Garrison didn’t look quite so peeved anymore. His lips curved into a cocky smile. “When you’re undercover, you don’t have to follow the rules quite so closely.”
I drew my gaze back to Julius, since he was the one in charge. “Why didn’t you tell me all this to begin with? Why make up all those other stories?”
“A lot of people in trouble freeze up when they’re around cops,” Julius said. “We wanted to see if you’d let anything slip when you weren’t on your guard. Obviously that hasn’t worked out so well. So here we are.” He paused. “We have reason to believe that the perpetrators of those murders are still on a rampage, looking for something they expected to find in the house but didn’t. Seeing as you had all that fancy jewelry on you, you might be not just connected but another target as well.”
I kept my expression impassive, but inside I itched with confusion. If the murderers had been looking for the jewelry I’d grabbed, why wouldn’t they have taken the stuff before they’d left? They’d been gone by the time I did my search of the house. It wasn’t as if the stuff I’d taken had been hard to find.
But then, just because these guys were cops didn’t mean they had everything right. He might have completely made up that part in the hopes of intimidating me into spilling my guts.
“You obviously have some connection to the murders,” Blaze piped up, his usual energy almost subdued as he studied me. “Your searches prove it. You were trying to find news on a massacre that happened in this city in the past twenty-four hours. There haven’t been any other murders in the past three days, and this situation hasn’t been publicized yet.”
“Yeah,” Garrison said, raising his chin. “There’s no way you could know about it unless you had an inside scoop. So why don’t you get on with explaining yourself, now that Julius has laid everything out for you?”
I wet my lips, absorbing all the new information they’d given me. I couldn’t tell them the truth—that was out of the question. But I had to tell them something they’d believe. Something that wouldn’t set me up for jail time.
I could easily retract some lies and replace them with new ones. Now that so much more was out in the open, I could concoct a ruse that better fit the circumstances—one that nobody would suspect.
And now that I knew who they were, maybe I shouldn’t be trying to leave. They were cops with access to police resources—things like running plates, which I couldn’t have done on my own. And they’d already made progress toward identifying the murderers. If I stayed with them, I’d get information that I wouldn’t be able to find on my own.
It’d be awfully useful to have two strong fighters, a tech genius, and a skilled manipulator doing a bunch of my legwork for me. Noelle always taught me to utilize every available advantage. This could be a huge advantage. They might lead me right to the perps, and then I could deal out my own brand of justice.
“Will I go to jail for stealing?” I asked, letting myself nibble at my bottom lip so I’d appear anxious.
Julius shook his head, pulling a second chair in front of me and sitting with his legs spread wide. “We handle bigger matters. We don’t give a shit about petty crimes.”
“You won’t report it?”
“We won’t.”
I didn’t necessarily believe them, but if they tried to prosecute me later, I could deny this conversation had ever happened. I nodded slowly, compiling a story out of details I’d used on various jobs in the past, tweaking it to fit the unique situation.
“I did go to the house where the murders happened,” I whispered. “Looking back, I wish I hadn’t, but I can’t change it now. One of my friends lives—lived—there, and she said I could come and stay whenever I needed somewhere to go.”
“Why did you want to stay?” Julius asked.
I forced a pained look into my eyes. “I know you saw some of my scars. I didn’t lie about having a boyfriend with a temper.”
Julius motioned for me to continue. “So you went to the house to escape him?”
I dipped my head, a piece of hair falling into my face. “Yes. I’d finally worked up the courage—I was going to hide out there until I figured out how to get my own place where he wouldn’t find me—but I didn’t know what had happened there until I got inside. My friend’s parents didn’t like me, so I always snuck in by going over the wall and through the back door. I slipped inside last night, and that’s when I found… that’s when—”
The sadness that filled my voice as I envisioned Anna gasping for air was no act. I cut myself off, my throat constricting. My mind flashed to the faceless woman who could have been Noelle, and the sense of loss deepened.
“Your friend’s name?”
“Anna,” I said, because it was easier to sell a lie when you mixed some truth into it. “She—she was dead with the rest of them.”
Julius’s brow furrowed, his gaze unrelenting. “Your friend offered you a place to stay, so you went to her house, found her dead, and decided to rob her and her family?”
When he put it like that…
I ducked my head as if I was ashamed of myself. “I had nowhere to go. No money, and nothing but a bag of clothes. I didn’t have a choice. My friend would have wanted to help me in any way she could, but she died. What use would a few things have been to a dead person, anyway? I saw all that blood, all the bodies—and I just panicked. I hardly even realized what I was doing. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Then you stole a car,” Garrison pushed.
“My boyfriend taught me how so I could help with some of the crap he was mixed up in,” I said in a small voice. “I’m not saying I made great choices that night. I was in so much shock—but that’s no excuse. I’m sorry I didn’t explain all of this earlier, but I had no idea what you guys wanted with me. I wish I’d stuck around and called the police when I found them. If there’s anything I can do now to help catch the psychos who did that, I’ll do it. Anna and the rest of them—they deserve justice.”
The men looked at one another, their expressions unreadable as they silently communicated amongst themselves. I could lie about my history and backstory all day long, but the truths I’d incorporated—the way I genuinely cared for Anna and Noelle, my determination to avenge their deaths—should have helped sell the story.