’t think so…” He paused as if he was trying to think about something. “I’ll call him. Get him out here. Maybe if he sees the mistreatment of the crime scene, he’ll be able to do something.”
With that, the drive to the circus was finished and we were pulling up in front of the side part of the circus next to all of the buses.
We all got out, and without more than a casual glance our way, all of the sisters and Keene left, leaving Simi and me all alone.
“Are you oka…” I hadn’t finished my sentence before she launched herself at me.
CHAPTER 10
Broken crayons still color.
-Words of wisdom
SIMI
I didn’t know what came over me.
All day as we’d sat in that police department, I’d done nothing but get more and more worked up as time went on.
Where his touches were casual, or supposed to be, for me, they were like fanning a fire inside of me.
A brush or a graze of his shoulder against mine. A nudge or a hand on my thigh to help me “calm down.”
All of those tiny little touches turned into an inferno of need.
At first, I’d thought he was doing it on purpose. But then I realized I was literally blowing all the small touches out of proportion. He was friendly.
I wasn’t sure what caused it. What I did know was that I was in need, and Coffey was about to fill that need.
My entire family filed onto the bus, leaving me standing there with Coffey.
He looked at me, obviously seeing the distress on my face and misreading it.
“Are you oka…” I launched myself at him midsentence.
He caught me with a whispered “ooof.”
His arms closed around me, pulling me in tight, and I used our closeness to plant my lips onto his.
He kissed me back so well, in fact, I was dizzy when he pulled away.
“Please tell me there’s somewhere we can go,” he groaned as he pulled away from the kiss.
I opened my mouth to tell him I had a bunk the size of a small twin-size bed when he bent down and hauled me up his body, his hand on my ass, and led me to the back of the bus.
While we’d been gone, the circus crew had gotten a lot of work done despite the people in their way. Almost every tent was up, and the one that was usually in the back behind our trailer where I practiced was up.
That may be where he was leading me, but then I was running my mouth down the length of his throat, tasting the saltiness of him.
“I only have a bunk,” I managed to tell him. “And it’s the bottom one. There’s no way that they won’t be bothering us.”