AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I do, but Mrs. Garner will be frantic when she realizes her dog got loose again.”
He smiled. “I’ll call her. If Buster checks out okay, Miranda or I can drive him over.”
“Thank you.”
Ariel hadn’t had a day off in almost two weeks, and Dr. Fredericks had promised she could leave early today. She’d beaten herself up for not investigating the murder sooner, but Trent had told her not to interfere. Even though he claimed he didn’t kill Samantha Ortiz, he didn’t want Ariel to mess things up by snooping.
Most of her friends were convinced her brother was guilty, their attitude stemming from the fact that Trent had never been a nice person to them. Not only that, he drank too much, had a tendency to lose his temper, and had a hard time keeping a job. Ariel might have written him off, too, except that if it hadn’t been for him, she wasn’t sure where she’d be today. Her parents had been killed in a car accident when she was fifteen, and Trent had taken care of her—or the best a nineteen-year-old could.
She’d be the first to admit that Trent had issues, but he wasn’t a killer—of that she was certain. As his only family member, she would take it upon herself to prove he hadn’t been the one to take Samantha’s life.
Ariel grabbed her purse and jacket from behind the reception desk and left. Once she walked to the parking lot in back of the building, she hopped into her barely drivable Volkswagen and headed to the prison in Midvale. Thankfully, it was located only three towns to the east.
After filling out some paperwork, the guard double-checked that she was on the approved visitors’ list. Once satisfied, he led her to a room where hermurderousbrother was chained to a table. Her heart broke at the sight. He’d only been in prison three days, yet he looked as if he’d lost weight already. When he glanced away, it was most likely to hide the cut above his eye. Fighting was probably the norm in a place like this.
When he finally faced her, he wasn’t smiling.Not good. She was hoping her presence would boost his spirits. The last time she’d seen him was in the jail before he had been moved here. At that time, he’d barely spoken to her. Ariel was more determined than ever to convince him to tell her the whole truth.
“Trent.” She sat down. When she inhaled, she nearly choked from the mold and body odor in the small, windowless room, but she didn’t want to make this visit about her discomfort.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he mumbled.
She blew out a breath. “Why? You didn’t kill Samantha, did you?”
Trent faced her. “Fuck no, I didn’t kill her. She was the only one who put up with me.”
Ariel had tried to help him, but Trent wasn’t very receptive to her advice.
“Have you remembered anything else from that night?”
He leaned over and ran his hand through his short hair. Trent then sat up. “No. Like I said in court, Samantha and I had an argument at the Double G Bar around eleven. Everyone there heard it. We came home and fell into bed because I was…you know.”
“Drunk.”
“Yeah, that.”
“Then what?”
He slammed his fist on the table. “You sound like that goddamn attorney. If I couldn’t remember then, why do you think I can remember anything else now?”
Ariel didn’t need this, but she told herself that Trent was scared. “I’m trying to help.”
He blew out breath. “I know. I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes for a moment as if to compose himself. “All I remember is waking up and smelling it.”
“The blood, you mean?”
“Yes. It was coppery scented—sweet but also kind of putrid.”
Had he mentioned the smell in court? That might help with a more precise time of death, though she wasn’t sure how much it mattered. Right now, she saw no reason to have him relive the horror of seeing his girlfriend stabbed to death. “Do you remember what you argued about?”
“I remember everything—or almost everything. Sam said I was a good-for-nothing asshole, and that she was moving out.”
“You said she didn’t know she was pregnant, right?”
“Sam never told me, so I’m guessing she didn’t know.”
The autopsy had shown she was. However, the results were still out as to the identity of the father. The most obvious person would be Trent, but according to him, Sam was going to leave him for Walter Winston, the owner of the local hardware store. Maybe he was the father.
“I believe that you didn’t harm Samantha. Hell, if you were going to kill her, you wouldn’t have used your own butcher knife. That would be just plain dumb.” Two months ago, Trent had landed a good job at a meat market, but it was a knife from his house that had been used to kill Sam.
