Twisted Palace

by Erin Watt

  He blinks. “What?”

  “Your name,” I repeat impatiently. “What is it?”

  Bitsy raises a hand to hide a smirk.

  The douche’s face twists into an indignant sneer. “Aspen,” he replies tightly.

  “Aspen? For real?” What a dumb-ass name.

  Bitsy’s laughter is barely being contained at this point. “It’s Aspen, for real,” she chokes out.

  “Jesus, okay. Here’s the deal, Aspen. I’ve dealt with more in my short life than you’ll ever experience, so all the idiotic insults you can come up with only make you look pathetic. I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think of me. Actually, if you don’t step back and rethink your decision to even look in my direction, I’ll make it my sole goal for the rest of this semester to drive you literally insane. I’ll stuff week-old seafood in your locker. I’ll destroy your homework. I’ll tell each and every girl in this place that you have gonorrhea. I’ll have pictures of you wearing girl’s undies made up and distributed in giant full-color prints around school.” I smile coldly at him. “Do you want that to happen to you?”

  Aspen’s face turns as white as the snowy town he was named after. “I was just joking,” he mumbles.

  “Your jokes suck. Hope you have a job with your daddy waiting, because I can’t imagine your little brain making it through college.” Then I spin around and face the front of the room.

  * * *

  At lunch, our table is subdued. I fill Val in about Steve’s sudden reappearance, but we don’t get a chance to discuss how shaken up I am about it, because Reed, Easton, and Wade join us instead of sitting at the football table.

  That’s the first sign that something is wrong. I mean, Reed’s been charged with murder, so life is very wrong in general, but the fact that he’s not sitting with his teammates tells me that things are worse than I thought.

  “You really didn’t get in trouble for fighting at school?” I murmur to him as he settles in the seat next to mine.

  He shakes his head. “Got a warning.” Then his expression grows tortured. “But you know it’s gonna get back to Dad and my lawyer. They won’t like it.”

  I don’t like it, but I paste on an encouraging smile because I know he’s already under enough stress as it is. It’s just…

  I love Reed, I really do, but his temper is his own worst enemy. If he can’t get himself under control, things could get a million times worse for him.

  Across the table, Val moves her kale salad around her plate. Her gaze keeps darting toward Wade and then back to her plate. Wade is doing the same thing—sneaking peeks at Val before focusing intently on his burger.

  They’re making obvious efforts not to look at each other, and for some reason that cheers me up. It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one in a state of pure misery.

  Immediately, guilt gets the better of me, because if Val’s studiously avoiding Wade and he’s too embarrassed to meet her eyes, then something bad must have happened. I make a mental note to ask Val about it when we’re alone.

  “So,” Wade says when the silence becomes unbearably long. “Who’s excited about Winter Formal?”

  Nobody answers.

  “Really? No one?” He slides a pointed look to Val. “What about you, Carrington? Got a date?”

  She gives him a stony glare. “I’m not going.”

  The table goes quiet again. Val picks at her salad with the same half-hearted energy I’m using to pick at my chicken.

  “Not hungry?” Reed asks gruffly.

  “I don’t have much of an appetite,” I admit.

  “You worried?” he murmurs.

  “A little.” More like a lot, but I tamp down the truth and paste on another smile.

  I think Reed sees through it, because he leans over and kisses me. I let him distract me with his mouth because it feels good, but deep down I know that kisses are a temporary fix.

  Pulling back, I tell him that. “You can’t kiss the worry out of me.”

  His hand roams up my side to settle right under my breast. His thumb brushes the bottom curve, sending shivers through me. I stare into his blue eyes, full of wicked promise, and decide, okay, maybe he can kiss the worry out of me.

  I move a few strands of his silky hair away from his face, wishing we were alone and he could turn his unspoken promises into a reality. His hands tug me forward so he can kiss me again. This time, I open my mouth and let his tongue sweep inside.

  “Not while I’m eating,” Easton groans. “You’re ruining my appetite.”

  “I don’t think that’s remotely possible,” Val says.

  I smile against Reed’s mouth and then settle back in my seat.

  “Well, I’m getting turned on. Anyone want to make a trip to the bathroom with me?” Wade asks cheerfully.

  Val’s mouth stays firmly shut.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” Reed tells me. “Except Easton’s stomach maybe. He might need medical attention after inhaling all those carbs.” He gestures to the mountain of pasta on Easton’s plate.

  “I’m a nervous eater,” his brother replies.

  I make an attempt to follow Reed’s lead and lighten the mood. “What was your excuse last week when you ate an entire batch of cookies?”

  “That was just me being hungry. Besides, they were cookies. Who needs an excuse to eat cookies?”

  “I feel like that’s a sexual question,” Wade chimes in. “And the correct answer is, no one ever needs an excuse to eat cookies.”

  “You do need permission, though,” Val says tersely, focusing her gaze on Wade for the first time since he sat down. “And if your mouth is all over someone else’s cookies, then other bakers aren’t going to be interested in offering you their cookies.”

  Then she gets up from the table and stomps off.

  “Hey!” Wade shouts after her. “I only had those other cookies that one time and only because the baker I wanted to get the cookies from was closed!”

  He shoots up from his seat and hustles after Val, leaving Easton, Reed, and me staring after them.

  “I have a feeling they aren’t talking about cookies,” Easton remarks.

  No kidding. And as much as I hate seeing Val upset, I can’t help but envy her problems.

  Relationship issues are a lot easier to manage when you’re not worrying that your boyfriend might go to prison.

  7

  Reed

  The moment I walk through the front door, my dad pokes his head into the parlor and jerks a finger in my direction. “I need you in my study. Now.”

  Ella and I exchange a wary look. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that word of my fight with Richmond got back to Dad. Damn it. I was hoping to tell him myself.

  “Should I come with you?” Ella asks with a grimace.

  After a beat, I shake my head. “Nah. Go upstairs and do some homework or something. This won’t be fun.” When she hesitates, I give her a gentle nudge. “Go. I’ll be up soon.”

  I wait in the parlor until she disappears upstairs, then release the unhappy sigh that’s been jammed in my chest all day long. School sucked ass today, and not just because I broke a teammate’s nose. The whispers and stares got to me. Normally I don’t give a crap what my classmates think of me, but today the tension in the air was almost suffocating.

  Everyone wonders if I killed Brooke. Most believe it. Even some of my own teammates. Hell, sometimes I think Ella might believe it, too. She hasn’t said that, but at lunch I caught her staring at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. She had this expression on her face. I can’t even describe it. Not quite doubt, but apprehension maybe. A flicker of sadness, too.

  I told myself that she was just freaked out about everything, but a part of me wonders if she wonders. If she keeps looking at me like that because she’s trying to figure out if she’s dating a killer or some shit.

  “Reed.”

  Dad’s sharp voice spurs me to motion. I march down the hall to his study, and my moo
d sinks even lower when I spot Grier behind the commanding desk. Dad is sitting on the nearby armchair.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask instantly.

  “Do you really need to ask?” Dad’s expression is dark and menacing. “I got a phone call from the headmaster earlier. He told me all about your little temper tantrum in the locker room.”

  I bristle. “It wasn’t a temper tantrum. Richmond was saying shit about Mom.”

  For once, the mention of my mother doesn’t cause my dad to soften. “I don’t care if he was insulting Jesus Christ himself—you can’t fight at school, Reed! Not anymore, and especially not when you’re facing a second-degree murder charge!”

  Equal parts shame and anger weigh on my gut. My dad’s face is red, his fists clenched together at his sides, but through the haze of anger in his eyes, I catch a glimpse of something even worse—disappointment.

  I can’t remember the last time I cared whether or not my father was disappointed in me. But…I kind of care right now.

  “Sit down, Reed.” The request comes from Grier, who has his trusty gold pen poised over his legal pad. “There are a few things we need to go over.”

  Reluctantly, I walk over to one of the padded chairs and sit down. My dad stiffly lowers himself into the other chair.

  “We’ll discuss the fighting in a moment,” Grier says. “First, you need to tell me why your DNA was found under Brooke’s fingernails.”

  Shock slams into me. “What?”

  “I spoke to the assistant district attorney today, as well the detectives in charge of the investigation. They were waiting for DNA testing to be conducted before they divulged any details to us. But the results are back, and believe me, they were eager to share them.” Grier’s face becomes grave. “Skin cells were found in the fingernail scrapings they took from Brooke. DNA matches yours.”

  “How did they get my DNA?” I demand. “I didn’t provide a sample.”

  “They have it from the last arrest.”

  I wince. Last arrest. That sounds bad. “They can do that?”

  “Once you’re in the system, you’re there forever.” Grier shuffles a few papers while Dad looks on grimly. “We’re going to go over your night, step by step, second by second. Don’t leave anything out. If you passed gas, I want to know about it. What did you do after you went to see Brooke?”

  “I came home.”

  “Right after?”

  “Yes.”

  Grier’s features sharpen. “Are you sure about that?”

  I furrow my brow. “I…think so?”

  “Wrong answer. The security footage has you arriving an hour later.”

  “Arriving where?”

  “Here,” he snaps, looking annoyed. “Your home has video surveillance, Reed, or have you forgotten?”

  I glance at my father, who nods grimly. “We checked the tapes when you were at school,” he tells me. “The cameras show you coming home at ten p.m.”

  “A full hour after you left the O’Halloran penthouse,” Grier points out.

  I scan my brain again, trying to remember that night. “I drove around the city a bit,” I say slowly. “I was still pissed about that whole conversation with Brooke. I wanted to calm myself down before I—”

  “No,” my dad interrupts.

  “No what?” I’m so fucking confused right now.

  “You don’t say stuff like that, you hear me? You cannot insinuate, even between us, that you were in a state that required ‘calming down’ that night. You fought with Brooke, but it was no big deal,” Dad says firmly. “You were calm when you went there and calm when you left.”

  Frustration knots inside me. “What does it matter if I drove around for an hour or three or ten?” I burst out. “Their tapes show me leaving the penthouse twenty minutes after I got there. So what if I didn’t get home until an hour later?”

  “They’re going to subpoena your security footage,” Grier tells my father, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Again, what does it matter?” I press.

  Grier points the pen at me. “It matters because you lied. If you lie once on the stand, they will crucify you there.”

  “The stand? I’m going to have to testify?” A whirlwind of emotions forms one giant lump in my stomach. I’ve been telling myself all along that the police will find the real killer during the investigation, but it looks like they think I’m the real killer.

  “The detectives noticed you touched your waist a few times and that bloodstains on your shirt developed throughout the interrogation.”

  “Fuck,” I mutter. It feels like a rope just got wrapped around my neck.

  “How did that happen?” Grier pushes.

  “I don’t know. Maybe when I was driving? Or I reached for something?”

  “And this injury was the one you sustained how?”

  I don’t have to be a lawyer to know that my next admission is going to sound bad. “I got stabbed on the docks.”

  “And you were down there why?”

  “Fighting,” I mumble under my breath.

  “What was that?”

  “Fighting. I was fighting.”

  “You were fighting?” he repeats.

  “There’s no law against fighting.” One of the guys I fight at the docks is the son of an assistant AG. He claims that if we all agree to participate, we aren’t doing anything wrong. Wanting to get hit by someone else isn’t a prosecutable offense.

  But I guess it can be evidence of someone who’s violent and possibly murderous.

  “And no exchange of money? I have a Franklin Deutmeyer, otherwise known as Fat Deuce, who says that Easton Royal places bets with him for football games. You telling me he never bets on your fights?” Grier doesn’t wait for my lie. “We interviewed Justin Markowitz, who says that there is plenty of money exchanged.”

  It doesn’t sound like he needs a response, and I’m right, because Grier barrels forward like he’s ready to give the closing argument to put me away.

  “You fight for money. You fight because it makes you feel good. You put a kid in the hospital for no good reason—”

  I do interrupt this time. “He insulted my mother.”

  “Like this Richmond boy whose nose you broke today? He also insulted your mother?”

  “Yes,” I say tightly.

  “And what about Brooke? Did she insult your mother, too?”

  “What are you saying?” my father growls.

  “I’m saying your son has a temper,” Grier snaps. “You so much as breathe on his dead mother’s grave—”

  Dad flinches.

  “—and he loses control.” Grier tosses his pen on the desk and glares at me. “The DA has a real hard-on for this case. I don’t know why. They’ve got unsolved crimes up the wazoo, murders that happen regularly from the drug trade, bookies like Fat Deuce running around taking money from kids, but they like this case and they like you as the one who did it. Our investigators did a little digging and there are rumors that Dinah O’Halloran may have had a relationship with DA Pat Marolt.

  This time it’s Dad who curses. “Goddammit.”

  The rope gets tighter.

  “They’re going to interview every single one of your classmates. If you’ve had problems with any of them, you’d better tell me about it now.”

  “You’re supposed to be one of the best lawyers in the state,” Dad says testily.

  “You’re asking me to perform a miracle,” Grier snaps back.

  “No,” I interrupt. “We’re asking you to find out the truth. Because while I don’t mind taking a free shot to my jaw, I do care about going to prison for something I didn’t do. I’m an asshole, for sure. But I don’t hit women, and I sure as shit would never kill one.”

  Dad steps close and lays a hand on my shoulder. “You win this case, Grier. I don’t care what else you have on your desk. Nothing else matters until Reed’s free of this.”

  The or else is implied.

 
Grier’s mouth thins, but he doesn’t object. Instead, he rises, tucks all his papers away, and says, “I’ll get to work.”

  “What should we be doing while the investigation continues?” Dad asks, seeing Grier to the door.

  I’m stuck in the chair, wondering how in the hell my life has come to this. I look down at my hands. Did I kill her? Did I dream leaving the penthouse? Am I suffering some weird memory lapse?

  “Put on a happy face, act normally, and pretend you’re not guilty.”

  “I’m not guilty,” I growl.

  Grier pauses in the hall. “The DA needs means, motive, and opportunity to prove the crime. Brooke struck her head on the fireplace with enough force to cause her brain to shear from the spinal cord. You’re big and strong and like to punch people around. They have you on tape within the golden period. And they have motive. Oh, and Ella Harper?”

  I tense up. “What about her?”

  “Stay away from her,” Grier says flatly. “She’s your biggest weakness.”

  8

  Ella

  Reed is waiting for me on the front steps when I get to school. This time Easton is the one who’s missing, but I’m kind of grateful to be alone with Reed, especially after last night. His meeting with Callum and Grier left him sullen and close-mouthed, and it was the first night in a long time that he didn’t sleep in my bedroom. I didn’t beg him to stay, but I did push him to talk.

  From the little he told me, I guess the lawyer is worried about Reed’s fighting and the fact that he was unaccounted for during the hour he left the penthouse to the time he got back to the Royal mansion.

  That part, I don’t really get. So what if he didn’t go home right away? It doesn’t mean he was doing anything suspicious, especially since the cops know he left the penthouse twenty minutes after he got there.

  Still, if it bugs Grier and Callum this much, then it must be important. So it’s the first thing I bring up once I kiss Reed hello.

  “I still don’t get why that hour you were driving around means anything.”