Page 18 of Killer Clone

In that moment, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.

A lawyer.

The entire experience changed me. From then on, my efforts were focused on this one, singular goal. And two hundred and fifty grand would go a long way to making that happen.

Swoosh.

8

Hagen had met a thousand guys like Patrick Marrion’s roommate. Or at least, it felt like that.

In the three years he’d spent as an officer with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, barely a week went by without arresting at least one college kid for possession, public drunkenness, driving while intoxicated, minor in possession, or even violent behavior.

He’d haul them in. They’d call their dads, and within half an hour, a lawyer with the same tailor his father used would slide a briefcase onto the table of the interrogation room. He’d explain why keeping the kid for a second longer would end Hagen’s career and produce a lawsuit big enough to bankrupt the police department.

Jake Tripp was sprawled across his bed. A half-eaten burrito rested on a plate by his pillow. He only needed to turn his head to grab a bite hands-free. But that would’ve meant taking his eyes off the screen of his Nintendo Switch.

He’d been holding the device when he’d shouted to Hagen that the door was open. Even when they’d flashed their badgesand told him they wanted to ask him questions about his deceased roommate, he neither sat up nor put the device down.

The Switch beeped. Tripp made a small fist-bump.

They’d only been in the room for about a minute, but Hagen’s anger at this punk was rising almost to a breaking point.

The way Ander rested a shoulder against the door of the dorm room suggested he, too, was in familiar territory. Ander hadn’t been a cop. But his graduate degree meant he’d spent plenty of time on college campuses and far too many evenings in student dormitories.

A CTSU Pelicans pennant was pinned to the wall above his bed. Two dirty t-shirts, three unmatched socks, a sweater, a pair of jeans with the boxers still inside, and three pairs of expensive-looking sneakers were scattered around the floor. The air smelled of weed and unwashed clothes.

The bed on Patrick’s side of the room had been made. Sloppily, so that the top of the blanket was crooked, and the pillowcase surely needed to be changed, but at least it had been made. There were no clothes on the floor, and the books on the bedside cabinet made a neat pile. Jake Tripp’s bedside cabinet held two empty cans of Red Bull and a packet of rolling papers.

Another beep bleated from Tipp’s game console like an annoying sheep. He winced and jammed a button on his device. Hagen had a strong urge to take the machine from his hand and hurl it through the window.

Instead, he reminded himself to breathe. “So, Jake, what can you tell me about Patrick?”

His gaze didn’t leave the screen as he shrugged. “Not much. We weren’t friends or nothing. What do you want to know?”

“You know what he was studying?”

Tripp shrugged again. The move seemed to be his standard response. Teachers must’ve found it infuriating.

“Seriously? You’ve been his roommate for…what? Three months now? And he didn’t tell you what he was studying? You didn’t think to ask?”

Jake shrugged a third time.

Ander pushed into the room. He stood on Tripp’s dirty clothes. “Hello? Can you hear me? Can you put that down, please?”

Once again, Tripp didn’t answer. Something on the screen had caught his attention and held it.

Ander reached over the bed and yanked the Switch out of Tripp’s hands. “That’s more than enough of this.”

Hagen pleaded silently for Ander to open the eighth-floor window and send the thing flying over the sidewalk to smash into the middle of the street.

Tripp finally met their eyes.

Hagen got up into the punk’s face. “We’re not playing around here, Jake. This is a murder investigation. If you want this thing back, you’d better focus and answer our questions. Otherwise, we’ll be having this conversation in a more official setting.”

Tripp glared but didn’t move. “This is bullshit, man.”

“You want to know bullshit? Your roommate is dead, and you don’t seem to give two fucks about it. You know what that looks like to us? Looks like maybe you didn’t like your roommate. Looks like maybe you might have reason to hurt your roommate. Do you want us to believe that you would hurt yourmurderedroommate?”

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