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Chapter One
Rae
November 6th…
“Lady, are you fucking with me?”
The officer’s reaction, while not unexpected, still stings. Which is why I feel my instinctive response is warranted, haughty as it may sound. “I most certainly am not.” Would not either. His narrowed eyes let me know he’s debating how to take my reassurance. Hopefully, he chooses it as the insult I intended.
Raised to be polite whether the other party deserves it or not, I feel a smidge guilty for that, but I’m trying to help and he’s not making an already difficult situation any easier. “Miss Carver,” Officer Guinness begins, and I attempt to regain my civility by offering for him to call me by my first name. “Rae,” he starts again, this time a little nicer as if he understands and accepts my olive branch, “you have to admit, this is a little far-fetched.” Okay, I completely misread that cue. We haven’t made any leeway since I first sat down twenty minutes ago and launched into what I saw.
“Let me explain again,” I suggest, praying this will be the last time and he’ll be more sympathetic to my plight.
“Will anything change?” He asks in obvious frustration.
I refrain from answering with ‘Hopefully your attitude.’
Barely.
“My account of what transpired will not nor will the impact of what happened afterward have on me.” Damn it. Prim and proper is oozing from me, which is ironic considering I’ve never been labeled either. Except when I feel as if I’m being mocked. Which Officer Guinness might not be doing it outright, I know he wants to. He not so subtly checks his watch, as if silently telling me I have a deadline, before nodding in permission for me to go on. “I was out for dinner.”
As he had during my prior recitation, he interrupts for more information. Now I’m getting frustrated, but I appreciate that he appears to be doing his job even though he thinks I’m nuts. Or, at the least, an attention seeker. “Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Is this man merely a friend or more?” Failing to see, as I had the other time, how that matters, I force myself to answer as I did then.
“Neither.” Raised brow. “As I said before,” yes, it’s the verbal equivalent of the professional eff you given digitally when one person types, ‘As per my previous email,’ when the recipient clearly didn’t bother to read it, “it was a blind date.”
“Which did not go well.” This is not a question. Thankfully, it seems he won’t insist on me going into that detail a second time because no, it did not. The guy, a cousin of a former classmate that insisted he was perfect for me – I’ll be reevaluating our friendship if that’s how she views me – was an ass of epic proportions. It was so horrible I didn’t even finish my meal, instead feigning sick to excuse myself and make a hasty retreat through the back exit. I’m assuming he got the message I had the waiter deliver that I needed to leave, and that my taking care of my portion of the night would soften the obvious rejection.
“I left early,” that garners a slight smirk as he remembers what I said earlier regarding my departure and the reason for it. “Walking to my car—”
“You had to park a few blocks away, correct?”
I nod. “Being a weekend, the area was quite busy and the small lot adjacent to the restaurant was full. I was almost there when I heard a noise coming from an alley close by.”
“Which is when you decided to investigate.” That statement is packed with a lot of irritation and disdain for my choosing to see what was happening.
Regardless of the lasting effects that approach will have on me, I don’t regret it. I didn’t know if I could help, but I had to try. It was the decent thing, the right thing, to do and I’d do so again if necessary. I couldn’t live with myself if I later learned I could’ve helped someone had I listened to my instincts.
I shove aside the reminder that had I done just that, I wouldn’t be in fear for my safety right now. It already took a lot of pep talks and determination to get my butt here to deliver my information.
“What I saw,” I respond instead, choosing to overlook his disapproval of my actions, “was a man standing above another.”
“The latter was on his knees, right?” I confirm that. “And they weren’t just having a little alone time that you dropped in on.” Blowing out a breath, I strive for patience, reminding myself I had initially thought the same thing – that they were in the middle of an encounter and had found a place they assumed would offer some privacy.
“The guy kneeling was begging for his life while the stander,” if that’s not an actual term, I’m making it one now, “was holding a gun to his head.” I hold up my hand when he opens his mouth, knowing he’s going to throw out his previous theory again. “Plus, he was behind the other, not in front of him. So, no, I do not feel as if they were role playing or experiencing some—” I add finger quotes as this part came from him, word for word, “—kinky shit.”
“You then saw him pull the trigger.”
“Heard it, too.” Still vividly see and hear both in my nightmares. Almost any time I close my eyes, if I’m being honest. I tried to cover the evidence of that this morning, knowing some cosmetic assistance would hide the majority of it and perhaps make me more confident.
“Got an unhindered view of the shooter.” I appreciate that he didn’t verbally include the qualifier alleged despite probably thinking it.
“Yes.”
“That, you remember?”
