“Hey.” The drunk man had sat up and looked over at me. “Do you have a dollar I could have?”
“Uh, no. We’re both in fucking jail,” I growled. He stood up and started ambling over toward me, and I sighed with frustration. “Dude, don’t come over here. I’m gonna have to kick your ass if you do.”
“Mackey!” A guard watching the cells screamed. “That guy just killed someone. Sit your ass down unless you want to be next.”
Glad to see I was being seen as innocent until proven guilty. Still, I glared over at the drunk guy, and he backed off, wandering back to his spot and attempting to sit, but missing and spilling onto the floor.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
Exhaustion started to set in within the next couple of hours. The night after Miss Abrams jumped, I didn’t get much sleep for obvious reasons, and it was probably past midnight now. I’d probably been awake for a solid twenty-four hours or more and had done everything in that past twenty-four hours that sapped a body of its energy—fighting, sex, lack of food.
Shit, maybe I needed to go back so Venom could kick my ass. What was I, an idiot?
A cop walked over and started to unlock the cell door. He slid it open, and I couldn’t resist the urge to say, “If you let him out like that, he’ll walk into oncoming traffic and die.”
“He’s not getting out,” the cop retorted. “You are.”
“What?”
“Unless you wanna stay,” he said.
“No.” I jumped up from where I was at, took quick strides past the drunk, and passed through the cell door. The cop shut and locked it behind me and then started to lead me back toward the front of the department. “Did someone come forward?” I asked.
“Yeah, with video evidence proving you didn’t do it,” the cop responded. He used his badge to open the door dividing the lock-up part of the station from the lobby, and when it slid aside, he motioned me out. “Get your stuff from the counter. Try to stay out of trouble, Mr. Keane.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I watched the door close behind me and then walked out into the lobby, where Cherri, Sicily, Alistair, and Avery were all waiting. “Hey.”
Cherri let out a sigh of relief and ran at me. “Hi!” She jumped up into my arms, and I hugged her tightly before setting her down and kissing her. She rubbed my face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I looked over at Sicily. “Hey, man.”
“Hey, buddy.” I released Cherri and walked over, and Sicily met me for a hug. “You didn’t think I was just gonna let you rot in here, did ya?” He stepped away from me and punched me in the gut. It was shock over the punch that sent me doubling over, not pain. “That was for being friends with benefits with my sister. I told you not to do it if you were just gonna go back to Cherri.”
“She was in on it,” I huffed. “She’s got someone else too.”
“Huh?” Sicily said. “Oh. Sorry.”
I shook my head. “That’s okay.”
I collected my stuff from the receptionist behind the front desk and then walked out into the cool air with Cherri’s hand gripped tightly in mine.
When we were at Cherri’s car, Avery turned around to face us. “Okay. We need to find Nathan next.”
“Find Nathan?” I asked. “Why? What happened?”
Cherri sighed. “We found Alicia Loche. Dead.”
“What?” I asked. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” Cherri said.
Things starting clicking into place. There were still some blank spaces, but Connor’s behavior was starting to form a narrative in my head. Nathan really didn’t have anything to do with Miss Abrams freaking out. That happened because of Connor. Why she brought up Nathan, specifically, I still wasn’t sure, but maybe Alicia was starting to figure it out and threatened to go to the police. She may have been an evil bitch to me, but she loved her son.
But if Connor was killing women who had dirt over him… “We have to get back to my mom,” I said, fear rocking through my body. “Right now!”
34
Cherri
My car was barely parked before Deon was hopping out of the passenger’s seat and rushing toward his front door. He raced up the walkway and opened his door. He threw it back, turned and looked around, and then rushed out of sight.
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Go,” Avery said from the back seat. “Ali and I will stay with the car.”
After leaving Nathan’s, Avery, Alistair, and I combined down to one car, which was good because I didn’t have to worry about locking up and could just run in after Deon. My heart was racing, already dreading finding Ciara lying on the ground the same way I found Alicia. That would hurt me significantly more, but I tried to keep it out of my mind as I passed through the door and into the living room. I turned to the left, and my stomach flipped over.
Deon had his arms wrapped around his mom, hugging her close, with her squeezing him back tightly, tears streaming down her face. “Oh, sweetheart.” She looked up at me and smiled. “You did it.”
I nodded. The relief was borderline sickening. “Yeah. I told you I would.”
She blinked a few tears away. “You did say that.” She released Deon, walked over to me, and pulled me into a hug. “Thank you.”
I hugged her back. “Please don’t thank me. This is all half my fault.”
She pulled back and put her hands on
