Page 68 of Looking Grimm

“I didn’t know you had an alibi,” Holland said.

“You didn’t ask.” I shrugged one shoulder, then hissed as pain stabbed sharp.

Despite my attempted dismissal, Holland pressed, “Doyou have an alibi?”

Or was I willing to use the one Nash offered, regardless of the consequences?

I chewed my lip, clicking my lip ring against my teeth.

“No.”

She hummed again.

I lay still. Mostly because my limbs felt like they’d been cast in concrete but also because the cold metal ring around my neck was the nearest thing to a noose, and I couldn’t shake the fear of it choking the life out of me.

The investigator appeared deep in thought until she surfaced at last to say, “That scene at the bar where we found you. The fire? The bodies? What was all that?”

“I was cleaning house,” I replied. “Mine, not yours.”

“Funny you need to specify.”

Her continued scrutiny made me wonder what they’d walked in on. The last thing I remembered before losing consciousness was being in Nash’s arms, carefully held. If the investigators had pulled up to that, greeted by Nash insisting they save my sorry ass, it shot holes in my “just a bartender” excuse.

“Can I see him?” The question slipped out unchecked, and the fact that Holland didn’t need to ask who I meant implied they had indeed, found Nash and I in our sorry state.

All the scorn left Holland’s face, and she looked almost sympathetic. “Fitch, I don’t think you’re in any position to be asking for favors.”

I nodded. It was stupid to ask, and even worse to tip my cards like that. Grimm already knew that Nash was a pawn to be played against me. I didn’t need the Capitol knowing it, too.

Speaking of stupid questions, I had another that wouldn’t allow itself to go unasked.

“What’s gonna happen to me?”

Holland pushed off the footboard and turned away, resuming her circuit around the room. “It takes at least a week to organize a trial, so you’ll be sent to Thorngate for holding till then.”

I twisted my wrists in the chaffing handcuffs. “Hope I get a decent cellmate.”

The memory of Clyde hunched over his desk, doodling me in any one of a dozen compromising positions, tempted me to smile.

In contrast, Holland showed no hint of good humor. “No cellmates this time, Fitch,” she replied succinctly.

“Solitary?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And then?”

She shot me a sideways glance, and an echo of her earlier sympathy returned. “Do you really want me to say it?”

Would it do any good to plead my case one last time? Would it feel better to go to my trial and execution with atleast one person believing I’d tried to do the right thing? Granted, my version of the right thing involved a fair amount of murder. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that Holland would overlook it as long as I was using my powers for her version of good. But she wasn’t her father. She wasn’t even Briggs, who’d agreed to look the other way and let me do what I did best. In hindsight, I hadn’t done anything very well.

A lung-swelling breath fled me, and I shook my head.

Holland had stopped moving again, this time staring at the drawn blinds over the window as if she could see through them.

She stood so long, her arms crossed and her back to me, that I wondered aloud, “Why are you still here, Investigator?”

Her head tipped my way.

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