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“If you say so. I need to find some new dresses. I’m going somewhere,” she says, lowering her voice.
I raise an eyebrow. “Where?”
“You can’t tell anyone, but Mama is taking me to Chicago for a while.”
“What’s in Chicago?” I ask, wondering where the secrecy is coming from.
“Family we are going to visit. But Mama says I need new outfits, so this will be fun for both of us.”
“It will probably be good for you to get away and visit family,” I say with a smile her way.
She’s so young, and all of this around here has to be affecting her negatively. I mean, she buried a parent, and that has to have a lasting impact.
I try not to think about it. I’ve been pretty successful at burying it deep inside myself lately. But I know I’ll have to face it at some point. The fact that it was at my hands weighs on me, and I’ll have to answer for that someday.
I get up and pick through my small pile of clothes before Lilliana gestures to the wrinkled items she brought in.
“I brought you some new pants and a shirt.” She holds them up, and I grab them, happy to have something different to wear.
“Thank you,” I tell her before rushing into the bathroom.
I dress and then throw my hair up in a ponytail. I run my toothbrush over my teeth and pee really quick before heading back out to my room. Lilliana is sitting on the end of my bed, and she smiles at me.
“I ordered breakfast for in the car,” she says.
I smile back at her.
A knock on the door has me looking up, and I find Geo standing there, looking none too happy.
“Are you ready?” he asks gruffly.
We nod, and Lilliana lets out a giggle and then links her arm with mine as we follow Geo out to the car.
I’m jostled backand forth as we drive over a bump in the road, headed to my review, as everyone calls it. My leg briefly touches Connor’s pants, the material soft against my bare skin, and I want to keep it there but don’t. I jerk my leg away, as if it were on fire, causing him to glance down briefly before he goes back to whatever he was doing on his phone.
“Since we didn’t get a chance to talk about it, what can I expect?”
“I don’t know. This is unprecedented,” he says absently.
I gape at him. “You are about to send me into the lion’s den, and all you can say is, ‘This is unprecedented’? What the hell does that mean anyway?”
“Unprecedented means that it’s never been done—”
“I know what that means,” I say, blowing out a sigh. I want to slap the phone out of his hands, but I don’t. I practice my self-control. I have a feeling I will need it for this grilling. “What if they ask me what I know about Bertrand’s death?” I ask, picking at a thread on my new pants that I bought on the shopping trip with Lilliana, unraveling it.
Connor’s head finally snaps up, and he looks at me. “Why would they ask about that?”
I shrug, biting my bottom lip. I’m nervous, but I don’t want to show it. “I don’t know. I want to be prepared for everything.”
“Just answer their questions.”
If Connor is nervous at all, he doesn’t show it. I suppose if they murder me or something crazy, he can get a new fiancée. It’s not like he’s in love with me.
“I don’t know if I can,” I admit, pulling the thread out a little more. The buildings whiz by us outside as we drive, and I let my eyes dart around, unsure of where we are. “Where are we going?”
“To Antonio’s house. Don’t worry; I’ll be with you.”
I glance up, catching Geo’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and I can’t really tell what he’s thinking. We finally turn down a drive, stopping at a gate that begins to open for us. The tree-lined driveway is dark, even in the sunlight, and I think it looks both beautiful and ominous at the same time.
