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“Yep.” He nods. “I stayed to help clean up after the forensics team was done.”
“Charlie came to bed after that. I don’t remember him leaving, but I do remember waking up once.”
Sheriff Cutler turns a little more, watching my face. “Why?”
“He came back to bed.”
“So he’d been up? For how long?”
“I don’t know. I woke up and he was there, sliding next to me. I don’t know how long he’d been up.”
I didn’t tell them that he showered, that I smelled his shampoo.
“Did he leave the house?”
I shrug. “I have no idea. I assumed he’d gone to the bathroom.”
“Did he have any wounds?” Daniels asks, glancing at me in the mirror once more. “After that night?”
I want to lie. Charlie ordered me to lie, but only about our talk and the stash. I have to give this truth. “Yes. He had a bandage on his stomach.”
“Did he go to the doctor?” Sheriff Cutler asks.
“No. Not to my knowledge.”
“Did it bleed? Did he seem to be in a great deal of pain?”
I swallow hard, trying not to remember his pain. How it turned into dark arousal. How I fed his beast that night on the table. “No. I didn’t see any blood or stitches.” Truth. The blood had been later, when he cut himself and rubbed his blood all over me. “He moved fine.” Truth again, because he made violent love to me that night and then worked me through the self-defense moves until I was exhausted. The injury hadn’t slowed him down at all.
“He told you,” Deputy Daniels says, his voice soft. This time, I avoid looking into the mirror. I don’t want him to see my face. “Didn’t he?”
Truth. I tip my head forward a little more, letting my hair slide down like a shield. “Yes.”
“What did he tell you?” Sheriff Cutler’s agitated enough that he loses that Southern drawl.
“When I told him that Tasker touched me, he said he’d kill him.” I cringe even as I say it. “Then later, he said he’d taken care of it.”
“Taken care of it. Taken care of Tasker?”
“I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.”
“We could jail you on obstruction of justice, Miss Killian.” Sheriff Cutler suddenly isn’t as jolly and laid-back as he pretended to be. “You should have notified us at once if you thought MacNiall would harm anyone.”
“I’ve answered all of your questions truthfully. I didn’t have any proof that anything happened to Tasker. Just Charlie’s word that he would keep me safe. I thought he was exaggerating.”
“Humph.” Disgusted, Cutler turns around in his seat. Deputy Daniels pulls the car into a spot right in front of the sheriff’s office. “Have you had any contact with him since he disappeared?”
This time, I have my Master’s order to strengthen my response. “No.”
Daniels opens my door and I start to get out, but he takes my arm. It’s an innocent, gentlemanly move, but it alarms me enough I look up at his face. Instead of the deputy’s nice, general concern, I get an uncomfortable vibe. Maybe my imagination, fueled by insomnia and anxiety. Or maybe something more. Maybe I guessed wrong about Rusk and led Charlie astray. Maybe he was right to suspect Daniels.
“Are you sure about that?”
I hold his gaze defiantly. Sheba starts to growl. “I said no. I haven’t had any contact with Charles MacNiall.”
Funny, I don’t need his order for that, because I know he isn’t MacNiall any longer. He dropped that name and moved on already.
Daniels releases my arm and steps away, inclining his head slightly. “Sorry, Sheba. Just helping the lady out of the car.”
