Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
The Dreadville County Jail
My toes are numb, my nose is stiff from being cold, and everything hurts.
Mostly my heart.
Justice. Where are you?
Please let him be okay.
A fresh wave of tears coat my face as I try to piece together all of the things that have happened.
Westerly has to be behind this…but what if he’s not?
Men like Justice and Beast probably have a lot of enemies.
Someone could be hunting them for something they did in the SEAL Teams. Not that having someone from Westerly’s bunch of bad guys after you isn’t deadly enough.
That’s a sickening thought.
A loud voice outside the interrogation room door makes my breath catch.
But when the footsteps pass, I go back to my agonizing thoughts.
Men like Justice know how to survive. They have to be alive. That’s the only answer I can accept right now. But my weak attempt at reassuring myself doesn’t last long.
“Hello? Why am I here?” I call. They probably have a camera on me. Surely they can hear what I’m saying.
But no one comes. No one replies. No tinny voice comes out of a cheap speaker in the ceiling.
Groaning, I rest my head on the metal table—only seconds later, I jolt upright because of that scientific paper I read about microorganisms’ lifespans on metal surfaces in public places.
Days. Weeks. Months!
My groan turns to a gag.
I jump up and bang on the door. “Hey! Hey! Someone. I need disinfectant wipes with bactericide!”
Nothing.
How can I be freaking out about germs when Justice is missing and I might be charged with murder?
My brain is broken.
That’s the only answer.
When I give up and go back to the chair, a quieter man’s voice drifts under the interrogation room door. “Ten-four. I’m going in now to see what I can wring out of her.”
Me?
Surely he’s not talking about wringing something out of me.
I don’t have anything to wring.
Except my hands, and boy… I’ve done that for the last few hours.
Scuffing footsteps draw closer.
Oh boy.
The thumping inside my chest gets so erratic it can hardly be considered a heartbeat.
Calm. Gotta stay calm.
As my breathing speeds, the room grows wavy. Clinically, I know I’m hyperventilating, but heck if I can stop.
“Focus on Justice, that’s all that matters,” I try to coach myself. But end up weeping.
More voices slide below the door with sickening clarity. “The other charges were filed about thirty minutes ago,” the same man relays.
More. Charges?
More voices filter in with a narrow beam of light that’s sliding across the floor, drawing me to the door like a vortex, sucking me over for a listen.
I can’t believe I’m going to do this. This place has to have cameras out the wazoo.
The old Rosalie would never have done this, but now I’m dangerously…brave? More like recklessly determined.
Pressing my ear to the metal barrier, I close my eyes and strain to pick up something…anything. But when I do, I wish I hadn’t heard.
Two words hit me like the defibrillator did back in that stairwell, their effect knocking me backwards.
“Premeditated murder?” I whisper, grasping my pumping chest.
Stumbling toward the chair, I barely manage to throw myself into it before I fall face first onto the concrete.
Murder.
Who?
A wave of tears claws up my throat, so achy and thick, it becomes impossible to get air inside.
How am I going to get out of here? I need to be out there helping the team look for Justice.
If the team isn’t in some cell as well. There’s no one for me to call.
I’m back in the cold metal seat, staring at the two-way glass when a single knock thuds on the door. The handle slowly turns, causing a wave of dread to rush over me, pinning me to the seat like I’ve been tied down.
This is it.
The shadow that fills the door is huge and my imagination goes wild in the worst way.
Terminator.
Swallowing becomes impossible. Thinking is a thing of the past when a light-haired man in a suit steps inside.
Immediately I’m put off by his appearance.
His eyes are…dead. Blue, milky, and emotionless.
Maybe Terminator eyes would have been better. My stomach curls into a knot under his cold inspection.
“I’m Detective Pacer.”
“Hello.”
A mouse would have a stronger voice.
It’s a wonder I can speak at all—the breath sawing in and out through my nose feels like razor blades. Dipped in acid.
“Here.” The detective places a tub of cleaning wipes on the table. The industrial kind. “These will kill anything.”
Me included?
I’m frozen. Not sure whether to take the offering, uncertain about what he’s doing by giving me something I want.
“Your friend is quite the talker,” he says flatly, almost robotically.
“Which friend?” I clip in a strained tone, reluctantly pulling one of the wipes out of the tub. “I have a lot of friends.”
My heavens, when did I become a prolific liar?
“The pretty blonde gal.”
Ah, so not only is he a robot, he’s also a creep. A shiver works its way down my spine, knotting the muscles as I wipe my forehead, then my hands with one of the gross-smelling wipes.
“And?” I ask, trying to limit my responses. Who knows what he’s going to make of anything I say.
As he sits down, Detective Pacer straightens his jacket. Taking a long time to smooth the lapels, he makes a show of it.
Following that, for a strained moment, his head tilts left, then right, studying me.
“So, a scientist, huh?”
The intonations—or lack of—makes his voice impossible to read.
Not that I’m good at anything relating to people. Give me scales and spectrometers, I’m good. People are like strange animals in the forest.
Every time I encounter a new one, I’m not sure what they’re going to do.
“Yes.” I shift in the chair, trying to hold myself together. Barely managing.
“And what do you study specifically?”
Sitting up more, my body starting to feel like I’ve had one too many coffees, I ask, “Is this relevant?”
“It is.”
Robot answer.
The knot inside my stomach tightens when he slides a pad of lined paper onto the table.
The writing on the top page is neat, perfectly spaced. Not large. Not small. The text reads: Breaking and Entering, premeditated murder.
A slingshot catapults my heart up into my mouth.
He watches my reaction with those corpse eyes. “What were you doing in West Mountain Scientific two days ago?”
I can’t contain my shock or my utter disgust. “I was being held there against my will.”
Questions in his expression, he taps his pen on the notepad.
Click. Click. Click.
“Surely you can read.”
“I can, and I can also tell you that I was not at West Mountain of my own accord. I think you might want to be asking the owner, Mr. Westerly about kidnapping.”
He lifts a brow into a weird arch. “Westerly’s head of security is the one who filed the breaking and entering charge against you.”
“He WHAT?!?”
Shock almost knocks me over. Beneath the table, my feet start to tap like chattering teeth.
The detective sets down his pen as he offers a slow, feral grin. “They have you on video, sneaking around.
Oh crap.
More importantly, did I really kill that guy with the microscope?
It was self-defense. I’m smart enough to know this is a conversation for a lawyer.
If Justice’s team disabled the cameras… then it’s a lie he has a recording of anything.
“Look, Detective Pacer,” frustration raises my voice, but while my blood pressure is going up, I feel the blood draining from my face.
An icy stiffness settles across my cheeks.
“I was the one being held hostage. If you request their recordings, you’ll clearly see that I’m not at fault.”
“The murder, though, that’s a whole other charge.” One of his groomed eyebrows rises up and holds.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So why were you hiding, then?”
I’m so screwed. He’s going to say me being at the safe house with the Agile team was me hiding.
And I can’t prove otherwise.
“Detective Pacer, I’m done talking to you.”
Locking my mouth shut does nothing to stop the tornado of realizations from tearing through me.
West Mountain Scientific and Allison’s father, the owner, are mega-wealthy. As in billions wealthy. Top 100 company in the tech and science world.
Then there’s me.
I’m nothing but an ant to be squashed in whatever way serves them best. I just pray that none of the Agile team is caught up in this too.
We stare at each other, his disdain palpable.
“I want to speak to a lawyer.”
The corners of those dead eyes crinkle. The laugh that follows is worse than nails on a chalkboard. “Oh yeah?”
The clock on the wall ticks. And ticks. Loudly.
“A lawyer, please. Now.”
Taking his time, the man leans back in his chair, watching me, peeling mental layers without my permission.
Keep it together, Rosalie. He won’t stay in here forever.
If there’s going to be a chance for me to get out of this, I have to keep my brains about me. Not so easy to do when I’m scared witless.
Standing up, he plants two hands on the metal table, leaning his bulk toward me. Hot breath crawls over my face like spiders as I stare at that spot I just cleaned with the disinfectant wipe.
Shivers quake up my spine, but I refuse to let him see.
“I have nothing to say.”