Page 5 of Marked for Obsession

“What?” The man’s dark blond brows scrunched together. “Why not? You just got here.”

“I know, but I…”Just tell him.“I-I need to talk to the police. Can you take me?”

“The police?” Those same brows shot up into high arches. With his blue eyes widening, Kyle asked, “Why? What happened?”

“I can’t go into it all right now, I just…I need a ride to the nearest precinct. You don’t have to stay. You can just drop me off, and I’ll take a cab home. I’d walk, but—”

“No.” Kyle shook his head vehemently. “You’re not walking. Like I said, I’m the designated driver for tonight, so I’ve just been drinking soda.” He glanced toward where their friends were waiting. “Let me go tell the others I’m leaving. Wait for me by the door?”

“Okay. But don’t tell them why.” That last part came out in a rush. “Please. Just…maybe tell them I don’t feel well and that you’re taking me home.”

Suspicion filled the sweet man’s worried gaze, but thankfully he didn’t argue. “Wait over there. I’ll be right back.”

“Thank you,” Poppy offered sincerely.

Two very long,very frustrating hours later, Poppy was walking back into her tiny apartment. After leaving Sin, she’d used Kyle’s phone to call a very frantic Cam. As expected, the woman was out of her mind with worry, having convinced herself that Poppy had been the victim of something nefarious.

If she only knew.

Poppy didn’t tell her about the men in the alley. She didn’t say a word about the body that may or may not have been dead, and she definitely didnottell her best friend that she was headed to the police station to report all those things and more.

Instead Poppy had told Cam a partial truth. That she’d twisted her ankle on a rock, and in her attempts to keep from falling, she’d accidentally thrown her phone several feet into an alleyway. Then she did something she’d never done before…

She lied to her best friend.

Needing a valid excuse for not having called her back immediately, Poppy told Cam her phone had busted in the fall. The deception made her feel like a horrible, awful person, but it was for Cam’s own good.

The woman worried too damn much as it was.

After a forty-five-minute wait in the precinct’s reception area—and having finally convinced Kyle to go back to Sin and enjoy what was left of his night—Poppy had been called back to one of the many desks strategically placed around the wide-open space.

Eager to help the poor man she’d seen get stuffed into that trunk—or at least bring closure to his family if he was, in fact, dead—Poppy told the officer assigned to her everything.

What she saw.

What she heard.

All of it.

The uniformed man taking her statement had seemed more than a little disinterested as he wrote everything down on what looked to be an official piece of paper. When Poppy was finished sharing what she’d seen, the middle-aged officer simply took down her contact information with a promise to pass the report on to one of their detectives.

And just like that, she was dismissed as easily as she’d been welcomed.

Locking the door behind her, disappointment continued to make its presence known as Poppy headed for her apartment’s only shower. Having never witnessed any sort of crime against another person before, she wasn’t quite sure what she’d expected.

Or maybe the problem was, she did.

If this were T.V., an entire unit of hard-nosed detectives would have grabbed their jackets and guns before rushing out of the building to race toward the scene. They’d work tirelessly, not stopping until they found the two men she’d told them about as well as their victim.

But this wasn’t television. This was real life. And though the officer she’d spoken with never actually came out andsaidit, Poppy knew in her heart of hearts the uniformed man hadn’t believed her account of the events.

Her first clue was when the jerk had made it a point to sniff and then ask whether or not she’d been drinking. Which of course, she had to admit to having hadadrink.

Damn that swig of beer, anyway.

Now here she was, alone in her apartment, peeling off the cute outfit and boots, which had ended up being a total waste. And as she stepped under the steaming rush of water, Poppy couldn’t help but feel like the biggest fool on the planet.

Guess Camryn was right.

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