I hopped off my skateboard the moment I rolled up to the sliding front doors of the station. The parking lot sat off to the side, full of parked cars. As I bent to pick my skateboard up, I turned my head to the sky. The sun was hidden behind layers of dark grey clouds, and I could’ve sworn I felt a tiny raindrop splatter on the tip of my nose.
When I went to wipe it off, I felt nothing, though.
Strange.
Heaving a breath, I headed in, holding my skateboard to my side. The receptionist’s desk sat almost directly inside, metal detectors behind her to check anyone who wanted to go deeper in. Swallowing my nerves, I went up to the desk, leaning an arm on it as I met the eyes of the woman sitting behind it.
Her hair was twisted in a bun, a few stray tendrils free and framing her heart-shaped face. “May I help you?” she asked, giving me a small smile.
“Yes,” I said. “I need to talk to Melendez.” At least, Melendez was the one who had the theory, so I assumed she was the one on the case. Hell, what if she wasn’t even here today? Then I left early for class and skated all this way for nothing. If she wasn’t here, I’d have to find time to come tomorrow, and every day after that until I sat down and spoke to her.
“And you are?”
I figured everyone in the police station knew me, mostly because they’d dragged me in bloody from a crime scene, but maybe I was wrong. Or maybe this woman was just being polite. Trying to, anyways. Not sure if her politeness was actually respectful or not.
“I’m Ashley Bonds,” I told her, hating to use my full name. For most of my life, it’d been Ash…which, oddly enough, had only started out because there’d been three other girls in my kindergarten class with the same name—though they were all spelled differently, of course. Who knew there were a thousand ways you could spell the name Ashley?
“Give me one second,” she said, reaching for the phone next to her computer. She must’ve dialed Melendez’s extension, for within a moment she was repeating my name. “I have an Ashley Bonds here to see you.” A pause as Melendez said something back. “All right, I’ll let her know.” As she hung up the phone, she turned her gaze to me. “Melendez will be right up.”
I nodded, saying, “Thank you.” I pushed off the desk, moving to sit in one of the seats across from it, on the other side of the entryway, my skateboard on my lap. I let my mind wander as I waited for Melendez to come up and get me.
Didn’t have to wait long though, because after two minutes, Melendez was walking through the metal detectors. I got to my feet, shaking her hand only when she extended hers to me. Melendez’s tan skin reminded me of Ray’s, and I had to shake that particularly intrusive thought.
No more thoughts about Ray.
After Melendez led me through the station, we ended up at her desk. I wasn’t going to complain—being in that interrogation room was not something I ever wanted to repeat. The cold metal table, the way the camera blinked in the high corner, how I knew people were watching from the other side of the mirror. It gave me chills just thinking about it.
Melendez’s desk was situated on the side of a great room, where a bunch of other desks were arranged in rows. Hers was covered in papers, along with a laptop that was currently open and plugged into the power strip just beside her desk on the floor. A Styrofoam cup of what I was guessing was coffee sat near her laptop, slightly steaming.
She leaned back in her chair, her stare on me. Her brown hair was down today, kinky and curly. “I’m glad you decided to come in,” she said. “We’ve hit a wall. I hope you’re here today to help us get over that wall and give us what we need.”
Give them what they needed to take Ray off the streets. Little did they currently know that Ray was no longer on those streets anyway thanks to Travis and his brothers, so those cases would remain forever open and hurt their numbers.
Because that’s all anything ever was in America. Everything eventually came down to the bottom line, and if that bottom line wasn’t good enough, people paid the price while those sitting in the biggest and most comfortable chairs kept cashing in their giant paychecks.
“I don’t know what help I’ll be, but…” I decided to trail off, hoping I acted like some stupid college girl, caught in a situation I knew was wrong. In a way, I was—but although I occasionally made stupid decisions, I liked to think I wasn’t that stupid. “But I want to try. He’s a menace.”
Menace. Hah. That was putting it lightly.
He was a menace who was also dead, and it was as I stared at Melendez that I felt kind of bad. I wished I could tell her the whole truth, but I couldn’t.
“I notice your lawyer isn’t here,” Melendez commented. “Is he aware that you’re here? Does he know you’re talking to me?” I had no idea if she was trying to advise me to be careful in what I said, or if she was genuinely curious.
Either way, she got nothing from me. I only shrugged. “He had to go out of town for a bit, but he knows I’m here.” I sat across from her, her desk between us, and I watched as she leaned back in her chair, sizing me up.
It was silent for a while, between the two of us, nothing but the sounds of the other policemen and women in the room, shuffling papers and typing on their own laptops. It was easy to lose myself for a moment, to picture how differently this all could’ve gone if I would’ve stayed at that gas station, confessed to everything and been a witness in Ray’s trial.
He wouldn’t have gotten free then, I bet, even if the evidence was thrown out because they collected it wrong. They would’ve had my words as a backup.
“You asked me if I saw Ray Ruiz before,” I started, treading lightly, not wanting to say too much, “and the answer is yes.”
Melendez didn’t appear shocked. In fact, she hardly blinked at my admission, as if she expected my answer all along. “This is good. This will help us link all of the cases together. Where did you see him?”
I bit my bottom lip, hoping to look like I was unsure.
“Whatever you’re worried about, don’t be,” she told me. “We won’t come after you, Ash. Right now, I just want to make sure we have enough to link these cases and put out an APB for Ruiz. I want to stop him from hurting anyone else, and I need your help to do it.”
My fingers curled around my skateboard so hard my knuckles turned white. “When I was in high school, I had a friend. She was…she liked to be a little wild. She’d drag me to bars and other places. I was always the one holding her back from doing the really stupid things.”
“And the designated driver, I hope,” Melendez commented, telling me that she wasn’t stupid enough to believe two girls went to a bar and didn’t drink, even if we were underaged.
I nodded. “Yeah. It was about three years ago, I think, that I first saw him.”
“So you saw Ruiz at a bar?”
Again, I nodded.
“You just saw him? You didn’t talk to him at all?”
My skin felt itchy. Now I knew how wrong and illegal it was, me and Ray hooking up that night, but at the time, I’d been so high on the feeling, so drawn to his mere presence that I couldn’t fight the high he’d given me. Instantly, I’d been hooked, and I knew if Kelsey hadn’t been there—for once playing the logical one—I would’ve gone home with him.
If I would’ve gone home with him, would Ray have killed me that night? Would things have changed, or did he know, just as I did, that we were two broken souls seeking repentance in each other’s arms? Granted, Ray’s version of repentance was far different than mine.
Now was the time for the truth.
“I talked to him,” I told her. “I…might’ve made out with him, on the hood of his car.”
A muscle in Melendez’s jaw clenched, and I knew she put it together: our ages, how wrong it was. How illegal. Yet another reason Ray had to be off the streets—a pedophile. What else could you call a thirty-something man who’d become obsessed with fifteen-year-old me?
“Did you go home with him?” she asked.
“No. My f
riend was able to get some sense into me, and I drove us home. I thought, at the time, that was that.” My heart beat rapidly in my chest, the memories too vivid in my mind.
Melendez’s gaze narrowed. “But it wasn’t, was it?”
Shaking my head once, I went on, “No, it wasn’t. He must’ve followed us, or something, because the next thing I knew, I saw him parked outside my high school, in the back corner of the parking lot, waiting for me.”
Now this…this was where the truth would take a turn from what I was going to say. This was the make it or break it moment, the few seconds that would either make Melendez believe my story, or not.
“I saw him a lot after that,” I said. “I think he followed me almost everywhere. I never told my mom about him, because I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me. I just hoped that he would…go away, stop, eventually.”
“But he didn’t,” Melendez muttered. “He didn’t stop. He kept going, kept watching you. I don’t know why, because who can ever truly say what’s on a psychopath’s mind, but he couldn’t hurt you, so he hurt those other girls.”
I closed my eyes. That much, at least, was true.
“I’m glad you told me, because now we have motive,” Melendez spoke. Something in her demeanor changed, however, when she said what she said next: “You never went with him anywhere? Never proceeded to have a relationship with him after that night at the bar?”
“No,” I said slowly, firmly, being careful not to answer too fast, lest I look guilty, like a liar.
“So you still know nothing about the female who tipped the police off about his cabin and the bodies?” Melendez was testing me, as she’d tried to test me before, but this time I was ready. This time I’d already known coming into this what she knew about my past, so my poker face was a better one.
I shook my head once, meeting her eyes and holding her stare, refusing to back down. “No,” I said simply. She knew I was lying; we both knew it, and yet after I said no, she didn’t call me on it, didn’t question me further.
“All right,” Melendez eventually said. “I’ll need you to make this statement officially, okay? I’ll be right back.” She stood and left, leaving me alone at her desk. I wasn’t alone too long, though, for she returned swiftly with a shiny silver pen and a pad of paper, telling me to write down everything I’d just said, and be as detailed as possible.
My wrist hurt with all I wrote down, and I pretended not to notice how Melendez watched me from the other side of the desk. I was glad she wasn’t taking me into that cold interrogation room again. If I never stepped foot in a room like that again, it’d still be too soon.
I was nearing the end of my statement when suddenly the police station exploded with noise around me. Loud sounds came from the hall, and I had to pause in the middle of my last sentence to toss a look over my shoulder and see just what the hell was going on. The other police officers who’d previously been sitting at their desks had gotten up, whispering among themselves.
“What’s going on?” I asked, tossing a worried look to Melendez.
Melendez was watching the hall around me. “They’re booking him.”
“Who?” I looked behind me again, my heart skipping a stupid beat because, for a moment there, I thought she meant Ray—but she didn’t mean Ray. The walls between this room and the hall were windows, allowing me to see who two burly officers dragged along.
The man with his hands behind his back, with shiny silver cuffs slapped on his wrists, the man with kind eyes and an even kinder smile—the man I never thought ill of, until Sawyer had told me exactly what Sabrina’s suicide note had said.
“Dean Briggs,” I gasped out as I saw his face. Now my heart skipped a beat for a whole different reason. “Why are they booking him?” My hand had long since stopped writing. Dean Briggs and the officers escorting him disappeared further down the hall, leaving me to wonder just what the hell was going on.
Were they arresting him for Sabrina’s death? Travis had seen someone there, so her suicide was obviously not a suicide. What the hell would Declan and Will do, if their father was thrown behind bars?
God, and the scandal this would cause Hillcrest. I couldn’t even imagine.
“I’d say it’s none of your concern,” Melendez started, slowly returning her stare to me, “but you are rooming with his son, so I doubt it’ll be long until you find out anyway.” Her voice lowered to a bare whisper, “We’ve gathered some compelling evidence that William Briggs Sr. conducted an inappropriate and illegal relationship with an underage girl.”
Like me and Ray, only different, because I knew somehow, someway, the name Melendez said next before she said it.
“What do you know about Sabrina Salvatore?”
My breath caught in the back of my throat, and I stared at her, not wanting to say anything else. She knew I roomed with Declan Briggs. She had to have known what I knew. “She used to date Declan, before…”
“Before she hung herself,” Melendez said. “The family, as it turns out, might’ve placed the blame on the wrong shoulders.” She leaned back in her chair. “I doubt we’ll get him to confess anything, but it’s always best to try. Sometimes even the rich need to know they’re not above the law.”
I felt like I wanted to puke, and I said nothing else as I finished my statement and told Melendez goodbye. She said something stupid like being in touch with me later if she needed anything else, but my mind had already checked out. I was already gone, even as I hurried out of the police station.
I’d planned on going to class after this, but how the hell could I when I’d just found out that Dean Briggs had been sleeping with Sabrina?
Of course, I’d known from the note that Dean Briggs was involved, but being a murderer was far different than being a father who slept with his son’s underage girlfriend. There was no possible way Declan knew this. Obviously he didn’t yet know about his father’s arrest, but the whole Sabrina part…
Shit.
I couldn’t go to class, and neither could he. I had to tell him.
Chapter Sixteen – Declan
I was in the process of walking to class when I got a call from Ash telling me to go back to the dorm. She didn’t say exactly what this was about, but I knew from the tone of her voice that it was serious; I knew enough not to question her on it. Whatever it was wasn’t a topic you talked about over the phone.
So I did the only thing I could: I spun on my heel and walked back to the dorm.
The way she sounded…it reminded me of how she sounded when she spoke about Ray, but there was no way this could be about that psycho. Ray was dead, Travis had assured us both, and he’d never bother us again.
With Travis’s brothers gone, I thought that was that. I thought, foolishly, life would get easier, simpler. I thought we could all move on and focus on what mattered most—Ash. But then I was questioned by the police, and then…then I saw the police raiding my dad’s office.
Was this about that? Was this about my dad? I knew Ash had gone to the station to talk to Melendez, but I had no idea why my dad would be involved, unless I was so off-track here and this was still somehow about Ray. Maybe Ash had said something wrong to Melendez, painted herself as a suspect.
Even dead, Ray would still be a pain in our asses.
I made it back to the dorm room in ten minutes, dropping my bag on my desk and plopping myself on the edge of my bed. I ran my hands through my hair, the motion tugging the sleeves on my arms and allowing me to glance at the thick white scar lining my right wrist. My gut was in knots as I set my arms on my lap, staring at the scar.
My mind zoned out as I lost myself in that puckered, risen flesh. Things had gotten so crazy this year, I honestly would give anything to have things calm down a bit. Just a bit—not even a lot. I’d take any slack life would give me right now, frankly.
I didn’t know how much time passed, but the moment I heard a key insert into the locked door, I got to my feet, watching as Ash came in. Her grey eyes wer
e on me, her expression heavy as she rolled her skateboard under her bed and dropped her bag. She practically ripped off her beanie, unzipping her coat before tossing it onto her desk.
I waited until she was done shedding her extra layers before asking, “What is it?” I could feel my heart beating a few beats too fast, could feel it in my neck, threatening to burst out from the anticipation. I was not a huge fan of anxiety, and lately, my life had been nothing but it.
Being held at gunpoint and forced to restrain myself, watching as a murderer carried out the unconscious form of the girl you loved? Bound to make you anxious. I didn’t have panic attacks like Ash, but it was a day I never wanted to relive or remember. Days like that I simply wanted to forget, for the memories to wash from my mind completely.
Ash’s already white skin looked even paler when she met my eyes. “You…you should probably sit down for this.” She ran her hands down her jeans. “I called Travis and Will, but they won’t be here until later. They should know, too—but I wanted to tell you first, before you found out from someone else…or the news, if they report on it.”
The news? What the hell did the news have to do with any of this?
And she wanted me to sit down? Well, the mere fact that she wanted me to sit down, that she’d also called Will and Travis on her way here, made me start to pace. I was not someone who could sit still while things were happening. I needed some way to vent my anxious nerves, and pacing was that way.
“Just tell me, Ash,” I practically begged, already on my second lap of the room. “Because my mind is going in a thousand different directions at once.” With how crazy everything had been lately, I didn’t know what to think, what to expect. Life certainly hadn’t calmed down, and it didn’t look like it was going to.
Life would be a crazy, wild mistress until the end.
Ash bit her bottom lip. Normally the gesture drove me nuts, but here and now? Now it only made the pit in my stomach grow larger, beads of sweat to form on my temples. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?”
Killer: A Dark College Romance (Hillcrest University Book 5) Page 13