Page 19 of Violet Spark
I jerked a little bit in surprise. Oh. Right. Brayden had said he’d left something behind here right before the bog gnomes jumped me. It was all on the video.
“I don’t know that either. Look, the gloves could’veseriouslyhurt me or my mom, and they totally singed my cat, who is like basicallyfamilyand I would’ve been devastated—de-va-stated—if anything had happened to him.” I dredged up a sad little sniff.
At the moment, I did love Gwumpki. Bless his ugly ratty tail scorched into the shape of multiple dollar signs.
BSG didn’t look the least bit sorry. “I need a complete report, Ms. Taylor. And Brayden Price was one of the other parties in the video. What did he leave behind here?”
Fine. “I don’t know what to tell you. He left nothing behind that I found. And I looked.”
“He works in the technology sector.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Did he have access to the gloves?”
Oh, now I could see where this was going. Mr. Plausible Deniability here was going to claim that Brayden messed with my gloves and that was why they malfunctioned…and therefore the evil glove corp was not going to pay up.
“Look, Mr…Whoever…” Shoot, I needed to get his name. “No, Brayden did not go anywherenearmy gloves. He was never anywhere near my bedroom.” Mixed feelings there. “I have substantial damages to my home, mybelovedchildhood pet is injured and was in distress all night, not to mentionmytrauma”—ooh, trauma, good word—“and suffering”—another good word—“and my hand still hurts like a bitch. And you better believe I’m going to tellallmy followers online—and they are growing fast after my epic live stream—about what happened and that your gloveskilledmy EldWitch.”
“You were injured?”
“Not just injured.Killed. Took me two years—”
“I meantyou, Ms. Taylor. Wereyouinjured?”
“Oh. Um.” Ireallywanted to blame my slashed hand on the glove. It would’ve made my story—my case—so much better. But ugh. “The glove exacerbated a cut I already had.”
“May I see the injury?”
When he shoved up those fancy sunglasses to the top of his cropped dark hair to stare at me, a little chill zinged down my spine. He might only be a few years older than me, but there was something in his eyes that hinted at real life experience. I showed him the back of my hand. X marked the spot. “It’s still really angry from the glove exploding on it. Like, I can barely stand the burn. Ouch.”
He looked at my hand for a long moment then took a picture with his mobile. It was a very sleek, fancy phone, like everything else about him.
“The tissue of your wound has a purple stain.”
“I work with freezie mix all day.”
“The mix might also explain why it burns.”
“Watch the video again, and then say that to my face.”
But he was ignoring me while he zoomed in on the image of my hand on his phone. “This line here looks like a cat scratch.”
“Well, like I said, my cat was injured in the explosion, and in his…distress…scratched me.”
“Have you sought medical care?”
“No. I couldn’t. I was sick yesterday, and then I had to work today.”
“You were sick.”
I’djustsaid so. Was he listening to me at all? “Food poisoning.”
“And you have recovered?”
“Well, I haven’t puked on you yet, so yeah, I guess.”
He took a deep breath. “Ms. Taylor,” he said through gritted teeth, as if I was the one being difficult. “I need to compile a complete report of everything remotely pertaining to the incident. If you could bear with me, and answer my questions in full, I can process this report that much more quickly.”
