Page 21 of Sinful Seduction
“Bullet got her heart?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Single bullet wound, through and through, damaged her spleen. The doctors might’ve been talking a whole otherlanguage when they spoke of her heart, but the general gist I picked up was that the stress of what happened last night was too much for her. They mentioned the transplant list.”
Surprised, my brows wing up.
“But they didn’t seem entirely pressed about it. Not like she’sonthe list, just that it exists, should they need it. I guess they’re keeping an eye on things for now.” He tilts his head back toward the door. “Her parents are in there.”
“Good.” I run my hand over my jaw, scratching the stubble I didn’t shave away when I woke up. “We called them early this morning and told them we’d come by to talk. Did you speak to them, Officer Clay? Did you tell them you were the one on scene?”
He shakes his head, quick and jerky movements that would make an old man’s jowls swing. “No, sir. I didn’t have clearance to tell them anything, so even when they had questions, I stuck with the party line.”
“The primary investigators will answer your questions as soon as they arrive,” Fletch recites, nodding. “How’d they seem?”
Clay swallows, his cheek on just one side twitching near his eye. “Worried. Scared. Mom was pissy that way moms get pissy when they’re upset. Dad was quieter, but stony. Like he had a bunch of fire in his belly, but a better control of it.”
Could Dad have the kind of control needed to gun his daughter’s not-good-enough boyfriend down in the street?
“I’m happy to stay on the door indefinitely.” Clay goes back to stiff-shouldered and straight-spined. “I’m good for a while now, so take your time and?—”
“You can come in with us.” Fletch leans past Clay and gently knocks on the door. “You were the first on scene, Officer. That’ll matter to them.” He looks my way. “All good?”
“All good with me.” I move around the pair and push the door open, carefully dragging a blue and yellow curtain aside to reveal an image not all that different from the one I walked in on in the winter, with Fletch’s ex strapped to a bed just like this. With machines beeping and tubes shoved down her throat. In Jada’s case, she was beaten to hell and back, swollen and bruised, and way too fucking broken to get up and walk out on her own.
Molly, on the other hand, while still swollen and sore, she’s not nearly as busted up. Add in the more than a decade in age difference, and the lack of drug abuse, and Molly seems all the more likely to come through this fine.
Maybe that makes me toxic, to compare them. Maybe seeing Jada the way I did has skewed my thought process to the point that getting shot and having a heart attack or two is not…that bad.
“Mr. and Mrs. Freemon.” I take out my badge and wander across the room, calm and slow, so the parents, one on each side of their daughter’s bed, don’t panic. I look to Mrs. Freemon first, ashy blonde and porcelain-skinned, much like her daughter. Then I meet Mr. Freemon’s glassy, hard stare and nod. “My name is Detective Archer Malone.”
“You’re the detective who called us this morning?” Sniffling, Mrs. Freemon strokes Molly’s wrist, careful not to mess with the tubes and needles and myriad wires stretching away from the pale limb. “Archer Malone. I remember your name.”
“Yes, Ma’am. I was the one who called you.” I gesture toward Fletch. “My partner, Detective Charlie Fletcher. We’re the primaries on your daughter’s case. And then,” I tilt my head toward a shy Clay. “Officer Clay. He was the first officer on the scene last night.”
Mrs. Freemon gasps.
“He was with Molly until the ambulance arrived and rushed her here.”
“Ma’am.” Clay gulps and looks to Mr. Freemon. “Sir.”
“We didn’t know… We didn’t…” Mrs. Freemon swipes torrential tears from her cheeks. “You’ve been outside the room this whole time, but we didn’t…” She shakes her head. “If I’d known?—”
“Do you have any information for us, Detectives?” Mr. Freemon holds Molly’s right hand between his. Where his wife strokes, he grips. While she trembles, he remains firm. “We don’t really know what’s happening, so if you could give us something. Anything.” Emotion sneaks into his voice, crackling at the base of his throat. “We’d be grateful.”
“Mr. Freem?—”
“Grant,” he cuts in, swallowing and licking his lips. “You can call me Grant. And my wife is Layla.” His eyes flicker to her. “You don’t have to call us Mr. or Mrs. anything.”
“Grant.” I set my badge away and place my hands on my hips, relaxing my stance and studying Molly for a long beat. “We’re at the very beginning of our investigation, which means, unfortunately, we come to you with questions. Not answers.”
Disappointed, Grant drops his gaze, ocean blue eyes rimmed in red and swollen from tears. “Is it true Ben is dead? He didn’t make it?”
“It’s true.” I observe the pair carefully.Is Grant angry? Sad? Will he mourn the boy? Will he celebrate? “His wounds were too severe, so he passed away at the scene. Officer Clay—” Again, I gesture to the shaky uniform. “He was with Benjamin when he took his last breaths. He tried to help. Tried to keep him alive long enough for the paramedics to arrive, but he…” I shake my head. “His wounds were too much.”
Layla breaks, sobbing and pressing her face to the mattress beside her daughter. She doesn’t howl. Doesn’t scream. But she weeps and allows her tears to soak into the sheets.
“Can you think of a reason Molly and Ben might’ve been down by the bay at nearly midnight?” I reach into my back pocket and take out an old, worn notebook, the pages perilously thin, the spirals sprung and bent from misuse. I pat my pockets in search of a pen, but Clay clears his throat and offers his.
“Sir.”
