Page 122 of Obsession

“No, it’s not, but I’ll answer honestly if you give me an honest answer in return.”

He looked at me intently for a few seconds and then nodded.

“Where were you today? Because I’m not buying all this video game bullshit, not even the scratch Jay supposedly gave you.”

His eyes narrowed and he sighed.

“I can’t answer that without dragging you too deep into a world I don’t want you in, Katherine. I’m afraid that’s the only honesty I can offer you.”

I blinked a few times.

“So, you were lying?”

“Yes.”

“But at the same time, you can’t tell me where you’ve really been.”

He nodded.

He said nothing and a lot at the same time. I tried not to think about what I’d learned from the detective, about the subtle details he’d told me about Harris’s life, and about how everything was starting to come together in my head.

“Are you alone in… whatever this is?”

His lips curled into a thin line, a sign that I’d crossed a line, and it was my turn to answer his question.

“No.”

I accepted that was all I was going to get and ran my fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes as I searched for my words.

“No, I don’t think you’re to blame for Tristan’s death, even if I don’t like how I came to that conclusion. I thought if you were really that crazy, you’d have killed Zac first.”

“I’d have killed Joshua first.”

My gaze traveled to him.

“Then Zac,” he continued as if we were talking about something completely mundane, not names on a death list.

I shook my head, exhausted.

“The whole Tristan thing was so trivial that even I forgot about it. He tried his luck but gave up as soon as I got involved. I didn’t even see him after I caught you. I had no reason to kill the guy.”

But have you ever had a reason to kill someone else?

I wanted to ask that, but I was afraid of the answer.

“And you’re not curious about who did it?”

“Are you?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“It just seems too convenient that it happened right after our incident. What would your alibi have been if it wasn’t for me, Harris?”

He ran his fingers through his hair and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I wouldn’t have had one. I was in the car, on my way to Redmond. Just me and Mike, a friend whose testimony would have meant nothing.”

I understood what he meant. His friends were in as deep as he was. I wondered how many of them there were and why exactly they were being hunted by the police. I doubted they were just dealing drugs on street corners. Were they on their own, or were they working for someone much more powerful?

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