Page 124 of The System

“Hell, no. Not yet, anyway.” Carina shrugged.

“Yeah, well, fuck them,” Theo retorted. “I had plenty of friends, and girls were all over me.”

“Your foster mother actually told me that you were always trying to sit next to Marin at the dinner table, and it was Marin who would try to get away from you.”

“That’s bullshit! And what the hell am I still doing here? Why are you bringing this shit up?”

“Hold on to him, Dylan,” Kieran said softly.

Carina squeezed her hand.

“I’m sorry,” Dylan said. “I know this is uncomfortable. But the defense attorney will be worse than me.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Do you want to go? I’d understand.”

“Good. Give him an out,” Kevin said.

“Why? We don’t want that,” Kieran added.

“It’s good for us if she offers. We don’t want him to take it,” Carina replied.

“No, I’m fine. How long is this going to take, though, because I’ve got to go soon.”

“Not long,” Dylan said, closing the folder she wasn’t really using for anything. “So, your girlfriend was stabbed.”

“Yeah. We weren’t together that long, though.”

“You weren’t in love with her or anything?”

“The fuck? No,” he stated as if it should have been obvious. “She put out and was good to look at. She lived at a shelter, so we had to meet in weird places because I was still at the foster house.”

“Weird places like where?” Dylan asked.

“Like alleys. Warehouses. Empty buildings and stuff. She’d blow me sometimes when I was on my way home from school, so we needed a little privacy.”

“Gross,” Carina said.

“So, you knew the warehouse where she was found? You’d been there before?”

“Yeah, a bunch of times. That’s where we’d fuck sometimes. Inside of it and outside. She didn’t care.”

“He just put himself at the crime scene,” Kevin noted.

“Were you there the day she was killed?” Dylan asked.

“I didn’t find her body, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Were you with her at all that day? I’d heard before that she went missing from the shelter, but you were her boyfriend, so you knew where she was, right?”

“Yeah, I knew.”

“She caught him in a lie,” Carina said and shook her head. “She’s really good at this.”

“And you saw her that day? She probably let you do whatever you wanted to her, right? I mean… I’m sure you were good.”

“Yeah, we fucked. She asked me for another round, but I had to go.”

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