Page 19 of Cuddling Sucks in Coffins
He sat across from me, his face blank, completely ignoring me. Bastard. He dropped a notebook on the table with a loudwhack.
“Belle Harrison,” he said.
“Just Belle.” For crying out loud.
“Belle Harrison, what were you doing at the cemetery tonight?”
I took a long breath, staring at the black ink wedged underneath my fingernails from the fingerprints the police had taken. “My mom is buried there.”
“Natasha Harrison.”
I blanked myself of all emotion even though my insides were in a turmoil at the mere mention of her name. Her face before the cancer started eating her away flashed through my mind—her blue eyes even brighter than mine, her easy smile, her curly blonde hair that almost reached her waist. My whole world. In truth, I did visit her grave, just not during nightly patrols. Those parts of my life needed to be kept separate—emotions on one side and duty on the other. Though anymore, they were starting to blend quite a bit.
“Yet again, you chose to ignore the normal operating hours there. Do you think you’re special, Belle Harrison? That normal rules and laws don’t apply to you?” His dark eyes bore into mine, already judging even though he had no fucking clue.
I ground my teeth together. “No. I don’t think I’m special.” Burdened, more like.
“Did you know Tim McGrew, the cemetery grounds man?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “He was a good man.” Who hadn’t deserved to die, especially the way he had.
“When is the last time you saw him?”
The night he’d died, bent over double as he scooped up his disemboweled organs.
“I don’t remember.”
“His wife tells us that he often forgot his thermos at the cemetery and would go back to get it at night. The same time you frequent the cemetery. I’m sure you can see how this looks, especially since we found your cell phone near the crime scene, as well as your fingerprints. Do you admit to being there that night?”
How to answer that? Even if I could tell him the truth about why I often visited the graveyard, he’d never believe me. Humans forgot about vampires as soon as they looked away. And if I told him about Paul...well, then I would be asking to be strapped in a strait jacket and thrown in a padded cell. So I kept my gaze leveled with his, silent, maybe frustratingly so if the tick in his jaw and his thinning lips were any indication.
He sat back, the overhead lights searching every individual hair of his blond buzz cut. “Have you ever been inside the Appelt mausoleum?”
“Can’t say that I have,” I said. “I take it you’re a relation?”
“Yes. It had quite a bit of damage inside it the same night Tim was murdered. The casket my great grandfather was buried in was destroyed as was the stained glass window made by my own great grandmother’s hands.”
A pang of guilt shot through my chest. I’d only been trying to escape Paul. The destruction was an unfortunate side effect.
“Detective, I didn’t kill Tim. You have evidence that puts me at the scene of the crime, but I have no motive. Absolutely none.” All that time I’d spent falling asleep toLaw & Orderwas worth something, at least.
“If you didn’t kill Tim”—he leaned forward—“if, did you see anything that night?”
I sealed my mouth shut, once again answering his question with a blank stare.
He scowled. “Is there a reason you wear sharp pieces of wood in your hair, Belle Harrison?”
I didn’t anymore. The police had taken all my stakes, my seraph knife, and even my Kevlar vest. But that hadn’t taken the necklace with a silver and glass eye that Sawyer had given me for my birthday or my sass. “I’m sorry. Have I been arrested by the fashion police?”
He leveled me with an impressive hairy eyeball, a look he’d no doubt practiced in the mirror for several weeks to scare the pants off criminals. It might’ve worked on me if I were, in fact, a criminal. Or if I were wearing pants. Kidding. Iwaswearing pants. Just trying to keep my mind off of peeing them.
“It’s an accessory.” I shrugged. “That’s all.”
Honestly, couple the obvious stake in my hair with my being at the cemetery, and it was pretty easy to put two and two together, whether he knew of vampires’ existence or not. The stories of vamps and slayers went way back, even to humans as myths and legends. But he might very well have realized this and just thought I was cray-cray for showing up at the cemetery with a stake. In a lot of ways, he’d be right.
He stood, crossed to the door, and rapped on it. “I’m keeping you in custody.”
“So you’re charging me with Tim’s murder?” Somehow my voice didn’t crack as the walls seemed to close in, a prelude to what might be my permanent future.
