That question was answered a few seconds later when there was an insistent knock on my door.
Bram cursed and yanked off his shirt, then started to toe off his boots.
“What are you doing?” I squeaked. “I need to be putting clothes on. You don’t need to be taking them off!”
Bram shot me a grin. “Gotta look the part.”
That grin did things to my insides I’d never felt before.
“Bram…”
He disappeared through my bedroom door, then out into the living room.
I could hear men’s voices, and I cursed.
Pulling on some sleep shorts, I hurried out of my bedroom to find Bram facing off with two of Intercourse’s finest. One of which being Detective Alto, the man that always looked at me as if I was crazy pants.
The one that’d shooed me away more times than I could count, thinking that I was full of shit.
I hope it weighed on his conscience, my friends’ deaths in addition to the deaths of our parents and my foster parents.
Had he taken me seriously, they might be alive right now.
I might not have lost my only two friends in the world.
“What’s going on?” I asked quietly, my voice shaky and filled with fear.
Detective Alto turned his gaze to me, and I felt like I was being stripped alive.
His eyes lingered on my unrestrained breasts—hello, didn’t everyone sleep braless?—until the other man beside him cleared his throat.
Detective Alto looked away from my tits to the man that’d done the throat clearing.
“This is Detective Green. We’re here to ask you about your whereabouts on the day of Amon’s trial,” Detective Alto growled.
I shivered under his intense gaze, then looked over at the other detective, who was glaring at his partner.
“We were here,” I said quietly, fearfully. “We already told you that. When the trial was over that day, we left together and came straight here.”
Then the detectives commenced asking me every question under the sun.
Had I seen my brother lately?No.Would I mind coming down to the station and answering a few questions?Yes. It’s the middle of the night.Had either of us heard about a commotion at the river today?No.
Then started the back-and-forth questioning about our relationship.
“Are you still seeing Mimi?” Detective Alto looked contemplative.
I wanted to throat punch him.
“We are on the verge of breakup,” Bram lied. “Ever since the time I was held… I… she… I can’t deal with her overprotectiveness anymore. And her obvious abhorrence of Dory has put me in a position where I’m having to choose. So I’m choosing Dory.”
“Dory,” Detective Alto drawled. “Not Dorcas?”
“I can’t stand that name,” I blurted out. “Amon used to taunt me with it… I can’t stand hearing it anymore.”
And that was the one hundred percent truth.
I hated being called Dorcas.