Page 134 of Fall Into Me

“You worked with Declan Thomas.”

His name made my blood roar through my ears. “He tried to kill my wife.”

“Miss Grey isn’t your wife.”

“Semantics.” I stared at him until the little vein in his forehead started to throb in a way that looked painfully uncomfortable. The two detectives looked at one another again in a way that made it very clear that of the three of us, I was the only one here that didn’t know what was going on. The only reason I could gather that they were still asking me these stupid as fuck questions was because they thought I wasinon whatever was going on.

“We don’t believe you killed Tinsley”

“Great. Can I go?”

“We actually know who did.”

“Can I go?” I asked again, this time through clenched teeth, my jaw aching from the effort.

“It was Declan Thomas.” He paused, watching me closely, as if gauging how I’d react to the blow he was about to land.

Then he dropped it.

“Your brother.”

* * *

“My what?”

Slowly, like every page he pulled out of the folder weighed a thousand tons, the detective pulled out images of me going all the way back to when I was seventeen.

There was me at my old high school, at the gym, at the house my mom and I never left. Then me, grown up and out of that house. Working at the bar, leaving the apartment building I’d shared with Ash, me with Cali when we first met.

It was clear with those early photos that he had no interest in Cali. She was cropped out, cut off, ignored.

But then newer photos began to appear.

Photos from Darling. Of Cali and me at home, and then just Cali. I was the one cut off, cropped out.

It was like this fucked-up part of my brain knew what was coming next. It didn’t surprise me the way it probably should have to see photos of Cali and me at the waterfall in Darling. Of her splayed out on the rock, back arched.

Photo after photo hit the table. Different angles, some fucking closer than the others. And then photos of us at home, through the open slats of the bedroom window.

My hand slammed down on the table, the sound reverberating off the walls as both detectives jumped, their chairs scraping back across the linoleum.

I slowly gathered the photos into a neat pile and flipped them upside down. “Look at these photos again, and it’ll be the last goddamn thing you ever fucking do.”

“That sounds like a threat, Mr. Mackenzie.”

“Take it however you’d like.” My voice was low, deadly. “I’m not leaving without these photos.”

“They’re evidence.”

“Evidence of what? That your suspect had a fucking fetish for my wife?”

“She’s not your—”

“I hope you finish that sentence.”

Detective Dozen, a name that sounded more like a joke with every passing second, closed his mouth with an audible snap.

“Your brother—”

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