Just to be an asshole, I walk past the passenger side door she’s holding open and climb into the back. She chuckles but closes the passenger door before rounding the front of the cop car and climbing in behind the wheel.
The first couple of minutes are spent in blessed silence, but true to form, she can’t manage to ride all the way to the police station with her damn mouth shut.
Feeling her eyes on me, I make the mistake of looking up and catching her gaze in the rearview mirror.
“You look much better than you did last time I saw you.”
I break eye contact and look out the window without responding, much the same way I did when she showed up and questioned all the bruises on my body.
“Where are you heading tonight?”
I don’t say a single damn word, but for some reason, Martin is grinning like a crazy person when she opens the back door to let me out once we arrive at the station.
“Do you know how long this is going to take?”
“Now you want to talk?” She shakes her head as we walk up the short sidewalk into the front of the police station. “I’d suggest keeping that mouth shut a little longer.”
I look over at her, certain I didn’t hear her right, but she’s already walking away.
“Ms. Stewart.”
Goosebumps form on my arms at Detective McGee’s voice. When I turn my head to look at him my hands begin to tremble. There’s just something about this fucking creep that sets off all sorts of warning bells, and I’m fairly certain none of them have to do with the fact that he’s a cop.
My jaw snaps shut as he ushers me down the same hallway I walked weeks ago. I regret my choice of clothes, because even the blanket I had wrapped around me then covered more than my halter top and short skirt do tonight.
He doesn’t speak at first. He just waves his hand, indicating a hard-plastic chair on the other side of an economical table. It’s almost like he’s looking through me, cataloging and analyzing everything that has happened since I left the station over a month ago. I immediately hate the sins TJ confessed to me.
“Tell me about the biker,” he demands as if he’s reading my mind. I don’t respond, but he isn’t deterred. “The one that’s been coming and going from your place like he lives there? The Ravens Ruin MC is full of some scary guys. With your background, I’d think you’d avoid guys like that. Are they hurting you? Threatening you?”
I shake my head immediately.
“Then care to explain?”
I shrug, suddenly exhausted that everyone thinks they know my fucking story.
“Did you break up? I have reports that he hasn’t been seen there in the last week or so.” My nails suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world. “Several people at that party recall seeing a couple of scary guys go upstairs that night. Did your boyfriend get upset you were planning a little orgy without him and kill those guys?”
I pick at my new nail polish and bite the inside of my cheek but ignoring this piece of shit cop isn’t possible.
I finally look up at him. “You seem to be forgetting that one of those guys drugged me that night. I doubt I was in that room with them because they wanted to make sure I was safe from harm.”
“So you don’t care they were murdered, their bodies ripped to pieces only a couple of feet from your unconscious body?”
His ears are beginning to turn red, and it’s clear he’s barely holding onto his anger.
“Not even a little bit,” I lie, because I do care some. I put them in that situation, but at the same time I also know that if it wasn’t me, it would’ve been someone else. “Are you charging me with something? If not, I’m leaving.”
“Sit down,” he growls when I move to get up. “I’m going to tell you a little story.”Chapter 24TJ
“You should’ve been here,” Legs coos in my ear. I hate that she’s right on top of me, but I also haven’t bothered to push her away. “We learned tons of new self-defense techniques.”
“False,” Ronan says with a wide grin. “You stopped fighting the second Mac stuck that first finger in your ass.”
“True,” Mac adds from across the room. “I’ve never seen someone go from don’t do that to don’t stop so fast in my life.”
Everyone in hearing distance laughs at their antics, but I ignore the memories of how much Legs likes her ass fucked and take another sip of my beer. I’m nursing it, and I could lie to myself and say I’m just not in the mood to get drunk tonight, but I know where I’m heading. The same damn place I’ve headed every night for the last week, and the week before.