Instead, I said, “Do you need a ride?”
“My bike’s a couple blocks over from where he was being held,” Bram said. “It’s at the donut shop. So it won’t look weird if you drive me there right now. They’re about to open anyway.”
I looked at the officer as he got into his car. “This is going to go bad.”
Bram sighed. “I have a feeling that you’re right.”
• • •
And I was.
Three weeks later, the shit storm hit.
Amon’s body had been discovered, and we were the prime suspects in his murder.
How did I find this out?
Bram snuck into my window, woke me from a dead sleep, and then said, “Shit’s hit the fan.”
I was still gasping when I finally realized that I wasn’t about to die.
“What the fuck?” I gasped. “You can’t just come into a girl’s room like that.”
He grumbled something under his breath and then, more loudly, said, “I think you’re underestimating the urgency that I’m currently feeling. Theyfoundhim.”
Oh.
Oh, shit.
“Oh, shit,” I choked. “How? What are the freakin’ odds?”
“Very slim,” he admitted. “A guy fell out of his fishing boat because he thought he had a monster catfish on his jug line that’d swept downriver. When, in fact, it’d caught on Amon’s jawbone. Pulled him out of the water yesterday afternoon. I just heard the news and came straight here.”
“Shit,” I grumbled. “What do we do now?”
“We prepare,” he admitted. “Because I have a feeling that detective is going to come back and ask us some questions.”
“Prepare for what? How do you prepare for that?” I gasped. “That’s not something you can prepare for!”
I was slightly freaking out, and you could tell because of the way my voice had risen about five octaves.
“We have to sell the lie we told that night that he came knocking, looking for your brother,” he said. “You think you can do that?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Sell what lie?”
I mean, logically I knew what ‘lie’ he was talking about. But what did he mean by ‘sell’ it?
“We have to act like we’re a couple,” he grunted. “And I have to break it off with Mimi.”
I felt my insides stir.
“What?”
“I have to break it off with her,” he repeated. “Because it wouldn’t be fair to her otherwise.”
No, it wouldn’t.
But was it really necessary?