Page 47 of Her Wicked Knights
"I guess he's tired of sharing her mouth with you." I shrug.
"How is the head, by the way? With that forked tongue of hers?"
I want to laugh, because it was a pretty fucking funny quip, but I don't have it in me right now.
"She had scratches all down her back, and she was really weird about them."
"Scratches?" Rev asks, and I decide I must be missing something, cause I'm not sure how that's relevant.
"All over. I thought maybe Jake was throwing her around or something, you know. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
He's right about his assessment of Mayor North's acrid personality. But I can't imagine Jake being violent. He's too much of a pussy. Then again, you've got to be a little bitch to hit a woman... even if that woman is Audrey Graves.
"And?"
"I broke into his house a few days later and woke him up with my knife against his balls." Colton says calmly, as if he's just saying he went out and collected the mail. "I warned him if he ever fucking hurt a girl again, I'd cut them off. And I warned him if he ever hurt Marley, I'd cover him in honey and leave him in the woods for nature to take care of him."
"Fuck, Colt," Rev shakes his head. "What does this have to do with Jenny?"
"He cried." Colton grins, just the slightest bit, as he no doubt remembers having Jake at his mercy. "He fucking sobbed. Said he didn't want to do it, that he was sorry, that he'd never do anything like that again, but Audrey made him do it."
"Audrey made him... hurt her?"
"Maybe." Colton shrugs. "Or Audrey made him kill Jenny."
I roll my eyes, because we're back to square one here. "And why would Audrey make him do that?"
Colton rubs the bridge of his nose, and I notice how tense he is. "I don't know. I think it's got something to do with Whit, though."
Rev's eyes find mine, and suddenly what Colton's saying doesn't sound all that insane after all.
"He does have cult leader vibes." Rev says, almost like he's thinking out loud.
"Marley said her dad wouldn't talk about the case after that first night, but she did say he was closing in on someone. He said they were just waiting on a DNA analysis, but she's been so reclusive lately because her dad asked her not to go out with anyone. Not Jake, not Audrey, not even us."
"That's why she's been such a homebody the last few months?" I ask. I had noticed how he would pick her up from work after her closing shifts, and how he seemed to sit in his cruiser in the driveway a little longer each night when he came home, like he was keeping an eye out for something. I assumed it was because of the night that Colton broke into his house and then mine before narrowly being caught. But what if it's because he suspected someone close to Marley of being responsible for Jenny's murder?
"Okay." Rev says. "So, what do we do with this information? Do we give it to the police? Do we confront Audrey and Jake?"
"Fuck no." Colton snorts. "The Lavignes are dead because he was suspicious of them."
"Allegedly, according to you." The truth is, we don't know what happened. All the deputies said when they informed us was that they'd been shot, and shootings in America are unfortunately rampant.
"We can't let them know we know unless you want to be next." Colton reasons.
"Your theory makes sense..." I say cautiously. "Except, why would they kill the sheriff if they had the killer's DNA? Whenit comes back, wouldn't they be able to link it to them and put them away for three murders? And why kill Ginny? You really think the sheriff was telling his wife his suspicions as pillow talk at night?"
"They're dumb." Colton reasons. "Maybe they didn't think that far into it."
"Or maybe they have an in with the sheriff’s department. Maybe they got someone to lose their DNA?"
"Or maybe they know they aren't in the system." I say slowly. After all, it's not like everybody's DNA gets recorded at birth. Most people don't ever get entered into the system, unless they commit a crime or submit it to some sort of seedy online genealogy company.
Rev points at me, and Colton nods. "If they don't think the DNA will come back with a match to them, then nobody has any reason to look at them as suspects, or to ask for their compliance to submit a sample."
I hate to think that Jake or Audrey could be responsible for Jenny's murder, let alone for Marley's parents. But I also can't deny, he's made some great points.
"So, again, what do we do?"
