Page 49 of The Piece You Stole

Detective Bradley doesn’t turn off the recorder, and he doesn’t look away from me as we wait for Detective Ferdinand to return with my glass of water.

Seconds later, and nowhere near long enough for me to have thought up a story that won’t get me locked up for murder, the door creaks open again, and Detective Ferdinand steps in, clutching a tiny, white plastic cup.

It enters my line of vision, hovering there, inches from my face, but I’m not about to take the cup from him. The thought of touching him—of having him touch me—is enough to bring me out in hives.

I wait until he places it down on the table in front of me, and then I pick it up. Instantly, I regret my decision when my palms close around the plastic, still warm and sweaty from his hand.

“You were telling us about how Rylan stepped into the diner right after your dad knocked you down,” Detective Ferdinand says as he drops into his seat. “Let’s go back to that.”

I lift the cup to my lips and take a small sip of the water before returning it to the table. “As I said, Rylan was kind. I didn’t have much because I’d just turned eighteen and had decided to look for an apartment of my own. He offered to help me with that.”

The staff in the coffee shop across from the Stationers Diner lent me a damp towel I used to wipe off the ketchup drying on my chin. After, Rylan bought me a coffee, and we tucked ourselves into a corner table. It’s downright embarrassing when I think of how little time it took me to open up about things so personal, I should never have told a guy I’d met ten minutes before.

Rylan listened with a heavy frown creasing his brow before he nodded firmly and told me he would help me find a place, but it would take time. If I wanted, I could stay in a spare room he had, just for a few days, until he found me somewhere. He’d pay for the first few months' rent, he said, because it made him sick to think of all I’d suffered.

I ate it right up.

After two days in his spare room, I was sharing his bed. He never brought up finding an apartment for me again, and neither did I.

“And your father? Did Rylan help you with that as well?” Detective Bradley takes over, lightly tapping the front of his folder as if to remind me of the horror I’ll be faced with if I don’t start talking.

I shake my head. “I walked out of that diner, and I never saw Dad again.”

A long moment passes in silence as the cops study me as if trying to ferret out a lie in what is the truth. Not the whole truth, but it’s not a lie.

They dart another glance at each other, one too rapid for me to read.

“Tell us why hospital staff saw you running down the corridors with Doctor Simon Trevor,” Detective Ferdinand finally asks.

That’s when I know I’ve won at least the first round.

Maybe they’ll circle back and come at me from another angle, but for now, either they didn’t care all that much about going after me for Dad, or they believe they have more evidence to put me away for Simon’s murder. Probably the latter.

I take another sip of the room-temperature water. There’s a faintly metallic taste that makes me want to scrape at my tongue, but I asked for the water, and if I show no interest in it, they’ll know my request was nothing more than avoidance. “What do you want to know?” I ask when I know exactly what they want.

“Where was he taking you?”

A brief flash of memory fills my mind. For just a moment, I can almost feel Simon Trevor’s firm hand in mine, cool and strong. No hint of sweaty nerves there. Just an utter determination to get me away from Nathan and to save my life.

Instead, I cost him his.

Why are these cops so determined to pin it on me? What is it about me that—

The heart surgeon. What was his name again? Something like the motorcycle…Harley.That was it. He stopped by my room looking for Simon, acted as if they were friends, even if he stared at the old bite scars on my neck as if he knew what they meant.

“Why would you think I killed him?” I ask, glancing from one cop to the other as I try to read their expressions. “Did someone at the hospital say I did?”

I’m not expecting an answer to either of my questions, especially when their lips tighten. But there’s only one person who I could think would blame me for Simon’s murder. Did Harley go looking for his friend, guess I’d brought trouble into the hospital, and tell the police I was responsible?

“Perhaps you can explain why someone at the hospital would think you had,” Detective Ferdinand says with a secret smile glinting in his small, dark eyes.

I study him, incredulous. Does he honestly think I’m going to offer up a motive for killing Simon? “An animal killed Simon. Not me.”

There’s no way anyone would find Simon’s body and believe human hands or teeth had ripped out his throat.

Detective Bradley raises his eyebrow. “Simon?”

Shit.

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