Page 49 of Sweet Like a Psycho (Secrets of Suburbi 2)

I smiled as I stared at the door. This was one of the best conversations I'd ever had with her. Why was it that it was easier to talk to her when we weren’t face to face? “If I’m being completely honest, I don’t have any intention of staying just your friend for very long. You got upset earlier when I said I wasn’t pretending that I have feelings for you. That’s because I didn’t have to pretend. I like you, Vi. I’ve had a hard time not thinking about you ever since you opened your door in barely anything at all.”

The lock on her door clicked and for a second I held my breath. I was picturing her opening the changing room door in nothing at all. But I wasn’t disappointed when she opened it and she was wearing the exact same thing she had been earlier. She didn’t even have any clothes inside to try on. She had just been hiding out. For some reason that made me like her even more.

“I don’t like to eat out in public,” she said.

“Okay. How about takeout then? We can eat it back at your place.”

She nodded. “I’d like that.”

Chapter 19

Violet

I opened up the door to put the takeout bag in the backseat, but there was a plate of cookies sitting on the seat already. A plate of very familiar looking cookies. I placed the bag down beside them and then joined Tucker in the front.

“I take it you’ve met Sally?” I gestured to the cookies.

“Yeah. I was questioning her this morning. She was one of the witnesses to that house fire.”

“How is that going by the way?” I hadn’t been questioned by anyone but Tucker. My worst fears had passed. There were no cops and dogs sniffing around in my woods. Everything had quieted down.

“The case?”

I nodded.

“I’m not really supposed to talk about it. But there isn’t really anything to talk about anyway. I’m done.”

“So…is it closed?”

“No, I’m just off it. The FBI took over.”

“The FBI?” My voice came out a little squeaky. I was relieved that there weren’t police dogs roaming the woods, but compared to the FBI, a few stupid animals and local officers were harmless.

He glanced over at me. “It’s fine. We both know you had nothing to do with that fire. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. It was a bad case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I got a little obsessed with trying to figure out if you were linked because I needed to know that you weren’t guilty.”

“Right.” It was true, I had nothing to do with Adeline Bell or her house. I’d never even met the woman. But that didn’t mean I had nothing to hide. There were a lot of things I wanted to keep secret in the vicinity of the crime scene. “So you don’t know anything that’s going on with the case at all anymore?” I played with the zipper of my new jacket. Up down, up down, up down. At this rate I was going to break it before I even got home. I let go of the zipper and put my hands beneath my thighs so that I couldn’t fidget.

Tucker shook his head. “Nope. My captain took me off the case.”

“Then why were you questioning Sally?”

“There were just a few loose ends I needed to tie up on my end before I felt comfortable dropping it.” He kept his eyes on the road.

“It’s hard to know what’s true and what isn’t when it comes to Sally,” I said. I thought that maybe he was interested in me because he hadn’t heard the rumors. But if he had hung out with Sally all morning? He knew everything that people whispered behind my back. And what everyone said behind those people’s backs. And so on. She was a sweet lady, but an awful gossip. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had been behind the initial rumors about me.

“So what actually happened to your jacket?” he asked.

The change of topic was a reprieve. But it was a little unsettling that he changed it. He knows. He knows exactly what they say. I cleared my throat. “Well, now that you’re off the case, it wouldn’t be as interesting to you. It’s kind of my alibi.”

He didn’t say anything, he just waited for me to continue.

I wondered if he was being truthful about being off the case. Or even believing that I wasn’t involved at all. I leaned my head against the headrest and stared at him for a moment. He didn’t look like a detective today. He just looked like…Tucker. The guy I was slowly getting to know despite my best efforts. Probably despite his as well. “I was out by the lake when I heard the explosion. It scared me and I fell in.” I remembered the feeling of my mother’s hands on top of my head, keeping me under. “My jacket was weighing me down and I had to ditch it in order to get back to the surface.” It had felt like someone was grabbing my ankle, trying to pull me deeper. Like all my secrets were trying to drown me. I took a deep breath. That feeling had been haunting me ever since.

Tucker laughed, unaware of my distress. “I thought you had just dyed your hair to get everyone off your tail.” He shook his head. “Makes sense now. Why you were so wet.”

Something about the way he said it made me swallow hard.

“No wonder you caught a cold. The lake was pretty icy when I was there this morning.”

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