Chapter Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIX
The alley attack happened in a blur. The next thirty minutes are just as chaotic, as the paramedics insist on checking me while one pair of officers question Maddox and another pair talk to Theo separately.
Our officers have to keep redirecting our attention because we’re both focused on Theo, trying to hear what’s happening, wanting to be there, defending him, supporting him.
My arm is fine. The skin is split from the knife slash, so maybe more than “a scratch,” but it doesn’t need stitches. I’ll probably have bruises from the shoves and falls. I’m fine, though. Isolde is not, and Theo is not, and since I can’t help Isolde, I just want to get to Theo.
I know he didn’t do this. I don’t need to work through the details to be sure. But I do need to work through them to help him.
I tell the officers what I saw. It was dark.
I point that out, including the fact that the light over the exit door is either turned off or broken.
That means I didn’t see my attacker’s face, but I also concede that Isolde was closer to the road and the light there.
I need to defend Theo with facts, and that means even pointing out issues with my own defense.
The figure in the hallway looked male. He was Theo’s height and neither noticeably thinner nor noticeably broader. He seemed strong. All that fits Theo. Otherwise, I didn’t see his light hair or white button-down shirt, and I really think that would have stood out in the dim light.
I can hear Theo fumbling to defend himself, panic-stricken, throwing out questions. Can the police check his phone GPS? What about cameras inside?
The rest of our friends soon arrive, and they’re pulled into the questioning.
Did Theo leave the table while Isolde and I were dancing?
Yes, he already said that—after Isolde and I danced for one song, he couldn’t see me, so he went looking.
Is that normal? Does he keep such a close eye on his girlfriend?
I desperately want to go over and defend him. But I’m still being questioned, and I need to find proof that this couldn’t have been him.
Polly explains who Theo is and that there were security concerns for all of us, which is why he kept an eye on me.
At which point Allegra snaps, “Liliana’s a billionaire heiress.
Of course Theo worries about her in a crowded club,” and I feel every eye on me as I struggle to focus on my own questioning.
The other discussion still floats over.
So Theo left after I’d been gone for one song. Did he ever come back? Did anyone see him?
“I did,” Kai says. “A bunch of times, out on the dance floor looking for Lili. During at least three songs.”
“Are you sure?” Cosmo says. “I only saw him for…” Cosmo must realize he isn’t helping and trails off, looking uncomfortable.
“No, Kai,” Theo says, the words coming slow, as if reluctant to stop his friend from providing an alibi.
“You must have seen someone else. I did two rounds of the floor. Then some girls recognized me, and I ducked into the back hall. I was looking for Lil from there, checking the restrooms and the refreshment stand. Then someone said there were police and an ambulance, and I took off, saw the open exit door, and found them.”
“You were in the back halls?” one officer says. “Where no one could see you and provide an alibi. The back halls…where the two victims were.”
“I can show you where I was. It was the other side of the building. I swear. Check my phone.”
“That will only confirm you were in the building.”
“I didn’t hurt Liliana and Isolde. I don’t have a knife. Search me. Please.” He lifts both hands over his head.
The officer shakes his head. “You wouldn’t still have it.”
Knife…My gaze falls to the blood where Isolde had lain, and I break free from Maddox’s grip.
“Blood,” I say quickly. “There’s no blood.”
There are two officers questioning me: a young man and a middle-aged woman. The young guy’s gaze goes to the puddle of blood on the ground and then meaningfully turns back to me.
“Yes, there’s blood on the concrete. I’ve got blood everywhere.” I raise my arms. “Mostly from a slash on my arm. Some from helping Isolde. Maddox over there has blood on him from helping Isolde, too. Where is it on Theo?”
Theo steps back, lifting his hands, as if they’d accuse him of quickly wiping it away.
“Whoever attacked us is going to have blood on them,” I say. “There’s a footstep in that pool, at the edge, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t belong to me. There isn’t blood on Theo’s shoes, though. White shirt. White sneakers. Faded jeans. No blood.”
“I thought you were some kind of heiress,” the young officer says. “Now you’re a cop?”
“I’m just pointing out—”
The older officer gestures for me to move away. When I hesitate, she shoos me and follows.
“I’m not trying to interfere,” I say when we’re a few feet from the others.
“I know,” she says, her voice low and not unkind.
“But there isn’t any blood—”
“Which I have noted.”
“Oh.”
“A possible ID was made by the primary victim,” she says. “We must follow up on that. Do you want us to ignore it, let your friend go…and then have the victim telling the press that your friend attacked her? After it’s too late for us to properly interview witnesses? To examine the scene?”
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
She smiles. “You want to protect your friend. The blood was a good catch, but I’m on it.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re the new Chamberlain heiress, right?”
I look up sharply.
She shrugs. “I follow the local gossip. Never know when it might come in handy. Like if that new heiress and her friends are attacked in my city.”
She lowers her voice. “Here’s the thing, Miss Chamberlain.
You now have enough money to buy your way out of trouble, so people are always going to presume you did.
Same with your friend there. Famous parents.
Famous kid. Corners are cut. Deals are made.
He goes free…and the gossip rags have a field day. ”
“I should let you do your job and make sure it’s airtight.”
“As much as it can be,” she says.
—
We give our statements. Theo isn’t arrested.
He isn’t taken to the station for further questioning.
He does call his mom, who’ll get in touch with the family lawyer, who’ll probably tell Theo that he shouldn’t have said a word, but even I didn’t think of that, despite knowing it very well from my dad.
We’re advised not to go to the hospital. With Isolde having named Theo, it’s best if he doesn’t show up, and probably best that none of us do, in case we’re accused of trying to persuade her to retract her identification.
Maddox drives Theo and me back to Westdale.
Partway there, Theo gets a call from the police, and he doesn’t want to answer, but it turns out to be a detective informing him that Isolde has formally retracted her identification.
Once Isolde was away from the scene, she started to second-guess herself and by the time the police interviewed her, she was apologizing for accusing Theo.
She’d been in shock, and seeing someone her attacker’s size panicked her.
That should be a huge relief, but Theo is still a mess. In shock himself, barely talking, and when he does speak, it’s to tell us how sorry he is.
He did nothing wrong. It wasn’t as if he’d sworn not to let me out of his sight. He was as diligent as he felt he could be without putting me on a leash.
When Theo starts to spiral—apologizing and then feeling horrible for making this about him—I divert the conversation by finally asking Maddox how he got there.
“I didn’t plan to go,” Maddox says. “But I couldn’t relax. So I snuck out. Called Uber. Theo and I have each other on Friend Finder. I stayed close.”
“Thank you,” Theo says.
Maddox looks at us in the rearview mirror. “I’m glad I could help Lili and Isolde, but I’m not sure I should be thanked for stalking you two. If nothing happened, I was going to feel like shit, acting as if I’d been at Westdale all night.”
“You would have confessed,” I say. “And we’d have told you we understood.”
“Yeah, but it was still…” He rolls his shoulders. “I get worked up, and it was in my head and I couldn’t let it go.”
“Because you took Cecilia’s concerns more seriously than I did,” I say softly. “And that’s my problem, not yours.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do, and I’m sorry I got defensive. Whether I felt there was a real threat or not, you were worried. That should have been enough.”
—
When we get to Westdale, the others are already back, and we collectively decide to handle this all in the morning.
The hospital would have contacted Isolde’s parents, who’d let the school know, and if there’s someone waiting to talk to us, we’ll talk.
But there isn’t, so we slip in and head upstairs.
Theo, Maddox, and I bring up the rear. As Theo heads off, Maddox whispers, “Will you stay with him?”
“Hmm?”
“Tonight. Can you stay with him? He’s…feeling a lot right now.”
“I know.”
“And I’d rather you weren’t alone either, which means I need to ask you to stay with him.”
“I will.” I kiss his cheek. “Thank you for tonight. We haven’t had much time to talk.”
“Tomorrow.” A humorless quirk of his mouth. “I would be shitty company tonight anyway, and if I can be alone while knowing I didn’t leave either of you alone, that’s best for everyone.”
—
Theo’s room is, well, very Theo. Organized chaos.
Clothing either hung in the closet or tossed in the vicinity of the hamper.
Original vintage movie posters tacked up like cheap reproductions.
Probably all films he admires. None of his father’s.
None for his own shorts. One, though, is the film his mom won her Best Actress Oscar for.
The bookcase is stuffed with film scripts and film-studies texts. The desk has been removed to make more room for the bed, which is king-sized because of course it is. That’s where he’ll do his reading and his homework, propped up on the stack of pillows.