Even if I knew it was a mistake, taking all those memories with me, I just couldn’t leave them behind.
Zipping the spinner took some effort, but then I rolled it to the door. It was getting light outside. At this early hour, the perfectly clear Vegas sky was a shade of deep purple promising to turn into the vibrant blue I would always remember.
I was about to change into my travel jeans when I noticed faint flickers of red and blue flashes coming through the slit between the curtains. Then I heard some noises outside my door. Startled, I froze in place, holding my breath as I listened. There were more than one set of footfalls, and low, hushed voices, drawing closer.
A pounding on the door resounded loudly, rattling the frame. “Police! Open up!” The pounding continued.
My heart raced, my thoughts screaming inside my mind. I had no way out. I forced my lungs to draw air, steeling myself. “Coming!” I shouted. The pounding stopped for a mere second, then resumed.
Barefooted, I turned on the lights in the living room and opened the door. Several police cars were stopped around the house, their lights flashing brightly in the early morning light. I raised my arm to shield my eyes and tried to understand what was going on.
Four men stood by the door. One wore civilian clothes, but the other three around him were in uniform. Two of the officers had their guns drawn—pointing down, but ready to take aim at me. I felt a surge of panic and dread. My heart pounded in my chest and my breathing quickened as I broke out in a cold sweat that dripped down my spine. This wasn’t the way they usually took down a small-time con artist like myself. My thoughts went to the one person who could’ve done this.
Claire.
“Olivia Taylor?” the man in the wrinkled, worn-out suit asked. I nodded weakly, paralyzed. “Detective Aaron Stanek, LVMPD,” he said,flashing a badge in front of my eyes and then slipping it into his pocket. “You’re under arrest.”
His hand clasped my arm tightly and turned me around, slamming me against the open door. The cold steel of the handcuffs gripped my wrists, and I reacted instinctively, whimpering and trying to break free. The grasp on my arm returned, merciless, spinning me again until his eyes could drill into mine.
“Don’t,” the detective said coldly. He didn’t need to say more.
Turning to the other cops, he started barking orders. “Search the house, the garage, and the backyard! I want everything bagged and tagged. Search the car, too.”
It was surreal.
“W-why are you arresting me?” I asked, my voice shaky, stammering a little.
The detective looked at me with a grimace I couldn’t read. Disgust, perhaps, or inflamed ire. “Ah, yes, your precious Miranda rights.”
He cleared his voice ostentatiously. “Olivia Taylor, you’re under arrest for the murder of Winston Donovan. You have the right ...”
My breath hitched, my pulse a violent hammering in my ears. The room tilted, everything narrowing to the officer’s face, his unreadable expression.
No. No, this isn’t happening.
A sharp jolt of panic shot through me, my mind scrambling for sense, for logic, for anything that made this real. My lips parted, but for a second, no sound came.
Then the dam broke. “He’s dead?” My voice cracked, high, disbelieving. “No!” I screamed, lunging forward despite the cuffs cutting into my wrists. My shoulder slammed into his chest, wild and uncoordinated, but I didn’t care. I twisted, trying to throw my weight into him, to knock him off balance—anything to fight against the impossible words he had just spoken.
His hand landed heavy on my shoulder. I stopped with my face inches away from his. “No,” I repeated, looking straight at him, tearsspringing from my eyes. “He can’t be dead! No ...” I wailed. “You don’t understand—” I gasped for air, shaken by uncontrollable sobs.
The detective didn’t care about anything I had to say. He stared at me with a derisive smirk on his face. Winston couldn’t be dead. He’d been okay yesterday, so full of life, so in love. He’d been waiting for me—
Claire.
It had to have been her.
But nothing hit harder than knowing Winston was gone ... and that gutted me. The realization slammed into me, stealing the air from my lungs. My throat constricted, each breath coming in short, uneven gasps. I tried to steady myself, to pull in enough air, but it wouldn’t come. My pulse pounded, a frantic rhythm in my ears, my body teetering between fight and collapse.
“No ...” I cried again, my knees buckling beneath me. I stumbled back, my body giving in to the weight of it all, and let myself collapse onto the cold floor. My breath came in sharp, broken gasps, my cuffed hands useless behind me as I tried to brace for the impact.
Winston was gone. And nothing could hurt more than that. He was dead because of me. The thought sliced right through me, spreading a sorrow inside my heart that I’d never have thought possible.
The same detective grabbed my arm and forced me back to my feet. “When’s the last time you saw Winston Donovan?” he asked, but I wasn’t paying attention. Behind him, two officers wearing blue nitrile gloves were conducting a thorough search of my rental car, parked only a few feet away from where we stood. One of them reached into the passenger-door pocket and extracted a small white object.
A bottle of eye drops. How did that get in there? It wasn’t mine.
A chill shook me as I remembered how Claire had casually asked me to putVisinein her eyes. I saw myself touching that bottle, squeezing it, leaving my fingerprints on it.
