Imperfectly Criminal

by Mary Frame

  This time she doesn’t correct me about Cameron’s name.

  “Okay,” she says, after a moment of internal deliberation.

  She disappears down the hallway.

  While she’s gone, I start getting ready for bed, which includes removing my shoes and my shirt. I don’t necessarily have to remove my clothing now, but…I’m curious after her last comment. I want to see her reaction.

  I’ve got my back to the room, looking out the window and down into the parking lot when I hear her behind me.

  When I turn around to face her, she’s standing there with her eyes squeezed shut.

  I can’t help but grin.

  “Here,” she says, holding out the pillow and blanket blindly.

  “You can open your eyes,” I say. “I’m not naked.”

  “That’s fine,” she says, keeping her eyes closed.

  I wait a second before taking the items from her, and she releases a breath before spinning around and stalking towards her room.

  “Goodnight,” she calls out when she’s disappeared from view.

  “Goodnight.”

  I hear a door shut softly and I turn and look down at the small couch with a sigh. It’s going to be a long night.

  ***

  I can’t get comfortable. I just don’t fit on this furniture and there’s a spring digging into my back. I spend a couple hours alternating between staring up at the ceiling and looking out the window into the parking lot.

  Around midnight, I hear muffled yelling and then outright screaming coming from Freya’s bedroom.

  I race into her room, heart thumping, only to find her in the middle of her bed, curled into a tense ball. I sit next to her and rub a hand down her back, not sure how to soothe her, or if I should wake her up.

  “It’s only a dream,” I whisper, still rubbing her back.

  This seems to work because some of the tension seeps away. After a few minutes, she relaxes back into sleep.

  I carefully remove myself from the bed, resigned to heading back to the couch. Before I can move away, her hand flies out and grabs mine.

  “Stay,” she murmurs.

  I’m not going to question the ethics of this decision. Not only will her bed actually fit my body, but curling up around her seems like the best idea I’ve ever had.

  I slide into the bed behind her, one arm over her waist, her back fitting perfectly into my chest. She relaxes even more, the strain leaving her body until I hear her breathing even out and she’s definitely sleeping.

  This feels…good. Nice. Comfortable. I can’t deny that I like having her body snug against mine, even if parts of me are waking up and straining against my boxers. Maybe it’s not as complicated as I’ve been thinking. Maybe I can have a relationship and still take care of my family. I feel like Freya would help me, not hinder me. Perhaps it would be easier with a partner and not harder.

  And my mom is (probably) right.

  I should be living with no regrets.

  Finally, for the first time in what feels like days, I follow her into slumber.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Freya

  Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.

  —Dorothy L. Sayers

  I wake up the next morning surprised that I ever fell asleep. But I did. And I must have slept like the dead because my sheets are tangled around my legs, there’s drool on my pillow, and there’s another person in my bed.

  I’m not drooling on my pillow, I’m drooling on Dean. Dean is my pillow.

  My head snaps up and I stare at his face. He’s still sleeping. Thank God.

  Slowly, carefully, I lift my face off his chest and slide back slightly. Then I use the corner of the sheet to pat my drool off his chest. There. No harm done.

  I put the sheet down, but I can’t stop staring. Man, he’s got a nice body.

  He clears his throat.

  My eyes jerk to his face. Crap.

  He just smiles and says, “I had a dream I was being subjected to Chinese water torture, and I woke up with saliva on my chest.”

  “I have no idea how that might have happened.”

  He smiles and I smile and we sit there, smiling at each other until I realize I have no idea how or why he got in here in the first place.

  “So…why are you, I mean, how did we—”

  “You don’t remember?” He lifts his head, bringing himself up on his elbows on the bed.

  The motion brings his face too close to mine and I pull away.

  “No,” I say.

  “You started screaming. I came running, you asked me not to leave, and I didn’t argue since it’s hard to sleep on a four-foot-long couch.”

  “Oh.”

  “You really don’t remember any of that?” he asks, his eyes examining me intently.

  I frown and shake my head again. “No.”

  Shit. What else did I say? Something embarrassing, probably. I can’t bring myself to ask. Instead, I slide away and out of the bed.

  “I’m going to shower,” I tell him, and then scurry down the hall and into the bathroom.

  Am I ever going to have a night with the guy that doesn’t end in mortification, or me acting like a moron?

  I consider everything I know about myself. So, probably not.

  When I flick on the light in the bathroom, I nearly shriek at my reflection. Oh God. How could Dean even stand to look at me like this? My hair is crazy, like, literally, sticking up in a million different directions of frizzy, wild rat’s nest.

  And my face…I forgot to wash up before bed. Raccoony would be an understatement. KISS would be more accurate.

  I jump in the shower to tame the appearance and when I get out, I realize that I didn’t bring any clothes with me.

  Dammit.

  This isn’t happening. It’s the biggest cliché ever: the girl getting out of the shower in nothing but a towel when the love interest bursts in. Could I be any more predictable?

  I groan and sit on the toilet seat with my head in my hands. After my comments last night, and whatever happened to bring him to my bed, Dean is totally going to think I’ve got the hots for him. And I don’t, I totally don’t.

  Shit. I do. I really do.

  I slip out the door, past the kitchen and back into my bedroom.

  Dean isn’t there.

  I frown. Did I pass him on my way in?

  I meander back out to the living room, clutching the towel to my chest.

  “Dean?” I call out.

  Silence.

  He left? Without saying anything? Really?

  A brief pang of disappointment hits me right in the chest, and I immediately berate myself for allowing it.

  Did I really expect anything else? I should be used to rude behavior. I just thought, after everything, that Dean was different.

  I am such an idiot.

  I go back to my room and change into skinny jeans, and a fitted T-shirt that says Same Shirt, Different Day.

  I’m brushing out my hair when there’s a knock at the door.

  I peek out the peephole. Dean’s on the other side.

  I open the door and he walks in, arms full of grocery bags.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I went to get breakfast.” He puts the bags on the counter while I shut the door and lock it behind him.

  When I get to the kitchen, he’s holding a package of bacon.

  “Are you making bacon?” I ask.

  He rummages through my drawers and then he turns around, spatula in hand. “Uh, yeah.” He runs a hand through his hair. He seems a little nervous. “I hope you don’t mind. I ran to the store and grabbed some stuff since I figured you would be hungry—”

  I can’t help it. I couldn’t control myself if I tried. I take a few steps forward and throw my arms around his waist. He made me bacon.

  “Um.” I half hear and h
alf feel him put the spatula on the counter behind him, and then his arms wrap around me.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “You’re welcome.” His arms wrap a little tighter around me. “Wow. You’re really easy to please.”

  I pull away from him and look up into his face with a shrug. “Food makes me happy,” I say.

  “I sort of got that about you.” He smiles down at me.

  My hands are still on his waist. I pull them away and look at them like they’re traitors.

  “Uh,” I say. Must change subject. “So, Lucy got into the police files—at least, part of them. She was able to confirm the time of death for both guys was around 11:00 p.m. and the same weapon was used for both killings, a nine-millimeter pistol.”

  “Oh,” he says. He turns around and starts fiddling with the nobs on the stove.

  “She also found out that Daisy, Jesse’s girlfriend, was the one that reported you to the police as the boyfriend beater-upper and connected you to the homicides.”

  That stops him for a second. He turns to face me. “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  I tell him about how Lucy and I went to verify Daisy’s alibi, what the Natalie girl told us, and Lucy’s suspicions while he keeps making the food. “Lucy’s trying to hack into the campus security files now and see if she can access more of the police records. Hopefully, she’ll find something useful. If Daisy went back to campus at some point in the evening, at least one of the cameras must have caught her, and that would totally disprove her signed statement. But we still can’t find a connection between her and Matt.”

  His back is to me again, and he’s flipping the bacon.

  “Yeah.” He doesn’t sound happy. He pulls another pan out of the cupboard and clonks it on the stove.

  “What do you think—”

  “Look.” He turns around. “I really appreciate what you guys are doing, and I hope that Lucy finds something to exonerate me, but…” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I know it’s important, but I want to have one day. Just one day where I don’t think about what might happen, or who killed these guys. I have too much to worry about right now, I’m not sure I can take any more.”

  I pause for a second, absorbing his words. I get it, I do, but…

  “What do you have to worry about that’s more important than a murder charge?”

  He shakes his head, turning around again and continuing to cook breakfast.

  I didn’t really expect him to answer my question, but it still irks me. What is he hiding? The fact that he’s so secretive about everything just makes me want to know more.

  I watch him flip pancakes like an expert as the silence extends and fills the space between us like the room is slowly filling with water. Just before I run out of air, I open my mouth.

  “Wow. You’re like a chef du jour.”

  The bacon is finished and he starts whipping up the eggs.

  He glances over to frown at me. “Chef du jour translates into chef of the day. Am I the main course?”

  An awkward pause while I think, why, yes, maybe you are.

  For once, I manage to restrain myself. Instead I laugh.

  “Ha, ha…ha.”

  It comes out sounding fake and forced, which it is.

  “Are you trying to feed my whole building or just us?”

  “I know how much you eat. I came prepared.”

  “This is true. Do you need help?”

  “I’m just about done. Why don’t you grab the plates and the juice and set the table?”

  I do as requested, setting my old vintage china on the small vinyl table in the corner of the kitchen along with silverware and glasses and the juice.

  He brings out the plate of bacon, resting in a pile of paper towels. Then he grabs my plate and loads it with pancakes and eggs and brings it back to me.

  “Syrup?” he asks.

  I nod.

  He brings that to the table, too.

  Then he serves himself and sits in front of me.

  I’m staring blankly at my full plate.

  “Well,” he says. “Dig in.”

  We’re silent for a moment. He takes a bite and I’ve yet to even pick up my fork.

  I feel one of his glares before I glance up and see it.

  “Are you scared to eat my food or something?” he asks.

  “It’s not that,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s just that…no one’s ever cooked for me before.”

  “What do you mean, no one’s ever cooked for you before? That can’t be true. Did you scavenge with wolves when you were a child?”

  “No. But my mom’s a vegan. We ate a lot of veggies and stuff from our garden when I was little, so I guess scavenge isn’t entirely inaccurate.”

  I dump some syrup on my pancakes and dig in.

  “Oh my God,” I moan after taking a bite. “These are the best pancakes ever.”

  “No vegan pancakes while you were growing up?”

  I shake my head no. “My mom’s not exactly a cook. She’ll make stuff like quinoa or veggie casserole, but when I got old enough to make my own food, I did. I’m not a very good vegan.”

  He looks pointedly down at my plate. Somehow half of the food is already in my stomach. “I can imagine you aren’t. More eggs?”

  “No, thanks.” I smile at him.

  There’s a moment of silence, but it’s not uncomfortable.

  “So what about your parents?” I ask.

  “What about them?”

  “Did one of them teach you to cook like this?”

  “Ah, sort of.”

  I point a finger at him. “Don’t go being all secretive with me again. You always avoid my questions.”

  “I just don’t like to talk about my parents.”

  My stomach plummets. “Oh God. Are they dead? They’re dead, aren’t they?” I resist the urge to bang my head against the table. “I’m so nosy, I’m sorry!”

  “No, they’re not dead,” he says and he sounds like he’s stifling laughter.

  “Oh, thank God,” I say, relieved.

  He doesn’t elaborate any further and I don’t want to keep grilling him about his personal life since he’s obviously more than reluctant to share.

  When we’re done, he helps me clear the table and we do the dishes together.

  “What are you doing today?” he asks when we’re done and he’s drying his hands on a towel.

  It’s Saturday. I had some grand plans that involved homework, a Supernatural marathon, and consuming the equivalent of my own body weight in popcorn and Reese’s Pieces.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug.

  “No plans?” he asks, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter.

  “No plans. Why?”

  “Can I take you somewhere?”

  “Are you going to take me to your evil lair and have your wicked way with me?” I ask, with what might be a little too much enthusiasm.

  “You wish.” He smiles. Then he gets a little serious. He reaches out and takes one of my hands in his. “Come on. Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “A couple of different places.”

  “Dude, you never tell me anything. Why do you have so many secrets?”

  “Well, maybe today I’m going to show you some of my secrets.”

  “All of them?” I ask, like I won’t go wherever it is he wants unless he’s willing to divulge everything. But the truth is he had me as soon as his hand touched mine.

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay.”

  He smiles and releases my hand. “Okay. Can I use your shower first?”

  He’s very prepared. He keeps a spare change of clothes in his car, so after retrieving his stuff and showering—I can’t get the idea of him naked in my shower out of my mind—we take his car to wherever it is he’s taking me.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask after we’ve been driving for a few minutes.


  “Nope.”

  “How long will it take to get there?”

  “It’s only about ten miles away.”

  “Okay, so the way you drive, it’ll be an hour?” I laugh and he shoots me a dirty look.

  “Very funny, Danica Patrick.”

  “Can we play twenty questions about where we’re going?”

  “Only if I reserve the right to not answer.”

  “You’re such a buzzkill,” I say, but his response doesn’t stop me. “Will there be anyone else there?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Will they be old or young?”

  “Both.”

  “Will there be food?”

  He glances over at me with a frown. “We just ate enough to last three days.”

  “Well, I need to know these things so I can prepare myself mentally for the next time I can expect to eat.”

  “I think your mother damaged you by making you forage in the garden. You were a feral child and now you’re a feral woman.”

  “You know what,” I say after a moment’s consideration. “You might be right.”

  He laughs as we pull up outside a small house in a neighborhood I’ve never been in. It’s not a super ghetto neighborhood, but it’s not quite middle class, either. The houses are old, the sidewalks full of cracks, and half the lawns we pass are full of weeds.

  The garage is open at the house we stop in front of. It’s stuffed with boxes and too much stuff to actually fit a car, but there is no car anyway. Just a bicycle that looks like it belongs to a kid.

  He runs around and opens my door while I’m busy looking around.

  “Where are we?” I ask as I get out of the car.

  “My mom’s,” he says simply.

  Then he takes my hand and leads me inside.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Freya

  Everyone has their burdens, their grief, that they carry with them.

  –Elizabeth Edwards

  I have no time to prepare myself or badger him with more questions.

  The house is small, but clean. When we walk in, there’s an older Hispanic woman vacuuming and yelling at someone in the kitchen. I can’t see who she’s talking to because there’s a wall in the way. As soon as she sees us, she stops the talking and the vacuum hums to silence.