Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kira
Iknew it was coming, but my whole world tilts all the same as the detective asks about Marshal.
My breath catches in my throat, the air turning to lead in my lungs.
I don’t know where the fuck Jax came from, but I’m humbled by my hands as they latch onto the back of his shirt, shamelessly grateful for the wall of muscle between me and the detective.
I knew the shoe was going to drop. I knew it. I just didn’t think it would be today.
“Uh,” I mumble pathetically from behind Jax. I don’t know if I should lie or tell the truth. Obviously, this Detective Layton wouldn’t be here if he couldn’t connect me and Nix—or our residence?—to Marshal. My brain scrambles, flipping through a hundred different answers. “Yes?”
I hate that it sounds like a question, but I can’t get a grip.
I can practically feel the cuffs tightening around my wrists.
I thought I would have more time to prepare myself, to possibly accept this.
There isn’t much that can shake me anymore, but prison?
Prison makes me want to throw up. I may have lived a shit life, but it was always on the right side of the law—if you don’t count taking care of Nix while being underage.
But that would have never put me in prison.
“Do you know when the last time you saw him was?” Layton asks.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Didn’t he just ask a question, and now he has another?
They’re coming too fast. This is all happening too fast. My heartbeat thuds loudly against my ribs.
How come I never thought what I would say if someone came asking?
I should have prepared. Fuck, I should have prepared.
“What’s it matter?” Jax asks, thankfully interrupting, and I snap my mouth shut.
The slurred speech is gone from his tone, but he’s still holding onto the dialect of dimwit misogynist. I don’t know what he was trying to do by staggering up here pretending to be drunk, but thank fuck he did.
I may have been telling myself I would be happy to never see him again, but right now, he’s a godsend.
Layton pauses, looking up from a notepad I hadn’t noticed. His stare is heavy and unblinking. “And what’s your relation to Marshal Wayne?”
Jesus. Another question? He didn’t even answer Jax. I swallow the whine that wants to pour from my lips and flounder. I really don’t know how to answer that, and my heart thumps painfully under my breastbone at the fact that I’m fucking this up. What’s wrong with me? I need to handle this.
“He’s a friend,” I say, raising my chin but not letting go of Jax.
“Is he an…” Layton hesitates, eyeing Jax before focusing on me. “An intimate friend?”
Ew. Marshal was in his early fifties with a goatee, and I can’t help the repulsion that shakes my body. “No!” I blurt. “God, no. He was just a friend of the family. He helped out.”
“Helped?” The detective raises a brow as Jax stiffens.
My brows come together. “Yeah, like giving my truck a jump or—”
Oh, no.
Caught in the sharp stare of the detective, my bottom lip falls.
I realize too late that I fucked up. I used past tense.
Jax shifts in front of me, just enough to press back against my grip, like he caught it and is alerting me.
But I have realized, and my stomach twists.
The detective’s silence is worse than another question.
He just stands, pen hovering over his damn notepad.
I need to fix this.
“He helps out,” I correct quickly, forcing the words through the tightness in my throat. “Or—he did.”
Fuck. That’s not better. That’s not better at all. What the hell am I doing?!
Layton tilts his head slowly, like he’s admiring me digging my own grave. “So, he doesn’t anymore?”
I shake my head too fast. “I mean—I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”
“Since when?”
Jax’s body goes rigid, but I can’t focus on him, not when the detective is staring straight through me. I need to lie. I need to think. But the pressure builds, and my mouth moves before my brain catches up.
“A while,” I say.
Layton doesn’t blink. “How long is a while?”
There’s no right answer.
My pulse pounds in my ears as my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I need to say something, anything. But every option feels wrong, suspicious. I’m trapped.
Jax huffs. “Since I told him to stay away from my girl.”
I sag. Yes! Yes, that sounds good. I cling to it, nodding once like it’s the truth I meant to tell all along.
“Hm,” the detective muses, frowning as he flips his notepad closed. “So you didn’t see him last Thursday night?”
My blood runs cold, every muscle locking back up at the mention of Thursday night. My throat tightens, and I know my face betrays me. I can feel the slight tremor in my hands as they cling tighter to Jax’s shirt, can the detective see it?
“Thursday night?” I repeat, the words coming out like I’m stuck in quicksand.
Layton doesn’t look away. He knows. He fucking knows. Or at least he thinks he does.
“You didn’t see him?” he presses a little too smoothly, like he’s already piecing this together. The silence stretches between us, heavy with the weight of what’s being said without actually being said.
“No,” I say, the word almost a whisper. “I told you, I haven’t seen him in a while.”
It sounds like a lie, even to my own ears. A shitty, desperate lie.
Layton watches me, and I swear I can see the calculation happening behind his eyes. “Are you sure? Because we have CCTV of him heading on foot in the direction of this neighborhood—your neighborhood—on Thursday night. Do you have any idea why he would be heading here if not to see you?”
“He was heading here?” I ask despite the fact that I now know I’m screwed.
“We pulled the data from his cruiser—excuse me. You do know Marshal Wayne is Cloverwick PD, correct?”
I nod absently, my hands growing clammy.
“Right. Well, we pulled the tracking, and this is the only residence in the area that he’s visited in the last year.”
My heart skips a beat, my mind reeling as I process how easy it was for them to connect Marshal here. I’m not sure if my chest is tightening from panic or if my heart is finally going to give out.
“Oh.” My hand travels to my chest.
There’s nothing I can say that will refute a tracker. There were plenty of times when Marshal showed up in his patrol car. Stupidly, I thought that by him walking here Thursday night, that we would be safe.
“So, again, did you see Marshal Wayne on Thursday night?” His eyes don’t leave mine, dissecting every movement I make, every breath I take.
The world closes in like a noose around my throat. He knows I’m full of shit. But I can’t take it back. It’s too late. Marshal is ashes. If I admit that he came here Thursday night, I would also have to admit what we did.
I force air into my lungs and straighten. “No,” I say with the resolve of a gavel coming down, drawing a line, and I’m on the very wrong side of it.
Layton watches me for a long beat as I try to hide the fact that my heart is about to explode from my chest. I hold my breath, praying tears don’t flood my eyes, until finally, he nods.
“Okay, then,” he says, not sounding convinced. “If you change your mind, here’s my card.” He pointedly slides the card past Jax.
There’s no way he doesn’t notice the tremor in my hand as I take it.