10. Savannah
Chapter 10
Savannah
I run my index finger over my lower lip idly as my brain dabbles in thoughts that have nothing to do with work.
“Something on your mind?” Clarissa asks.
Shaking my head, I try to refocus on the task at hand. I open a new document and begin typing, taking points from what I have on paper in front of me.
But I soon lose concentration as my mind conveniently returns to where it was two nights ago. The moment I closed my eyes and pressed my lips against Michael’s, and the shock when he kissed me back.
I groan, running my fingers through my hair.
Why did I do that?
First off, I shouldn’t have been drinking. Secondly, I shouldn’t have been drinking with my boss and the attorney in charge of my case, who is also someone I’m not sure I even like.
Then…what the hell was I thinking? That I could just do what I wanted at that moment because he looked so good and smelled so fucking nice?
“This is why you don’t go out, Savannah,” I mutter. “You end up making a mess of things.”
“Something the matter?”
I shake my head again without looking at Clarissa. I know she will keep asking questions, but the only way to keep from spilling beans—because I seriously need to tell someone—is if I don’t look at her.
“Are you sure? I don’t want you to pull your hair out and have to show up wearing a wig. I mean, I’m not saying you wouldn’t look good in a wig.”
“I’m fine, Clar,” I say, not having enough strength to say her full name.
I’ve screwed things up. Can I face him again after what I did?
I mean…he did kiss me back, right? So maybe that absolves me of half the blame?
I wave my hands in front of my face, trying to clear the thought clouds. Out of my peripheral vision, I see Clarissa shake her head. She probably thinks I have lost my mind.
Nothing has gone right since I first met Michael, it’s been a tiring couple of weeks indeed.
“Maybe it’s karma for the way I acted?” I mutter.
Clarissa gets up.
“I need to see to something. I’ll be back. Or I might not,” she gives me a secretive smile, “we’ll see.”
I nod absently, only taking note of her departure when the door closes. As soon as it does, I get up from my chair and head to the small board that is in every office, but nobody uses.
Picking up the dry-erase marker, I write down two names: Michael Stone. Brandon Portman. Two men who are currently at the epicenter of my life.
One because he’s dead, and the other because he’s alive, and I have no one else to turn to.
I draw a straight line from Brandon and put a question mark next to Michael’s name.
I tap the blunt end of the marker to my chin, thinking. “What do I know about Brandon?”
I know that he has an older sister who lives halfway across the world and whom he barely speaks to. I know that his mom is married to someone else—she left them when Brandon was six.
His father is dead. Besides me, I did not know about any of his friends. Only colleagues and Brandon constantly maintained that his colleagues weren’t his friends, so they weren’t allowed into his personal life.
Then Alice. Alice knew Brandon well enough to be considered a friend.
Did she…kill him?
I wouldn’t put it past her. A close friend who slept with her best friend’s fiancé for a year because she thought he was going to leave the friend.
Betrayal of the worst kind. She seems capable of almost anything.
“Why is Brandon’s name there?”
My head turns around.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” I yell when I see that the intruder is Alice, the person I was bitching about seconds earlier.
“I came to talk to you. That’s all. Nothing else. I just came to talk.” She says gently trying to calm me down.
I don’t know where she gets the idea that I want to talk to her, but I drop the marker and cross my arms.
“Well, I don’t have anything to say to you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you, Alice, so if you don’t mind please leave.”
“You’re trying to figure out who killed Brandon, right? I knew you would when you looked at me like that the other day.”
I sigh in exasperation. “Look, there’s nothing between us, Alice. If anything, you did this to yourself.”
“As far as I am concerned I never need to talk to you or spend any more time with you, ever.”
I turn away and begin cleaning the board with my hand, furious at myself for getting so engrossed that I didn’t see her come in. I imagine Michael seated in my chair, watching the whole thing.
He’d say something like,
“ It’s not about being a lawyer, Savannah. It’s something you need to know. That’s all.”
In that tone of his, that tells you he thinks he is always right. Which can be annoying and comforting at the same time.
When, after a couple of minutes, I see that Alice hasn’t left, I turn to her with a mocking sneer.
“You sure are tenacious; I’ll give that to you. Believing that Brandon would leave me for you, and then that I would forgive you afterward. That’s messed up.”
“I’ve been to the station—several times. I’m trying to find out what they have on the case, but they’ve told me nothing. I get that it’s because I’m not related to Brandon. What about you?” She asks.
What about me?
“I’m sure they said the same thing too. And I know you must feel terrible,” she says. “So, I can help you find out who killed him.”
What? How?
I want to scream in her face, but the tears that roll down her cheeks keep the words from coming out. I realize, watching Alice, that even though she betrayed me, I cannot hate her as much as I want to.
It doesn’t mean I forgive her though.
“It doesn’t hurt to have one more set of eyes looking at the evidence,” I shrug. “But you can only help if you agree to play by my rules. One step out of place, and you won’t see me again until you take your last breath.” I tell her firmly.
She nods eagerly, flying across the office to wrap her arms around me. The contact, because it’s familiar, feels comforting for a second. Then I remember what she did, and I push her away.
“Don’t,” I say sternly. “Don’t ever do that again. We’re not friends.”
“Oh,” her voice is somber. “I’m sorry. I know. I shouldn’t have done that. I apologize.”
I exhale loudly, scrubbing my face.
“I don’t want to argue with you. If you want to help me, find out what happened to Brandon, then I’ll need you to answer a couple of questions.”
Alice’s head bobs.
“Anything.”
I point to a chair. “Sit.”
She quickly sits.
“What do you want to know?” Alice asks.
“I never met any of Brandon’s friends because he didn’t believe in mixing business and pleasure or whatever bullshit excuse he gave me at the time. I want to know, did you know his friends?” I ask.
She nods timidly.
My fingers curl into fists, digging into my palm. It feels tender, but I keep on digging because it’s either my palms suffer, or she gets the brunt of my anger.
At having loved—or cared—for someone only to find out that they shared their life with someone else, rather than me.
“Okay?” I ask.
“You want to know which of his friends I met?” Alice asks.
I cross my arms and ask. “You think he was murdered, don’t you?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you or are you not certain?” I ask sharply.
It takes a minute, but the tone in which I ask the question echoes in my head. And I realize one startling thing, I sound like Michael Stone.
In his cold, emotionally detached way.
But she deserves it, right? I mean, she slept with Brandon. She…betrayed me. I’m the nice guy for allowing her to sit in my presence.
I tilt my chin stubbornly. If I have to be like Michael, then so be it.
“So? Alice? We don’t have all day.”
“I think so? I mean, the cops. They don’t want to say anything. His neighbors say that the only reason they found his body was because of a water leak. There’s a problem with the plumbing in his apartment, which I asked him to fix several times , so someone called the building superintendent.”
“He was the guy who found the body. But he said he didn’t do anything to it. He just saw it and ran and went to call the cops. Then they told everyone to leave,” she explains.
“That’s why nobody knows what happened to him. But I think…I suspect.”
I frown.
The detective conveniently left that part out, didn’t she? To trap me?
“Is something wrong?” Alice asks.
“Nothing,” I quickly respond. “We’re dealing with murder. Do you think anyone had a vendetta against Brandon?”
Alice stays quiet.
“Alice?”
“From what I know, he was well-liked. Everyone wanted to be around him. He was charismatic. I mean, that’s why you fell for him, right?” Alice gently reminds me.
Right , I think to myself with venom and regret. When we met, he was charming, and the event we were at sucked, and he was fun enough to divert my attention. Then, I was pressured to agree to marry him.
And everything went downhill from there.
“I don’t know if anyone would want to hurt Brandon, not even the people he went up against in court. He had a way of settling things amicably, making it feel as if both parties had some sort of win.” Alice continues.
I roll my eyes as her cheeks turn a light shade of pink.
“Cut it out. I didn’t ask you to list the reasons why you believed his bullshit and went behind my back.” I snarl.
She snaps to attention.
“Right. I’m sorry. Honestly, the only person I know that might want to hurt him…” Alice glances away, “is you. He hurt you. I hurt you. But I know you didn’t do this, so I don’t know who else would want to hurt him.”
A frustrated sigh forces itself out of my mouth. That’s why the detective was so quick to throw me to the wolves. A charismatic lawyer whom everyone loves cheats on his fiancée. They meet at a restaurant where she’s seen threatening revenge.
She talks about him dying. She hands him the ring.
Even though cheating isn’t a staple for good behavior, it pales in comparison to murder. And as it stands, I’m the poster woman for murder.
“Let’s end this here.” I sigh.
“What?” Alice gets up. “You don’t want to find out what happened?”
I feel like tugging my hair out.
“I do. But I’m done for today. I’m tired. You can go home.”
“Do you—"
I pin her with a glare.
“I don’t. At least not in your company.”
Alice sighs, and I watch as she grabs her bag walking out the door with her shoulders slumped. When the door closes, I head over to the board.
“What am I doing?” I mutter as I finishing wiping the board. “I have no leads. No clue. No idea. I knew next to nothing about the man I was going to marry.”
“It’s hopeless,” I say with exasperation.
I might as well handcuff myself and admit to the crime.