Page 33 of The Piece You Stole

I turn to Detective Bradley. “I don’t know, I guess I must be a girl that guys like to fuck six ways from Sunday.”

I don’t know what compels me to taunt him with the words he said when he thought I was in a coma.

I was awake the whole time, you greasy shit,I tell him with my narrow-eyed stare,and you didn’t know it.

His lips tighten as he darts an anxious glance at the mirror.

Is someone important on the other side of it? Maybe someone like a boss who might not appreciate the cops in this city perving on an unconscious girl?

I shift my focus to Detective Ferdinand. He might not have a greasy smell, but he’s most definitely greasy on the inside. “Or maybe it’s my tits he has a thing for?”

Silence.

“Interesting story.” Detective Ferdinand flashes me a cold smile. “Now, time to get this interview underway. We will—”

“I’m not saying a word until I speak to an attorney,” I cut in.

He stares at me, his expression blank for a full second.

You don’t show fear to a predator because once you do, they will never stop treating you like prey. It wasn’t Rylan who taught me that, but my life before him.

Public libraries and part-time jobs offered me sanctuary from the predatory elements in the city, but not always. Sometimes men on the streets still cornered me, and when they did, I knew to show no fear. And to run. But there’s no running now.

“Then it looks like we’re in for a long night.” Detective Ferdinand stretches a hand toward the large, black recorder button and presses down firmly.

It clicks, filling the room with a barely audible hum, the sound vaguely irritating. It’s bearable. For now. With the hungry anticipation in the cop’s eyes, I have a feeling it won’t take long before bearable kicks into full-blown irritating.

“Now.” It must be Detective Bradley’s turn because he flips open the file in front of him. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

A thirteen-year-old girl with wide, staring blue eyes and a bruised jaw stares back at me.

I’d forgotten the mug shot cops took years ago when they turned up just after a guy offered me twenty dollars to go down on my knees with the promise of more to come if I did a good job. It wasn’t the guy that the cops handcuffed and dragged to the station. No, it was the thirteen-year-old girl who should have been in school and who spent the car ride in the back of the patrol car trying to hide the fact that she was crying.

I lift my head to find the cops gazing back at me expectantly. That’s when I know how they’re going to play this. Maybe it’s Nathan’s doing for putting the thought in my head, but I know. They’re going to turn me into a prostitute who led the good doctor astray.

For now, the cops are relaxed, smiling faintly, as if they know everything they need to know and are merely waiting for me to admit it.

“You spent more time on the streets than you did in school or at home, wouldn’t you agree, Miss Leo?” Detective Bradley asks, almost gently.

I don’t say a word.

He flicks through the thin file, his attention focused on me instead of the documents spelling out most of my past. More mug shots spill out. They all followed an identical pattern.

Cops would run into me as I dodged the guys who had decided I had just the right sort of mouth to give him a blow job, and being a good girl, would I like to follow these strange men home.

The cops are doing this to show me that they know me; that they know everything about me.

They’re trying to get in my head.

I refuse to let them.

“So, you must have made some friends on the street?” Detective Ferdinand takes over, his tone almost friendly.

Guess they must plan on playing this little recording in court to show they didn’t bully me into whatever confession they intend to walk me into.

I say nothing.

“You see.” Detective Bradley rests his chin on one hand as he casually flips through the file. Only, the green eyes he trains my way are the very opposite of casual. “I think a girl like you made plenty of friends. Some of my colleagues would often find you with them when you should have been in school. We have records from thirteen to seventeen, and then…poof. You were suddenly no longer making friends on the streets.”

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