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Her look of exasperation wasn’t lost on him either, but quite frankly, he didn’t give a fuck. The last person he trusted fucked him over royally, and he wasn’t about to do that shit again in this life. He might cut her some slack since she was the woman he’d chosen to spend the rest of his life with, something that even she should accept was a big fucking deal, but everyone else is pretty much fucked. Especially spit shine pretty boy assholes like this one.
Riley sized up the other man as Detective Branson did the same. He knew the signs very well since he tended to be the same way with his pregnant wife, but he figured he should have some fun with it from the other side. Even with the big ass rock on her hand that he was guessing came from the man who was even now breathing fire in his direction, there was no mistaking that the beautiful detective was a catch.
“Riley, what brings you here?” Celia tried not to let anything show in her voice because she was sure Riley wouldn’t care about their audience if he thought that she was berating him in any way; the man’s a nut. That’s when she saw the coffee machine in his hand. “Didn’t you say the coffee here sucked? I can’t have my fiancée drinking crap now, can I.”
No one in a ten-mile radius missed the emphasis on the word fiancée. Celia was tempted to ask him why he didn’t tattoo the word on her forehead but thought better of giving him any ideas. Instead, she gave Detective Branson an apologetic look when Riley purposely moved between the two of them to place the box on her desk. It’s going to be a long day; she thought and sighed.
CHAPTER 7
Marissa clung to her mother and cried her heart out. She knew that whatever happened in the next few minutes would change the course of her life, and she was scared. She went through a myriad of emotions as her worried mother kept asking her to tell her what was wrong.
“Marissa, honey, you’re scaring me. Tell me what’s wrong. Did you and Annabelle have another fight?” If only this were about another one of her and her best friend’s stupid fallouts. Just yesterday, that would’ve been the sum total of her biggest worry; now there was a dark cloud hanging over her head that nothing and no one could dispel.
She thought of all the hard work and wasted trust, the fact that her dreams would most likely come to an end before nightfall. Things like this were not supposed to happen to people like her. She was one of the good guys. The kid who helped with the food drive for the less fortunate, the girl who made sure that all of her friends got home safe whenever they had a night out somewhere.
Didn’t all of that toeing the line and living life on the straight and narrow deserve something? Why is this happening to me? She wondered. What have I ever done to deserve this? Aside from all that, there was the fact that she felt completely betrayed and like the biggest fool. She’d never seen this coming, never would’ve expected it or imagined that he was capable.
As her mom pushed her back gently and wiped her tear-stained face with her fingers, she brought her tears down to a sniffle. As horrible as she felt, and as many roads as she could take to safeguard her own future, she knew there was only one right thing to do. So she slipped out of her mother’s embrace and got up off the bed feeling twenty years older as she walked to the dresser where she’d dropped her phone.
To think that just this morning, when she left this room, she was a different person. Now the frilly room that had given her so much pleasure in the hours spent with her mother decorating and changing the once childish haven into a room fit for a young adult felt closed in and dark.
She took a deep breath as she lifted the phone and closed her eyes, just a little bit sore at herself for moving so slow. Sometimes doing the right thing can be so hard. “Here, read it.” She held the phone out to her mom, who took it after looking up at her quizzically. “What is it?”
Joanie Bishop had to read the text twice as it took her a second to comprehend what it was that she was looking at. She read the sender’s name again to be sure before looking at her daughter and back down at the screen again. There was a voice screaming in her head that sounded vaguely like her own, but when she opened her mouth to speak, no sound came for the first few seconds. “Is this a joke?”
