I tiptoed toward the body just as Alistair and Avery made their way back to where we were standing, and I kicked the body over to its back. Red hair flopped off to the side, and I was staring down at the unmistakable face of Alicia Loche, Nathan’s mother, with a bullet hole straight through her forehead.
“Oh my god,” Avery whined, ducking behind Alistair. I ducked down near Alicia, and Avery yelped. “Ah! How are you being so close?”
“Not the first dead body I’ve been around,” I replied.
“Wait, what?” Avery yelped.
I looked up at her. “Yeah, we’re gonna have a lot to talk about when this is all over.” I sniffed the air. “It doesn’t smell like it’s decomposing yet, so this was recent.”
“I’m gonna be sick again,” Sicily grumbled from behind me.
I stood back up. “Nathan’s in trouble.”
“How do you figure?” Alistair asked. “Better question, why do you care?”
“You said so yourself. It shocked all of you when Nathan raped me, right?” I asked.
“Nathan raped you?” Sicily asked. “Oh, man. Did Deon murder him?”
“He tried,” I said. “Look. We all know Nathan. He’s an asshole, and a brat, and a tool, but he’s not a rapist. He snapped. Is he my favorite person in the world? No, but he’s…” I rolled my eyes. “He’s our king. We promised to have each other’s backs. I have a feeling Connor did this, and he could kill Nathan too.”
Alistair nodded. “I can’t stand that fucker, but you’re right. I can’t just stand by, knowing he could die.”
“I don’t know how to find him, though,” I said. “Deon’s still locked up, and we need to get to him before they violate his parole.” I looked at Sicily. “Do you really have proof he didn’t do it?”
Sicily reached into his pocket, pulled out a jump drive, and held it up. “I could get expelled, but this is the footage from the bug you wanted me to put in Miss Abrams’s office. It was only connected for a few minutes, but it got almost all of Deon and Miss Abrams’s interaction, from flip out to jumping out the window. There’s a perfect angle, and you can see Deon just trying to stop her.”
Relief washed through me. “Okay. That takes priority. Let’s go get Deon, and then we can figure out how we’re going to track Nathan down and get to him before his dad does.”
33
Deon
After less than four fucking months out, I was back in police custody. Great. The only real hope I had was to pray that whatever Sicily had in his back pocket was enough to get me out before I could be pinged for violating my parole. Whether or not I actually did push Miss Abrams out that window, if my parole officer thought I was mixed up in something I shouldn’t have been doing, the judge could terminate my parole simply because he felt like it. And I didn’t want to go back to prison, not just for the obvious reasons, but because Venom would kill me if he saw my face back there again.
If they did violate me, I hoped they’d send me somewhere else. Otherwise, getting arrested again was going to be the least of my problems.
After a relatively short haul laced with rough handling, I was sitting in a police interrogation room. Pictures of Miss Abrams’s dead body had been forgotten on the table in front of me, along with a cup of water. Cops—predictable, if not a bit boring. I didn’t look down at the pictures and didn’t touch the cup of water. If they were watching me for signs of anything, they were going to get fucking bored before they got anything they could use.
After about five minutes, the door to the interrogation room opened. “Hello, Mr. Keane. I’m Dete—”
“I want a lawyer,” I said, cutting the detective off to do so.
He stopped short in his tracks and let out a sigh of frustration. I might be young, and perhaps lawyering up before even talking to someone looked guilty, but I wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for someone’s willingness to believe a story without proof. Speaking to a detective was only going to run me the risk of getting myself even more tangled up, and I wasn’t that dumb.
“I can certainly get you a lawyer, Mr. Keane, but I’m sure you know, I can’t help you, if you don’t talk to me. If you don’t tell me your story now, you may never have a chance to tell it.” I held up a hand and pointed at the chair across from me. The detective, a stout, balding man with glasses, walked over and sat down in the chair. He collected the pictures of Miss Abrams and put them away in the folder he’d brought with him, then looked across the table at me. “Now then, why don’t you just start from the beginning?”
“Okay,” I said, leaning in. The detective leaned back to meet me. I looked him straight in his beady eyes and hissed, “I. Want. A. Lawyer.”
The detective gritted his teeth, and his nostrils flared. “Suit yourself.” He scooted back from the table with a loud screech and stormed out of the room, ruminating under his breath.
A few minutes later, a cop came into the interrogation room, placed a set of handcuffs on me, and walked me down to the station’s holding cell. There was one other guy that looked like he was wasted off his ass, so I found a spot as far away from him as possible and sat to wait.
Cherri, my mom, and even Nathan swirled around my brain. We all had one common denominator, Connor Loche. I still didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, but I felt like I was getting close. As much as I hated to think it, I kind of wished I could talk to Nathan. That poor kid probably never stood a chance. When I chose to
