Page 135 of Shattered Veil

“Oh,” I muttered, for I hadn’t exactly been thinking about my cell. “Thanks.”

“Skylar,” Colton tried to speak to her, but his tone was too soft, and her head had ping-ponged from Liam to me, and then back to Liam. “Skylar? Skylar.” Her mirror eyes danced around the room, finally landed on Colton, and he instructed her, “Call 911.”

“We—” Luke paused, taking the headphone out of his ear to focus on us all rather than the conversation he had been plugged into. “No. We can get you out of here with us, there’s gotta be a blanket or something to wrap you up better here, we can—”

“Carry me out?” Colton suggested in a wry rasp.

Liam interjected, “His blood’s everywhere, Luke—”

“Have the whole gang…drop me at a hospital…with a gunshot wound?” Colton continued.

“Well, we can’t be here when an ambulance shows!” Luke bit back. “We will be interrogated. Immediately—”

“You’ll be interrogated eventually…if you drop me off, too.” Colton announced, “Y’all can’t…stay here.”

“I don’t,” Luke rapidly shook his head, “I don’t understand.”

Colton looked to Skylar. “You were kidnapped.”

She nodded, her voice small as she replied, “Yes.”

“No one else was here…but you and the cop,” he told her slowly—purposefully. “That is what you tell the police…no one else was here but you two…until I came in.”

Her wide, guileless eyes simply blinked in his direction, and she asked with a weak wave to us all, “They can’t be here?” Colton shook his head in a silent no, and she pressed, “Why?”

“If he’s with another cop…if someone else is dirty…they can’t be involved.”

Realization of what he was attempting to do sank in for me—presumably for all of us, as we stared at him, stunned—and I argued:

“You’ll be questioned.”

“And…unlike you…I have no connections…my DNA is everywhere here…I’ll be brought in…no matter what,” he explained his train of thought, and we all listened. “Skylar…do you understand why you’re here?”

Confusion written on her face, Skylar’s eyes watered as she said, “No…not—not really.”

“Look at me,” he spoke to her consolingly through deep breathing. “For this to work…you need to listen…you were kidnapped.”

Skylar kept her gaze on him, and she nodded, repeating his telling of the story for emergency services. “I was kidnapped.”

“You have no idea why he took you.”

“I—I don’t, I have no idea—”

“He did. Not. Tell you. Anything. About other…missing dancers.”

“Wha—” Skylar looked around the room once more. “Why, I—I don’t—”

Seemingly understanding, Cassie told her, “If there are other dirty cops, they can’t know that you know.”

Her palms flew to her eyes again. “I—um—okay, okay-okay—”

“We’re friends,” Colton spoke to her.

Skylar’s hands fell away, tears trailed down her cheeks, and she cried, “We are?”

“Close friends.” Colton nodded, and I even saw a sympathetic smile peek through his pain. “You went missing…and I noticed…I came to find you.”

“Y-you came to find me.”

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