Page 3 of Absolution
“I won’t tolerate this nonsense any longer,” Dad growls. “Retract your statement, and then you’re coming home.”
I cross my arms over my chest and fix them with a heartless glower.
“You can’t control me any longer. There’s nothing you can do to stop this. In a few hours, the news will break that you raised a murderer, and the Graham name will be dragged through themud. You deserve so much worse, but I’ll do everything in my power to destroy your precious reputation. It’s the only thing you’ve ever cared about, and I will make sure you never recover from this.”
My mother buries her face in her hand, and my father’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water.
My lips curve in my cruelest smile.
“You wanted me to be part of the family unit, didn’t you?” I drawl. “You’re finally getting your wish. We all go down together.”
2
ABIGAIL
The man I love is a murderer.
Dane killed Stephen Lansing to save me. And now, he’s turned himself in to the police in order to spare me from being arrested.
I should feel safer with him in handcuffs—he’s the psychopath who stalked and kidnapped me, and he’s a cold-blooded killer. I saw it in his icy stare when he told the cops that he’s responsible for Stephen’s death.
But now that he’s been taken to the police station, cold settles over me. I hug my arms to my chest, as though I can hold myself together when I’m threatening to fall apart.
“Do you have tea?” the cop who arrested Dane asks.
Her partner is waiting in the corridor outside the penthouse, and two other officers have already left with Dane in cuffs. It took a while for them to call in backup to take him away, so it’s probably been almost an hour since the awful scene started to unfold.
An hour since I discovered that Dane truly is capable of murder.
If I’m being honest with myself, I’ve suspected it before. Once he kidnapped me, I wasn’t sure what he might do in order to possess me completely.
“There must be tea here,” the woman, Officer Singh, says when I don’t answer right away.
She’s speaking to me in a calm, almost gentle tone. As though she actually cares about my mental well-being.
Before, she’d been abrupt and coolly professional.
That was when she thought I was the killer. Now, she’s all warmth and concern.
I’m not convinced. She wants me to relax around her so that I’ll give evidence against Dane.
My teeth worry at my lower lip as she steps into the open-plan kitchen and finds tea in the cupboard. This rented penthouse is well stocked, so I’m not surprised that she easily finds what she’s looking for.
In the few minutes it takes her to boil the kettle, I take several deep breaths and struggle to untangle my thoughts.
“How do you take it?” she asks, as though she’s my gracious host.
I don’t drink tea unless it’s iced and has heaps of sugar, but I’m chilled to the bone, so I decide that a hot drink is a good idea.
“Lots of milk and three sugars, please,” I request.
She tries and fails to hide a grimace.
I shake my head slightly to clear it. If she wants to be friendly, I need to keep things cordial. An adversarial tone won’t get me out of this.
Exchanging verbal barbs won’t save Dane.
It’s an automatic thought, and I try to ignore it. I’m not at all certain that Dane should be freed from police custody.
