Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Tor lets go of my hand and grips my thigh firmly, instantly killing the bounce.
“Relax,” he says again, evenly.
My heart somersaults, and I won’t say I feel more relaxed, but with his hand on my thigh, it certainly doesn’t bounce again.
Finally, the receptionist leads us back to the lawyer’s office.
My heart is heavy, and my stomach is in knots, but I know it’s time to face the music, so I brace for it as best as I can.
I don’t know how the spark of hope in my heart continues to flicker no matter how doused it gets, but I know I must have had some because the sight of the lawyer’s somber face hits like a punch to the gut.
Yep. It’s bad.
Tor held my hand walking into the office, but he lets go now and takes a seat in one of the leather chairs facing the lawyer’s desk.
I sink into the other one.
“Mr. Walters. Miss Pritchard.”
“Hi,” I say weakly, fighting the urge to throw up all over his elegant desk.
“As I told Torrance on the phone,” the lawyer says, looking at me, “there has been a rather serious development.”
I can feel the bile rising, making its way to my throat. “Yeah.”
“I believe you know a young man named Russell Wilcox?”
I draw in a breath as gently as I can, but I’m fighting the wrenching, twisting, roiling in my gut, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep my breakfast down. Somehow, I nod. “He’s my ex-boyfriend.”
The lawyer nods. “You were dating at the time of the alleged rape?”
He knows all this already, but his choice of words is enough to make me forget momentarily that I need to vomit. “Alleged? Are you serious?”
Tor interrupts. “Yes, Russell was her boyfriend when she was raped.”
“Is that the reason you broke up?” he asks.
“Yes,” I answer curtly.
He nods, but with calculation this time. “So he clearly had hard feelings toward the deceased.”
Not hard enough.
I open my mouth, but before I can speak, Tor does. “Yes. There was a physical altercation between them shortly after the breakup. You know my brother. He can be an asshole, and… well, after the breakup, I imagine Russell was a little raw. His anger got the best of him, and he and Tim got in a fight.”
Frowning, I glance from Tor to the lawyer and ask, “What does any of this have to do with our case?”
Terry sighs, his demeanor shifting toward sympathetic as he says, “Well, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Cassie, but it appears there may have been a darker side to your boyfriend than what he showed you. He left a note next to the murder weapon last night, and…”
The lawyer pauses, searching for the right words, but Tor doesn’t wait for him to find them.
Tor’s voice cuts right through the silence. “Russell Wilcox is dead.”
CHAPTER 13
CASSIE
I hear the words, but they don’t reach me.
Not at first.
Because they’re impossible.
Russell was just at my house last night.
He can’t be dead.
My gaze drifts away from the lawyer as he continues talking, my mind struggling to wrap around the words he’s using. Words like suicide.
Russell wouldn’t kill himself.
And why would he do it last night after he spoke to me? My mind races to recall as much of our conversation as possible. Yes, he was pissed at me, but there’s no way he would do something like this. He wouldn’t kill himself to punish me, and he certainly didn’t love me so much that he would…
And he told me he was going to talk to the police today.
He told me, and I told—
The air rushes out of my lungs as the other words fall into place.
Russell left a note next to the murder weapon.
But how could he have done that when he didn’t have the murder weapon?
Tor had it.
Tor, who rented that motel room, making sure we were seen together. Making sure no one came or went using the key cards. Tor, who left the motel to go ditch the weapon somewhere once he made sure his alibi was in place.
The same weapon that was apparently found at Russell’s house, next to his dead body.
I can hear my heart thudding in my ears.
No, no, no, no, no.
This can’t be real.
The lawyer keeps talking, but I can’t concentrate on anything he’s saying.
My throat is closing up, and panic is building, making my chest feel tight.
“Excuse me.” I jump up from the chair and rush to the door without looking at Tor. I burst out into the corridor, my steps hastening. I don’t even know where I’m going. I just need to get away.
But I can’t because I don’t have a car. The only car I do have belongs to Tor, or to his family, and I left it back at the restaurant.
For a lucid moment, I can see my life tearing apart at the seams. I know that even if I get away with what I did, nothing will ever be the same. I will never be the same.