Chapter Fifteen #2
“Yeah,” Mr. Stevens put in, stepping forth. “All you’ve got for motive is a year-old argument and a few thrown cupcakes? That’s a joke.”
“Yeah!” More than a few people were shouting now. “Uncuff that poor woman and find some real evidence.”
“Stop—! Stay back!” Balogun shouted. “Officers? Officers, control this crowd!”
The order was warranted. They were pushing and shoving onto the front steps. The gawkers were quickly becoming a mob.
“Do not move, or you’re all under arrest,” Balogun carried on. “We have means, a multimillion-dollar motive, and opportunity! This is a lawful arrest; you will not interfere!”
“Where is the bloody dress?” I demanded, and the crowd immediately took up the chant.
“Where is the dress?” “Show us the dress!”
Balogun and Kaplan stumbled down a step, pushed back by the line of officers that pushed through the crowd and were forming a barrier between them and us.
“Ms. Thorne must’ve stashed the bloody dress somewhere—”
A raucous chorus of boos thundered over Kaplan.
“Bullshit,” I chimed in. “You’re saying Courtney found a hiding place for the bloody dress that was apparently so good you can’t find it, but then went full idiot and put the murder weapon in her bag?
The bag she gave you permission to search!
Why wouldn’t she have stashed the knife in the same place she put the dress? ”
“That’s right,” Mr. Stevens blared at Kaplan’s reddening face. “Explain that.”
“I don’t have to explain it,” Kaplan replied. “That’s for a jury to determine—”
“BOOO!”
“What kind of shitty reply is that? This is someone’s life you’re talking about!”
“Lazy,” someone else shouted. “You’re just lazy!”
Right then, I took back absolutely every snooty thing I thought about Sue’s high-society posse. These were the best damn people in the world.
“Hello, everyone.” The Chic Ghost shot her phone up above the heads of the officers. “You’re live with me in Lantana where a horrible miscarriage of justice is happening right before my eyes. Detectives Lazy One and Lazy Two, along with Officer Pervert over there—!”
“Stop that!” Balogun bellowed. All of a sudden, she wasn’t interested in hamming it up for the cameras. “Put that away!”
“—have framed an innocent single mother and arrested her for murder! They don’t even care that the real killer is getting away free!”
“That’s enough!” Kaplan roared, charging her. “Put that way! All of you, put your phones away or we’re arresting you for obstruction!”
Kaplan grabbed her wrist. It probably wasn’t even that hard, but she screamed like he tried to tear it from her body.
“Get off me! Help, help! Police brutality!”
“Let go of my wife, you brute!” A two-hundred-and-fifty-pound rocket rammed into Kaplan.
The problem was, there was an entire officer standing between him and Kaplan, and said officer was linked arm in arm with her colleagues—trying to form a blockade between the angry crowd and the detectives. When she went down... they all did.
“Ahhh!” One—three—five—eight officers pitched off the top step, tumbling head over ass down the stairs... and taking Balogun, Kaplan, Davis, Courtney, and me down with them.
RHODES PRESSED THE ice pack to my forehead while Micah tucked the blankets in tighter around us.
The five of us were in the family room—a room that didn’t see much use before I came, if the thick layers of dirt and dust were anything to go by.
But Micah, Rhodes, Lily, and I had taken to spending the evenings in the family room, taking advantage of Lily’s short screen-time window to watch a movie together.
That night was the first night Alex joined us... but we weren’t watching a movie.
“—riot broke out this morning at the residence of former lifestyle and travel influencer, Soo Min Kim,” said a buttoned-up, conventionally attractive reporter.
“Tragically, Mrs. Kim’s mother, Ha-eun Kim, was found murdered last night, but when authorities attempted to make an arrest, it did not go well. ”
Cue the looping, stitched-together videos of me ranting, raving, and accusing an innocent man of perversion and bribe-taking all to keep my best friend out of jail... which didn’t work.
After they peeled themselves off the dirt, Balogun and Kaplan rushed a crying Courtney to their car and took off.
No one was hurt, so no one else was arrested, but I showed up at the station anyway, and made enemies out of a dozen more officers and detectives.
To be fair, I called them pretty cruel names when every single one of them refused to let me see Courtney.
After two hours of getting nowhere, Rhodes led me away promising he’d get Courtney the best lawyer he could—assuming her parents weren’t already on it.
That’s how I ended up under a pile of blankets on the couch with Lily snuggled against my side while I broke the new takeout-only-once-a-week rule with a carton of Hunan chicken.
“Mommy, what are crazy eyes?”
“Hmm?” I peeled away two layers of blankets to find her. “What do you mean?”
She wiggled a purple phone at me. “Nicky says you have crazy eyes on TV. Like a witch. What’s crazy eyes?”
“Uhh, I’d like to ask a question first. Where did you get that phone?”
Her beaming smile melted my heart. “Daddy Micah bought it for me.”
Three pairs of eyes latched on to Micah, who was chilling on the opposite couch with a glass of wine. “Had to,” he said with a shrug. “Sue was coming for my favorite-parent spot with all the skipping school for cupcakes and cookies, so I bought her the phone to defend my position.”
“Micah, stop saying stupid things in front of the child!” I snapped over his guffawing and Lily’s muffled giggling. “And, Lily, tell Nicky your mom doesn’t have crazy eyes. She has the prettiest eyes in the world, and he’s a stinky doo-doo head.”
“Okay!”
“No,” Alex sounded off. He reached over, stuck his hand in, and plucked the phone from Lily’s hands.
“Lily, since you have a phone now”—he glared at a grinning Micah—“there are going to be rules. Rule one: don’t text mean things to people.
Rule two: block anyone who texts mean things to you.
” He tapped on the screen and did just that, deleting and blocking that Nicky kid.
“Rule three: I hold on to this. You can have it during screen time, and only screen time.”
“Ugghhh,” Lily whined, poking her head up. “But, Daddy, that’s not fair. I didn’t text the mean things, Nicky did.”
“I know, baby girl, and you’re not in trouble. But having a phone is a big deal, so we can’t do too much too soon.”
Lily pouted, her little face crumpling. “But we’re having screen time right now.”
Alex halted. “That’s... that’s true,” he got out. Sighing, he handed it over. “But no more texting. Look at cute videos of koalas, or something.”
“Okay, Daddy!” Wriggling free of the blankets, she took off with the phone like she didn’t want to give Alex a chance to change his mind. As soon as she closed the door—
“What the hell, Micah?” Alex burst out.
“Agreed.” Rhodes’s voice was hard. “What the hell.”
“We agreed she wouldn’t get a phone for another four years—at least,” Alex plowed on. “What’s the fucking point of us setting boundaries if you’re going to trample them for every stupid, insecure thought that—”
“Get serious, guys!” Micah dropped his grin fast. “I didn’t get her the phone because of some damn cupcakes.
I only said that because she was in the room.
I got it for her because two women have been murdered in our daughter’s home in the last two weeks!
I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I do know I feel a lot safer knowing that Lily can reach us and we can reach her in case of an emergency. ”
The wind blew out of Rhodes’s and Alex’s rants like a popped balloon.
Alex slumped in his armchair, scrubbing his face.
“Fuck, I wasn’t thinking of it like that but.
.. you’re right. Things have gotten insane around here, and it doesn’t help that all the cops are gone,” he said, flinging out his arm.
“They declared their case closed and cleared out, so if he or she really wasn’t caught—”
“She wasn’t,” I stressed. “Courtney did not kill my mother. I’m as sure of that as I’m sure Lily didn’t commit the murder. Courtney just didn’t do it. The end.”
“If you’re sure,” he agreed, but he sounded hesitant. “But that means not only did they arrest the wrong person, the true killer is still running around free. Now is a good time for Lily to have a cellphone.”
I could feel how much the four of us hated it, making Lily grow up faster because of the dangers in the world, but that’s just where we were now. How could any one of us feel safe when evil entered our home and walked right up the stairs?
“But, sorry, Sue, I’ve got to ask.” Rhodes eyed the television.
I was running at armed cops for the eightieth time.
“Why are you so sure this woman didn’t kill Omma?
You barely know her. Plus, if what they said was true, your mother wrecked her relationship with her parents and robbed her of millions.
People tend to get pretty murderous over things like that. ”
I was shaking my head the whole way through.
“I do know her. Courtney was my best friend from middle school and all through high school. I never told you about her because she’s ten times prettier than me, and you never bring your hot best friend around your three hot husbands. That’s tempting fate in the worst way.”
All three of them rolled their eyes at me.
“Now who needs to stop saying stupid things,” Micah muttered.
“But that does sound like some shit you’d do.
” Getting up, Micah came over and sat next to me, drawing my head down on his lap.
My eyes fluttered shut as he softly rubbed my temples.
“What now? Alex is right, the cops are done with their investigation. They’ve got means, motive, and opportunity.
How will you get them to believe someone else killed your mother? ”