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There.
Her yelp of surprise is muffled by my hand firmly clamped over her mouth. If she were anyone else, I’d break every bone in her body for such a betrayal.
But she’s not anyone else.
And that’s the whole fucking problem.
I practically carry her into a better-lit pathway and spin her around to shove her back against the column. It’s a few seething moments before I can unclench my jaw enough to grind out, “What. The hell. Are you doing?”
Clara blinks at me. And, surprisingly, she’s not shedding a tear.
Which pisses me off even more.
“Dem—”
“I swear to God, Clara Everett.” My rage wants to strangle her. The part of me that’s still marginally logical whispers for me to hear her out. “If you’re fucking around on me?—”
“What?” She frowns. Then… laughs. She fuckinglaughs. “Oh my God, Dem.No.I’m not—I wasn’t even in there long enough forthat.”
Okay. She might have a point.
Not like my fury was keeping a timer.
“Then what the fuck are you doing sneaking around—sneakingout—in the middle of the goddamn night?. Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Okay, Daddy. Jeez.”
Fuck.Her calling me that should not, in any way, make me as hard as it does. I’m blaming the adrenaline.
Clara is unfazed by my anger. Which, while irritating as hell, is a typical sign of someone who has nothing to hide.
She digs into the pocket of her shorts and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “I checked the public records of Michael Little’s death certificate and noticed something weird. There’s two of them.”
I frown. “Two?”
And how did we miss that if it’s true?
“Yeah. Two certificates. At first, I thought it was a glitch, you know, like how those genealogy websites get records mixed up with identical names. But the location, dates, all that matched. I think it’s still a glitch, but the kind the police department didn’t plan on slipping into some family tree search database.”
Now, my hands are completely off her. Well, not completely. More like they’re just resting on her waist because even when I’m simmering with rage, I have this stupid craving to constantly touch her.
“What did you find out?”
“There are two certificates because the first one was erased. Or they tried to erase it. I tried calling the medical examiner on the first one, but she no longer works at the lab.”
I frown. “How do you know?”
Clara holds up the piece of paper between us. “Because the guy in the car was her assistant. And he still works at the lab. He was there when they fired her and replaced her with a medical examiner who redid the autopsy and signed a new certificate.”
“But why?—”
“Because the bullet didn’t kill Michael Little. Not… not like everyone’s been saying.”
I tug the paper from between her fingers and unfold it. Damn these stupid solar lights; I can barely make out an address under a name prefaced with “Dr.”
But I can clearly make out another word:Fiji.
Clara leans back against the column and sighs. “He was already dead when he was shot.”
