Page 6 of Royal
There were some wounds that’d never heal for her.
Trevon had turned eighteen about a week ago, so we hadn’t needed his mom’s consent to question him. We’d read him his rights, and he’d declined having attorney representation for the interview. He was in his senior year of high school. He should’ve been preparing for his prom instead of preparing for a murder trial.
“Go ahead, Mrs. Mills,” Ruby responded.
Mrs. Mills sat down with Trevon and convinced him to meet with a public defender before signing his statement, so there wasn’t much else we could do. In the meantime, he was under police custody. It was a shitty situation all around.
By the time I got home, it was nearly midnight. Nothing new. As lead detective, I worked long hours, and days off were more like anon-callthing.
I loved my job, though. I’d worked damn hard to be where I was, had had to prove myself to all the veteran cops when I’d first joined the police force. My dedication paid off, and I worked my way up the ladder before eventually being promoted.
When I became a detective at twenty-seven, I’d been the youngest in the history of the department to do so. At thirty, I was still young, but I’d earned the men’s—and women’s—respect.
I grabbed the box of leftover sausage pizza from the day before. Too tired and hungry to wait for it to heat in the microwave, I took it into the living room, plopped my ass on the couch, and ate it cold.
Since I worked unpredictable hours, I recorded the evening news and watched it when I got home every day. Partly to keep up to date with current events…but mostly so I could see him.
After going into my recordings and clicking on today’s news, I let it play. Even while stuffing my face with pizza, I knew no amount of anything would ever fill the emptiness inside me. Not as I stared into the face of the one that got away.
Well. No. The one Ipushedaway.
Royal had changed a lot in the past eight years. So had I. Even though he sported a nice suit now instead of the holey jeans he used to wear all the time in school, his smile hadn’t changed one bit. A smile that reflected in his blue eyes. His hair was shorter, more in a crew cut, but it suited him well.
“Good evening. I’m Royal Henderson, and you’re watching the evening news,” he said in a smooth, sexy voice before smiling into the camera.
The other news anchor, Beth, was a blonde chick with a plunging neckline and a whispery voice that got on my nerves.
Royal talked about a road that was being expanded in the downtown area.
Declan Price, one of the hottest actors in Hollywood, had filmed a chick flick in our town, and people had flocked to Addersfield following the release. Many scenes of the movie had been filmed in a coffee shop down on Main Street, and it was constantly being swarmed by fangirls. With all the new traffic, more roads were needed. The extra money had allowed for other projects, as well, like construction on the King Opera House that had been in dire need of fixing for a while.
I ate more pizza, trying and failing to fill the void.
I hated myself for what I’d done to Royal, dumping him at that party right before breaking his heart. Me being drunk hadn’t helped any. I’d done something stupid.
He’d refused to talk to me for days after that. Not that I’d tried hard to reach out to him and make amends. I’d been too ashamed. When we finally talked, it’d been for him to tell me he never wanted to see me again. I hadn’t argued or tried to make excuses. He deserved way better than me.
Not getting into that tonight.
That line of thinking wouldn’t do me any good, and I was too exhausted.
“No updates yet on the Trevon Mills case,” Royal said, drawing my attention back to the TV. “Some say it’s a classic case of self-defense, but there’s no word yet on whether the state will prosecute the eighteen year old.”
I squared my jaw when a photo of Trevon appeared on the screen.
It wasn’t the kind of attention he should’ve been getting at that age. Even if he wasn’t prosecuted, the incident would follow him for the rest of his life. I wholeheartedly believed his story. The crime scene had backed it up, as well. I hated how the news was blasting it around. But then again, that was their job. Even if it sucked.
My phone rang.
“Hey, Aunt Abby,” I answered, standing from the couch. I turned off the TV and walked to my room. “It’s late. What are you doing up?”
“Had a bad dream,” she said, sounding frazzled. “I wanted to call and see how you were.”
Aunt Abby had taken me in when I was sixteen. My dad had been an alcoholic, and when he hadn’t been knocking me around, he’d been at the bar, drinking himself into a stupor. One night, he’d picked a fight with the wrong guy and had ended up with a broken beer bottle slashed across his throat.
“I’m fine.” I kicked off my shoes, tugged off my belt, and held the phone between my shoulder and ear as I unbuttoned my shirt. “What did you dream?”
Ever since I could remember, Aunt Abby had been…different. She was into all that mystical stuff and said she couldseethings sometimes. In my profession, we didn’t believe in all that, but there’d been a few times when she had a dream about a case that ended up being a bit too coincidental.
