by Elle Thorpe
“Oh God, please.” She clutched her sister’s limp hand. “What have you done, Heath?”
There was no point trying to explain. I knew how bad this looked. My chest constricted. She wouldn’t listen. And I couldn’t breathe. I was literally suffocating in a room full of air.
I ran from the room, from the building, into the cold light of dawn, so the darkness couldn’t take me under like it had once before.
5
Mae
I couldn’t move. Even when Boston, my sister’s work partner, kneeled at my feet and shook me by the shoulders, I didn’t budge. I just held tight to my legs pulled up to my chest, while my brain locked itself away, too stunned to function properly.
I was dimly aware of the conversation around me, but it was little more than a buzz, a constant drone of white noise that I couldn’t seem to isolate into individual words. I just stared with unseeing eyes at the blood soaking into my sister’s sheets. I’d bought her the plain white Egyptian cotton set for her birthday just a few months ago. They’d been so pure, so soft, so blindingly white they’d almost hurt my eyes. But they’d gone perfectly with her navy walls.
The ugly deep red her blood had stained them didn’t match the room at all. That color didn’t belong here. None of this was right.
Strong arms came around me, trying to gather me up. I balked at the contact, thrashing, throwing out my arms and legs, and screamed, “No! Don’t touch me!”
“Mae,” a quiet voice said in my ear. “It’s me. It’s Will.”
I peered up at my best friend’s husband in a daze, taking in his familiar face and his concerned eyes. “Will? What are you doing here?”
Tori nudged into my line of view, steadfastly not looking in the direction of my sister’s bed. Her eyes were wild, and filled with tears, but she spoke to me in the same way she spoke to her son when he was upset. “Hey. It’s us. Let us help you, okay? We need to get you out of here. It’s the only reason they let us in.” Her cheeks were stained with tears, and her voice sounded hoarse. “The police couldn’t get you to move without you lashing out. They were talking about sedating you, but we talked Boston into breaking the rules and letting us try first.”
I glanced up at Will again and this time surrendered to being scooped up from the floor and carried out into the living room. Tori trailed after us, and when her husband placed me down on the couch, she was quick to put a blanket over me. I was grateful for it. My skin pebbled with goosebumps, and a chill sank right through my skin and deep into my bones.
“You need to leave,” Boston’s gruff yet familiar voice said. “We need to question her.”
Tori, though tiny in stature, was like a bulldog. She drew herself up to her full five feet, two inches, and stared down the big police officer. “We aren’t leaving. You can question her all you want when she’s had medical attention. Can’t you see that she’s not in any state to do anything right now?” The anger in her eyes was belied by the crack in her voice. “God, Boston. What’s wrong with you?” A sob cut off the last of her words, and her husband wrapped his arms around her small frame, drawing her into his chest and murmuring quiet words of comfort in her ear. Will, big into his church and faith, was normally the sort of guy who would frown if you swore in his presence. I knew he was really rattled, because he didn’t even flinch when Tori took the Lord’s name in vain.
“It’s okay. I can do it.” Out here, away from the sight of my sister’s body, I could think better. I knew I’d have to talk, and I didn’t want medical attention. It wasn’t me who needed it. My sister… My throat went dry. My sister didn’t need medical attention now either. She’d been gone from the moment I walked into her bedroom and seen… I didn’t even know what I’d seen. I was still trying to work it out. I gazed up into Boston’s hazel eyes and found them hard. Surprise hit me at the cold expression there. That wasn’t like him. His eyes were normally warm and twinkling with mischief and laughter.
“I need you to get it together and talk to me,” he urged.
His lips pinched together in frustration. How long had he been trying to talk to me?
“Do you want whoever did this to get away with it? Come on, Mae. I need you to tell me everything. Any little detail, and I need you to tell me now. There’s no sign of forced entry, so this is probably someone you know. The longer you take, the bigger the chance we never catch this guy.”
I bristled a little at the tone, and the insinuation that I was deliberately trying to hold up an investigation. I only let it go because despite the fact Boston currently appeared to be in full work mode, I knew he had to be in pieces on the inside. He loved Jayela like a sister.
“I don’t know what happened,” I admitted honestly. “We got drunk last night, and when I woke up this morning it was to Heath yelling my name—”
Boston glanced up sharply. “We? Who’s Heath? There was someone else here?” He paused for a moment, as if wondering why that name sounded familiar. I could see the moment it dawned on him. “Heath? As in Jayela’s ex-boyfriend Heath?” His eyes narrowed when I nodded. “What the hell were you doing with him?”
I didn’t need to be able to read his mind to know what he was thinking. I could see the judgment all over his face. Guilt swamped me. “Yes. That Heath. I met up with him in a bar last night, and we came back here afterward.”
Tori’s eyes went wide.
“We had drinks. A lot of them.” I glanced over toward my bedroom, the door still open, the near empty bottle of tequila discarded when Heath and I had finished it off and crawled into bed.
Boston looked over the messy sheets and the comforter spilling onto the carpet. “You had sex with your sister’s boyfriend?” His tone was ice cold, like razor wire cutting through my skin.
“What? No!” I racked my brain, trying to remember, but nothing was clear. “I mean, I don’t think so. We had some shots and we flirted. But then Jayela came home. We passed out. Or at least I did. I don’t know what happened after that. All I know is when I woke up this morning, Heath was in Jaye’s room, covered in blood…”
I stared up into Boston’s eyes, and it was like looking straight into his head.
A fire raged, hot and angry, and ready for vengeance.
I suddenly realized the picture I was painting. And despite my own accusations, I’d had time to process the things I’d seen while I’d waited for the police to show up. “He was trying to save her, Boston. He had his hand on her throat, trying to stop the blood…”
“You think that means anything? He wouldn’t be the first jealous lover who had instant regret. You’re going to have to give me more. Tell me his full name. Quick, Mae. If I can get a team out over to his house now, before he does a runner, we might actually be able to nail him.”
“Wait. Nail him? You don’t know he did anything.” I turned to Tori and Will for some sort of backup, unsure of what to do, but both of them were nodding. Confusion swirled in my brain. None of this made sense. “Michaelson,” I told Boston. “Heath Michaelson. He has an apartment in Saint View. But I—”
Boston ignored my protests, launching to his feet, his heavy boots stomping across the floor as he paced. He pulled a walkie-talkie from the loop on his belt and spat out a series of commands into it. “Somebody find this guy’s apartment and get a team over there now. Restrain him, but you do not talk to him until I get there. Is that clear?”
A garbled response crackled across his radio.
Boston stopped in front of me, his gaze never letting up for even a second. “Did you hear anything during the night?”
“No, I swear. Heath and I… And then nothing. Nothing until this morning when I woke up and heard him yelling for me.”
“Did you see him with the knife?”
I blinked up at him in surprise. “What knife?”
He motioned to one of the officers leaning against my living room wall, and they moved into Jayela’s bedroom, emerging a second later with a knife in an evidence bag. The officer passed it to B
oston, and Boston held it up in front of me.
I cringed away, my sister’s blood still coating the stainless steel of the blade. But I recognized it.
I had seen Heath with it. I hesitated, knowing it wouldn’t sound good to admit it. But I couldn’t lie “I did see him with that knife but—”
“Son of a bitch,” Boston muttered.
“That’s all I saw, though.” I grabbed his hand. “He used it to cut up limes for tequila shots last night. That’s all.”
He shook me off. “What do you know about him? Is he violent?”
“Heath? No, never.”
“Has he got a temper?”
“I’ve never even heard him raise his voice. And he dated Jayela. You know how she is, she loves to argue. Loved… Oh God.” A sudden wave of nausea swamped me, sending me jumping off the couch and running for the bathroom. I slunk down onto the cold porcelain tiles, desperate to be sick, desperate to rid my body of the turmoil of emotions coursing through it, but I couldn’t. I just gagged, dry heaving until my chest ached.
“It’s okay.” Tori rubbed a hand down my back, lifting my hair out of the way.
“It’s not okay! I don’t understand any of this. Heath and I were great last night. And then I wake up this morning and my sister is dead and he’s covered in blood. I don’t know what happened in between. I can’t remember anything. There’s just nothing but darkness. I didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything, and Boston is acting like I should have all the answers.” I blinked up at Tori, tears blurring my vision, then darted a look over my shoulder. Boston talked with two other officers. They both watched me, suspicion etched into their calculated stares. “I blamed Heath,” I hissed at her. “I asked him what he’d done! He was covered in blood, but… But it can’t have been him. Why would he kill her then stick around to try to save her in the morning? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Tori dropped to her knees beside me and wrapped me in a tight hug. “I don’t know.”
I sobbed in her arms, trying to make sense of any of it. But the more I thought about it, the more none of it fit together. Heath wasn’t a violent man. He didn’t have a temper that I’d ever seen. I knew who he was. He’d loved my sister. And I believed him when he’d said last night that he was over her. What reason would he have to do something like this?
“Tori.” She pulled back so she could see my face. “I’ve made a horrible mistake. This couldn’t have been Heath. I just… I can’t believe that.”
“Okay, shh. I believe you. It’s going to be okay. Boston is a good cop. He’s just angry right now and searching for someone to blame. He’ll talk to Heath and get it sorted out. You don’t need to be worrying about it. Come on.” She helped me up from the floor, put her arm around my shoulders, and guided me to where Boston stood.
“Is there any news about Heath?” I asked him.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you so concerned about him?”
I blinked at the hostility in his voice. “Because he’s my friend!”
“Your friend? Are you kidding me right now? You said yourself that the man was covered in your sister’s blood. She’s lying dead in there, and you’re worried about your ‘friend’? Your friend probably killed his ex in a jealous rage, Mae! Don’t fucking ask me how he is!”
I recoiled, stumbling back a few steps. “He was trying to save her! What reason would he have to kill her now, four years after they broke up?”
“Opportunity?” Boston spat, voice filled with venom. “You opened the door to your home when you opened your legs for him, and let the man back in. You admitted yourself that you were passed out, too drunk to hear a thing. You gave him the opportunity.”
My mouth dropped open, my cheeks flaming hot.
Tori gasped, “Boston!”
Will stepped in front of her, his anger clear in the pinched tone of his voice. “I know you’re hurting right now, man. But you’re out of line. You’re too close to this. Back off.”
Boston rose to his feet, going chest to chest with Will.
I yelped, pushing between the two of them. “Stop it!” I whirled on Will. “Thank you, but you don’t need to defend my honor.”
I spun back to Boston and cracked my palm across his cheek.
A roar went up from the other officers, one launching himself across the room and grabbing me by the arm. It wasn’t going to stop me saying my piece. Because I didn’t care how close he was to my sister, or how much he was hurting right now. “How dare you,” I seethed at him. “How dare you imply, even for a second, that I am in any way involved in what happened to Jayela. You can go to Hell, Boston.”
The officer yanked me tighter and withdrew a set of handcuffs from a holder on the side of his pants. “You’re under arrest for the assault of a police officer—”
Boston shook his head. “Stop. Let her go.”
The officer glanced up in surprise. “But she—”
“I don’t fucking care what she did!” Boston roared. “I said let her go!”
Both the officer and I took a step back, and the cuff disappeared from my wrist, as did the officer’s grip. He scuttled out and hightailed it down the hallway.
“Sorry,” Boston muttered, running a hand through his dark-brown hair. “I was out of line.”
A little of my anger cooled, but I couldn’t forget that quickly. His accusations had opened up a whole new well of guilt for me, that I knew I’d be drowning in just as soon as the anger dissipated. I stared him down. “I don’t believe Heath did this, Boston. I don’t. You need to listen to me. It looks bad, I know. I thought that, too. But now that I’ve had a minute to think about it—”
Boston’s phone binged with an incoming message, and he edged away from me to read it. When he looked back up, his eyes were as good as dead. “It doesn’t matter what you think. Or what I think. Heath Michaelson just admitted to murder.”
6
Heath
I don’t know how I made it back to the bar parking lot. I ran blindly, barely noticing that the rough pavement tore at the bare soles of my feet. A woman stood at the door to the building, locking up in the early morning light after what had to be a long shift. Dark tendrils of sweaty hair stuck to the back of her neck, and a quick glance at her face revealed her to be the waitress I’d ordered my drinks from the night before. Her gaze fixed on mine.
Last night she’d smiled at me. Maybe even flirted a little, though I hadn’t flirted back.
This morning her gaze flickered with recognition. But then it raked down my body, taking in my unkempt clothes, now covered in Jayela’s blood.
I didn’t need the woman to voice her thoughts. They were written all over her face. A gasp fell from her lips as she dropped her keys. A sob burst forth, and she scuttled to pick them up, frantically stabbing at the door, trying to get it open once more.
Trying to get away from me.
I didn’t have it in me to try to reassure her that I was no threat. There was no convincing anyone of that in the state I was in. She was just as scared of me as Mae had been. Instead, I yanked my car key from the pocket of my jacket and popped the lock on my beat-up truck. The woman’s choking cries followed me inside, and I slammed the door behind me, desperate to block them out.
I gulped in air for what felt like the first time since I’d started running. My lungs burned, trying to pull in the oxygen I so desperately needed. I turned the truck on and jerked the gearshift down into reverse.
It was a force of habit to look into the rearview mirror. But I immediately wished I hadn’t. Blood droplets speckled my face, and a smear spread across my cheek. Dried blood stiffened the neck of my T-shirt.
I slammed on the brakes, suddenly overcome with nausea, and only just managed to open the truck door before I was sick. Pain pierced through my gut, my stomach muscles clenching and releasing as I hurled.
When I straightened, wiping my mouth, the woman from the bar was gone. Probably holed up somewhere inside, the doors locked behind her, her cel
l phone pressed to her ear while she frantically reported my license plate to the police.
There was little need, since they’d already be at Mae’s house by now. Jayela was a cop. Mae would be telling them everything she’d seen, and they’d be wanting to arrest someone hard and fast for this. Fuck. The evidence stacked up in front of my eyes. I was from the wrong side of the tracks, born and bred in Saint View, with not even a high school diploma to my name. And with a record of violent crime to boot, even if it had been a long time ago. I’d been there at Mae and Jayela’s condo all night. My DNA would be all over Jayela’s bed, and then there’d be Mae’s testimony that she found me, covered in her sister’s blood. All it would take to put me away would be a motive, and even a first day lawyer would come up with some reason why an ex would have wanted to hurt her. An argument. Jealousy. This list would be long, they’d just pick their favorite.
I hadn’t done it. I didn’t care how bad it seemed or how blank my memories were of the night before. No matter how drunk I was, I hadn’t done this. But no matter which way I turned, walls rose, huge unmountable objects that stood between me and anybody believing my innocence.
I drove home slowly, winding my car through the familiar streets of Saint View, trying to come up with a plan that didn’t end with a lethal injection in my arm. With every mile that passed, it became more and more obvious I had no options. By the time I reached my street, I realized that all I could do was go to the police, tell my side of the story, and pray someone believed me.
Or run.
Fuck that. I wasn’t going down for something I didn’t do. They’d believe me. They had to.
It wasn’t a surprise to find two police cruisers parked outside my shitty apartment complex. Although that wasn’t an entirely uncommon sight around here, this time, I knew they were here for me. I trudged to my door, startling the officer stationed outside. His eyes widened as he took in my appearance, and he yelped, fumbling for his gun with nervous fingers. “Stop!”
