Chapter 31 #2
But after a moment, he finally sighs and his face softens.
“Look,” he says, voice gentler, “I know you’re having some medical issues, and I’m not trying to add to that.
I’m just trying to find out what happened to Marshal Wayne, and if I’m being honest, I don’t think your sister here had anything to do with it. ”
“You don’t?” I can’t help the suspicion that laces my tone.
He opens his mouth and then closes it, glancing at Nix. “Do you think we could have a minute alone?”
Nix doesn’t say anything and instead leans back in her chair, narrowing her eyes further and giving him her answer without words.
“Nix,” I hiss.
“Or,” Layton says to her, “I could take your sister here down to the station to get some privacy.”
She doesn’t budge, calling his bluff with a challenge.
“Nix,” I snap again, and this time my voice cracks around the edges because I’m not convinced it’s a bluff at all.
She sets her jaw but finally stands, letting the chair screech as she does. She stomps from the room with a flip of her hair. I grimace.
“Feisty,” Layton remarks once the door closes.
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” I confess.
“Must’ve been hard,” he says, his tone shifting and dropping into something like sympathy. “Raising her all on your own.”
The denial jumps up out of habit. “I didn’t—”
He puts up a hand, stopping me. “Doesn’t matter anymore now, does it?”
Everything in me wants to refute the truth because that’s what I’ve had to do for the past eighteen years, but he’s right, it doesn’t matter now, seeing as she’s of age, and I don’t need another lie stacked against me.
“How did you find out?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Kind of my job to find things out.” He taps the badge on his hip.
“Right.” A fresh wave of apprehension hits me. What else has he found out?
“And I assume Marshal knew as well?” he asks.
Reluctantly, I nod. I don’t know where he’s going with this, but it seems a harmless enough truth to admit.
“That’s what I thought,” he says. “I did some digging and found an old report that he responded to at your residence.” He drags the chair Nix was sitting in and sets it near the bed before taking a seat.
“Someone called in a drunk and disorderly. Marshal Wayne was the responding officer. You had to be sixteen at the time, right?”
I nod again, remembering that night with a cringe.
Our dad had made a random appearance a week prior, promising to get sober.
It obviously didn’t last long. He took every photo we had of our mom out to the lawn that night.
He was belligerent, tearing them up and crying and shouting.
Nix was only eight, and she ran out after him, trying to get the pictures back.
It was chaos as I tried to drag her back inside.
Nosy Nellie came out to inspect, and the police showed up not long after—Marshal showed up.
I was terrified that he was going to bring Child Protective Services and take Nix.
But instead, after putting our dad in the back of his cruiser, he kneeled down and asked me if I needed him to call anyone.
There was an edge to his tone, as if we both knew the only option was CPS and he was giving me an out.
I took it. I always assumed he must have had his own run-in with the system when he was younger and that it wasn’t a pleasant one.
“Look,” Layton sighs, pity in his eyes. “I haven’t been in Cloverwick long, but it’s clear to me Marshal Wayne wasn’t the best example of a cop. I’m pretty sure he was involved in some shady affairs, and I’m pretty sure that extends to you and your sister.”
My brows knit.
“Favors seemed to be his specialty, and if you were…” He pauses as if trying to find the right words.
“If he was forcing you to do things you didn’t want to do…
to keep your sister from being taken away, I would understand if that became too much.
Especially after your sister came of age.
I’d imagine Marshal wouldn’t like being told no after all these years.
He may have even become violent, and I would understand if you had to defend yourself. ”
My bottom lip falls in horror. Is… is he insinuating that I was fucking Marshal to keep Nix out of the system?
And that I finally snapped and killed him?
Mortification and repulsion burn in the back of my throat.
“No!” I gasp. “No, I didn’t—He wasn’t making me—Oh my God, no! ” I shudder, wanting to gag.
“Kira, the timestamp on the CCTV footage would suggest Marshal was meeting you at your house around the time you would typically get home from work. I would understand if, after a grueling shift of being on your feet all night, you’d had enough.”
“No!” I say again, trying not to picture what he’s suggesting.
“Then why is his last known location near your residence?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“Why would he be headed to your house at three in the morning?”
“I don’t know,” I say again, suddenly feeling hot.
“Yes, you do.” He leans forward. “What happened to Marshal, Kira?”
“I don’t know!” I shout. “I don’t know! But it wasn’t that!”
“I think it was exactly that!” Layton suddenly pushes to his feet, and gone is the fake compassion and delicacy.
Because that’s what it was; fake. He was playing me, pretending to be good cop.
He doesn’t give a fuck if Marshal actually forced me to have sex with him, he only wants me to confess to killing him.
“You need to leave.” I pull the blanket off my lap, trying to cool the perspiration that’s broken out on my skin. My chest is tightening, and the beeping from the machine is becoming erratic.
“Not until you tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened,” I rasp, clutching my chest, trying to breathe through the pressure building under my sternum.
“We can go down to the station. Is that what you want? We can—”
The door suddenly opens, and Celeste appears. She takes one look at the sheen of sweat at my hairline and the monitor on my right before she’s at my side.
“You need to leave,” she says flatly, not even looking at Layton. Her hands are on the drawer beneath the monitor, already pulling it open. “Kira, try to breathe. I’m going to give you something to slow your heart.”
But I can’t breathe, and Layton won’t move.
Celeste’s head snaps up, her eyes finally cutting to him, and the temperature in the room drops.
“You are stressing a cardiac patient with an aortic tear and interfering with patient care,” she says, voice sharp as a scalpel.
“She’s not stable for questioning. If you don’t leave right now, I’ll call security and file a complaint with your captain. ”
Layton’s jaw works as if he wants to argue.
For a second, I think he will, and the thought spikes my panic enough to cause a stutter in my chest. But he finally steps back as Celeste pushes a needle into my IV, forced by the fact that this isn’t his territory.
He makes it halfway to the door, then turns, like he can’t resist getting the last word.
“Marshal may have taken favors,” he says, voice cold again, “but he was still a cop. He will have justice, Ms. Noland.”