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“I will tell you. Can’t we just have a nice dinner first? Please?” She glances up at me, pleading with those big brown eyes.
How do you say no to a woman with eyes like those?
“Fine. But I want every word out of you.” I grab plates to set the table. “It smells amazing.”
My stomach takes over, the good meal dulling my anger. The girl can cook. She’s quiet at dinner, barely touching her food. Seeing how much I’m enjoying the meal, she plops her uneaten steak on my plate.
I cut off a few small bites, shoveling them back onto hers. “You need to eat. Have that at least.”
“Okay.” She pops one into her mouth, chewing delicately.
When we’re done, she goes to clear the plates. I grab her hand to stop her. “Sit.”
She looks down at me, unsure.
“Sit. Now.”
She slips back into her chair. “Where do I begin?”
“At the beginning.”
I had a friend in college. Lilly. She had a boyfriend. We didn’t hang out as much once she started dating him.”
“Why not?”
“He was kind of controlling. I didn’t like him. He would ask her to do stuff for him. Stuff that could have gotten him into trouble, but he risked her instead. She couldn’t see that. I tried to tell her once that if he loved her, he wouldn’t put her in that position. He would do it for himself.
“I was supposed to meet her at a party. I was so excited she’d reached out. But just as I got out of my Uber, I got this strange text from her, telling me to meet her at the side yard of the house.
“Her boyfriend was there. On the ground. Unresponsive. The drugs he’d made her buy him had been laced. They killed him.”
“Why would the cops be looking for you?”
“Lilly disappeared on me. I was feeling for a pulse, doing CPR. It didn’t work. He was already gone. But I tried anyway. When I looked up from his body, she was gone.”
“Your friend left you there? Alone?”
She shrugs. “I guess she didn’t want to be there when the cops came. Didn’t want to get into trouble. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t stand the thought of talking to the police alone. I think I was in shock. I’d never seen a dead body. It was cold and breathing into his mouth… I ran home to my mom to get help.”
“And then what happened.”
For the first time since she started her story, she looks up at me. “She told me to stay home. That it would ruin Lilly’s life and mine if we told. She burned my clothes. We found this internship here. And we waited for things to blow over.”
“But they aren’t.”
She shakes her head, dark hair falling around her face. “Apparently not. A cop from my county contacted Collins, looking for me. Collins apparently knew I was here, I don’t know how, but he did. He was questioning me when Eamon came up.”
“Eamon did the right thing. But you never should have answered that door.”
“I would have called you when I heard the knock,” she says. “If I’d had my phone. I want it back.”
“No. Hell no.” I rake a hand through my hair. “I’ve told the boys you’re here. Now I can stay home with you. Keep an eye on you till we figure all this out.”
She mulls over the information before saying, “You told?”
“Aye.” I nod. “It was best for everyone.”
Her eyes light from within. “So now I can see Fiona and Carol Ann again?”
