“Spiders’ compound blew up last night,” he said, without pleasantries.
I did my best not to let the lack of… anything in his voice get to me. Nor the sick feeling curling in my stomach about this being the topic of conversation and me being the fucking criminal, the murderer.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” I said. “They’ve deserved something along the lines of a fiery death since Laurie died.”
It hurt, every cell in my body, saying that out loud. It was a year ago but it felt like a minute. I tried not to remember the way Luke held me that night. The way he saved me. Because if I did, then it was all over.
Like it wasn’t already.
Luke didn’t betray anything, didn’t make me think that my words had any kind of effect. “Scene is pretty much burning bone and rubble,” he said, voice flat. “Not much evidence to be found.”
“Bummer for you, dude,” I snapped, trying to keep my voice casual and cold like his.
Luke didn’t react, didn’t even blink. “I said not much. Didn’t say none.”
His grim, detached face caught me then, chilling me when paired with those words. “Well, isn’t that great? You might just find justice for the rapists and murderers yet,” I said, sarcasm concealing the fear in my tone.
Luke didn’t reply, just reached into his pocket and dangled a piece of chain from his thumb and forefinger.
I stilled, and then, stupidly, my hands instinctively went to my bare neck.
The necklace, in sloping script, read Rosie.
I had literally left my motherfucking name at the crime scene.
The thought filled me with cold dread, the image of life in a cold and dank prison cell. A life trapped.
But then something else filled me.
Gloveless, Luke was presenting evidence. Evidence he’d not bagged and tagged, as was procedure. Evidence he’d pocketed. Luke had, quite literally, taken my motherfucking name from the crime scene.
A crime in itself.
A big fucking crime.
He was grim-faced and silent as he handed it to me. Woodenly, I took it.
I fingered the metal in my hands, cold and way too light for the weight it represented. The silence lasted long. Too long. Uncomfortable, the still air grated against my skin, drilling into my bone with the truth of not what I’d done, but of what Luke had done for me.
“Luke,” I managed to choke out, not sure what I was going to say afterward.
He held up his hand, face still blank, empty. “Don’t say anything, Rosie.” He stood. I immediately stood as well. He ran his hand through his hair. “Just don’t fucking say anything, Rosie.”
Then he turned and went to leave.
I watched his back.
“I had to,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
But he heard me, because he stopped. “I know,” he replied, voice soft. “And that’s the fucking tragedy of it all.”
And then he was gone.
Present Day
“You cut your hair,” Cade observed.
I flinched at the noise. I’d been staring out the window at the streets whizzing past, my mind, for once, empty.
“Yeah,” I said.
Cade had taken me back to a hotel and let me shower. He even had clothes for me. Well, the me he’d known before.
He didn’t say anything as I gave him a nod of thanks before retreating into the bathroom to slip back into the persona I’d left behind.
Someone, most likely Gwen, had packed a bag of cosmetics —I didn’t think Cade would have the forethought or knowledge to pack primer, concealer, and bronzer, let alone my entire makeup collection. I presumed she put together the outfit too.
The tee was meant to be a shirt, and she’d packed leather shorts to go with it, but it tumbled down my thighs, long enough to be a dress. I went with it. I’d changed. I couldn’t slip back into my old skin like nothing happened. I had to somehow repurpose it. Work with it. Starting with the dress was easy; it was the other stuff that wasn’t.
I slathered on makeup to hide my lack of sleep, the sallowness to my skin. But makeup could only do so much. Plus, I didn’t give a shit about it all.
My girl was in the hospital. Unconscious or not, she needed me there.
Cade hadn’t said a thing when I emerged, just directed me out the door and back into the truck. The hair comment was the first thing he said. Which was surprising, since I thought I would’ve been met with demands of where I’d been and a lot of yelling.
His stare was physical, even though I kept looking out the window.
“Your hair isn’t the only thing you’ve changed,” he murmured, a lot more beneath the words.
“No,” I agreed again.
I waited for it. The wave of anger that Cade was so well-known for. That the wayward and unpredictable Rosie was so well-known to be receiving of.
Nothing came.