This is on me.
I have to get myself out of it.
Faking calm, I decide I can freak out later.
If anyone’s eyesareon me, the optics would marginally improve by dragging him from the water and not leaving his corpse floating in the shallow end.
Quickly, I lug him over the steps which, thankfully, are close by.
Unfortunately for me, I’m wet through once he’s propped on the top step looking like an extra fromWeekend at Bernies.
Then, I nearly jump out of my skin when someone,somewhere, groans.
“Who’s there?” I shout.
God, talk about faking it until you make it—I don’t even sound petrified.
Reassured by my acting skills and that my mask of calm is firmly in place, I hunt down the source of the noise.
It’s a guy looking worse for wear. He’s wearing a cheap tuxedo, the kind that reminds me of something waitstaff would use. Not a second skin like Maxim’s.
“Are you okay?”
He blinks at me in a daze like he’s focusing and failing, then when my identity registers, he screams.
The scream wakens the dead. Not Harrington, sadly. A fact I swiftly come to regret when cops swarm in from out of nowhere, armed and howling at me.
I should have known it was too good to be true that they let me get away with his murder.
This is my punishment.
Here’s the retribution I asked for.
Before I know it, I’m face down beside the pool, my hands on top of my head.
When I turn to the side to make it easier to breathe, as a cop cuffs me while bleating my Miranda rights, I could almost swear that Harrington’s death mask is grinning at me…
TWENTY-EIGHT
YOU WON’T BREAK ME, BITCH
“How many times? I know my rights. I would like my phone call and a lawyer present.”
I glance at the clock, well aware that I’ve been stuck in this godforsaken room forfourhours now. Four hours of shivering because my goddamn dress got soaked and it’s freezing in here.
“She knows her rights, Bordeau.” Detective Wallowicz chortles. “Does she know that she’s looking at a murder-one charge?”
“Phone. Call. Oh, and a sandwich would be nice.”
“Murder-one charge for a pretty little thing?” Bordeau smirks. “That’ll be real hard. Getting sent up is no place for a woman like you. Just make a deal, Ms. Vasov. We’re looking out for you. The evidence is stacking up against you and this way, you’ll see life outside bars before you’re fifty.”
My jaw tenses.
Part of me wants this whole thing to be a setup. But Maxim told me the stakes were real. And as much wealth and power as the Veronians have at their fingertips, this is a legitimate precinct.
These are genuine detectives.
You can hire actors, but you can’t hire that ennui in their eyes. The combination of despair and devastation of a life spent coming across the perfidies of mankind.
