Logan’s arms tightened around me and before I could say another word, the phone was slipped out of my hand, and Logan was talking softly into it.
“Listen, Tasia,” Logan began. “We already know the court order says from when we originally went to court about Brother and Sister. Please, feel free to pursue it further. And if you feel you’re in need of more child support, you can again take me to court.”
There was a long silence, and then Logan shook his head and hung up the phone.
“Brother?” I asked softly.
Logan’s face went pained.
Literally, pain etched into his every pore as he said, “Sister and Brother were both from the same litter. We got them at the same time. Only difference between the two were their sex.”
I felt that there was more to the story, so I waited for him to explain instead of pushing him to talk about it if he wasn’t ready.
I’d wait all day if I had to.
“You’re not going to ask what happened?” he murmured.
“I was, but I figured patience is a virtue and you’d explain what happened when you wanted to,” I admitted frankly.
Logan’s lips turned up at one corner before he sighed and dropped the handcuffs and the key to his bed.
“I got the dogs in the divorce.” He sighed. “Only, I’m fairly sure that while Tasia had them, she fed them something that would make them sick before I got them. Purposefully trying to rack up my bills seeing as she knew that I’d take care of them. Unfortunately, where Sister survived what they think was a grape poisoning, Brother didn’t. He died the week after I got him back from Tasia.”
My heart lurched in my chest.
“Oh, Logan,” I said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
Logan shrugged, and though the move was unaffected, the pain still on his face was not.
“I don’t think she was trying to kill him. I just think she was trying to make him sick enough to force me to take him in. To cause me to have to pay for something when I didn’t have the money to do that with. Unfortunately, grapes are poisonous to dogs,” he murmured.
I fisted my hands and placed them on my hips.
“That’s just…diabolical,” I finally finished with. “I can’t believe…”
There was a sudden, intense knocking coming from the direction of the front door, only it didn’t sound like his door as much as the neighbor’s door.
Mine.
Then the calling started.
“Katy! I need to speak with you.”
I frowned and started walking, but before I could get much farther than three steps, Logan caught me by the hand. “Hold on and put this on.”
He let me go as I turned, reaching for a large flannel shirt that’d been laid out over the end of Logan’s bed.
I frowned and put it on.
“Not to say you don’t look ethereal and beautiful as hell, but your shirt is see-through, and you have dots of wetness on your gown.” He gestured to my lower half.
I felt my face flame.
“Shit,” I said, hastily pulling it on.
I mean, I could feel the wetness as well as see it. I should’ve known.
I licked my lips and wrapped the shirt around me tight before hurrying to the front door.
Sister and Lou had beat me to it, though, along with Logan who was already stepping out onto his balcony.
“Hastings? Bridges?” Logan called out, causing both detectives to look up at us.
It took them about three seconds flat to form opinions, and I wasn’t too sure that I liked the annoyance that crossed their faces before they could conceal it.
“Katy, Gibbs,” the man that I assumed was Bridges said. “You both want to come down here?”
Logan turned to me. “Get the dogs back inside the apartment. And I have some slippers right inside the door. You want to slip those on? It’s cold out here.”
It was cold, and I took him up on the slippers after I got the dogs settled back inside Logan’s apartment.
Seconds after that, I was taking the stairs at a breakneck pace, unwilling to miss any of what was going on.
“…appreciate it if you followed us downtown so we could ask you both a couple of questions.”
And that was exactly what I did.
After getting the shortened version of what Logan just got, we both separated to go get dressed.
Moments after getting dressed, I found myself on the back of Logan’s bike, riding with him to the police station.
Logan, in full uniform.
Me, in my scrubs and a sweatshirt.
Two cops behind us following us all the way in.
But when we arrived at the station, we were both separated almost immediately.
Never once was I worried, though.
Especially with the way the two men were laughing and carrying on behind me, giving Logan shit.
Unfortunately for them, they took too long to follow me into the interrogation room, leaving me enough time to get good and pissed.
Meaning when my phone rang, I wasn’t in a very good mood.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hi, Katy. This is Bruno, with UPS. How are you today?”
Then, before I could think better of it, I started explaining my day to the UPS guy. I gave every last detail of my night, ending with how Tasia had ruined it, and how she’d lost her shit. Followed shortly by how I was now at the police station waiting for a police officer to interrogate me.
Bruno listened through it all and didn’t interrupt me even once.
He was a good listener, albeit kind of weird.
“Sounds like you’ve had a really hard day,” Bruno said lightly.
I scoffed. “Bruno, you have no idea.”
But before I could talk to him further, the cop that had started this all just a few days ago by telling me that Jakobe had been released, walked in.
“Thank you for asking about my package and letting me know that it was shipped. I really appreciate you keeping an eye on it. But I gotta go. Bye.” I hung up before Bruno could get a word in.
“Friend?” Detective Hastings asked.
I shook my head.
“UPS guy at the UPS store. I had a package that sat out on my front porch for a couple of days, so I had to call the main office to complain. He was just following up to make sure to let me know that it arrived at their facility and that he’d let me know if there were any problems,” I explained.
Detective Hastings nodded, then pulled up a seat directly across from me.
“So, you said that Jakobe was hurt last night,” I said. “And you’re questioning me?”
Detective Hastings sighed. “How about you tell me, from beginning to end, what happened last night. Let me know what you did from the time you left work.”
So, I did, leaving out not a single detail.
I told him everything, right down to the handcuffs and the morning escapades.
Detective Hastings’ cheeks were bright red when I was finished.
“I’ll just leave that part out when I tell your dad later.” He readjusted in his chair.
I snickered and showed him my wrists. “See these? He’s going to ask about them anyway. I was hoping to cover them up with some makeup or something before I saw him, because he’s not dumb. He’s going to know that I had handcuffs on. And since I can see him walking past the interrogation room door, I highly doubt that this is going to go by unnoticed, but if you don’t want to tell him that part, that’s fine.”
Detective Hastings shook his head. “So, you were with Logan Gibbs from the time you got home from your parents’ house until this morning when we showed up at your door?”
“Yes,” I answered.
Chapter 15
Sometimes I wake up and realize that I’d rather stab myself in the thigh with a rattlesnake than get up and go to work.
-Logan’s secret thoughts
Logan
“You can go into interrogation room one,” Bridges murmured, jerking his chin in the direction of the interrogation room.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked. “And can you just ask me right now? I have to be on shift in about twenty minutes. How about we do this in the locker room where I can get ready for work?” I paused. “Because you know how Captain Morgan is. If I’m late, I’m going to hear about it. And by ‘hear about it’ I mean he’s going to rip me a new asshole.”
Bridges sighed.
“I would, if the chief hadn’t specifically said that I needed to treat this case like I would any other case,” he answered. “Roberts told me this morning that though he wanted to be apprised of what was going on from beginning to end, that I needed to be extremely careful about cutting corners. I also needed to make sure that we did this in the interrogation rooms where it could be recorded. That there would be no biased police work seeing as the prime suspect is his daughter.”
I let that sink in for a moment.
“What? What are you talking about?”
He gestured to the interrogation room with his chin.
“Go inside,” he ordered again.
I sighed. “Can I at least tell Captain Morgan that I’m going to be late?”
“Already done, Gibbs,” I heard Captain Morgan growl from behind me. “Just get in there.”
I looked at him over my back and nodded, heading in without another word.
I just didn’t want to have my ass kicked. Or lose my job.
Both meant a lot to me.
My ass for obvious reasons, and my job because I had to have it to pay for shit—like food, water, and lawyers.
Lawyers that I had no doubt were about to be on my plate once again.
“What are you doing?” I heard from behind me as I took a seat at the table.
I sure hoped that they’d cleaned it from the last time I’d looked in the room.
There’d been a rather large man with only underwear on sweating up a storm on the table.
I glanced at said table and decided that I wouldn’t be touching it, because I had no doubt that it hadn’t been cleaned.
“I’m attending the questioning. You got a problem with that?” Captain Morgan asked briskly.
My mouth kicked up at the corner.
“Stop smiling. I don’t know what you’ve done, but it is a pain in my ass,” Captain Morgan grunted.
I hid the smile but knew deep down that he loved me. Or he wouldn’t be here.
That smile dropped off my face when Detective Bridges began.
“Where were you last night in between one and three in the morning?” Bridges asked without preamble.
I sighed, knowing that I was about to lose my job.
“I was in bed with Katy Roberts,” I answered truthfully.
Detective Bridges looked relieved.
Captain Morgan looked at me like I’d just done the stupidest thing on the planet.
And I might have…or I might’ve thought I had yesterday.
After spending the night with Katy, though, I knew that it wasn’t a mistake.
Also, I knew that I’d be doing the same thing tonight. And the night after that. And the night after that.
As long as she let me, that was.
“And what were y’all doing?” Bridges continued.
I felt my stomach tense.
“Sleeping for the first part of the night,” I answered.
“The first part of the night,” Bridges said. “What about the last part?”
I felt red tinge my cheeks and then heard something rather large bang against the two-way mirror to my right.
“He’s in there, isn’t he?” I said to Bridges.
Bridges made eye contact with me, and we both admitted, albeit silently, that I was about to die.
“Yes,” he answered without lying.
“Answer the question,” Captain Morgan barked.
“I was having sexual relations with Katy,” I answered without thought.
I swallowed, thinking that all my hard work and dreams had just gone up in a cloud of smoke.
“Are you sure that she was with you for the entire night?” he asked.
I frowned. “Positive.”
“How positive?” Bridges pushed.
I held up my previously-handcuffed arm and showed him the bruising that was starting to form.
“We were handcuffed together. So, unless she could drag me out of the apartment while I was sleeping, do whatever you seem to think she’s done, and then get me back into bed, then she was with me. You can see the marks on her own arm to prove it,” I explained.
“Why the handcuffs at all?” Bridges asked, eyes eying the marks on my wrist.
“She sleepwalks. I caught her a couple of days ago in the middle of a muddy field with deer. She found out some traumatic news, which you know about. Apparently, the traumatic news and stress makes her sleepwalking worse. Hence the reason she was sleepwalking. So yesterday, she asked me to stay with her, and I agreed. But I sleep like the dead when I sleep, which I informed her of, and I suggested the cuffs,” I answered, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. “How about you tell me what the hell is going on? I’d like to know what I’m fucking my life up for.”
Bridges made eye contact with the two-way mirror, and seconds later, Luke Roberts himself walked in the door.
I could tell by just one look that he wasn’t happy. Not with me, not with his daughter, and not with the situation.
“Last night, Jakobe Anderson was killed,” he said. “And with the testimony you just gave, my daughter is no longer the prime suspect.”
My mouth fell open.
“She didn’t do it,” I confirmed after gathering my wayward thoughts. “I can guarantee you that. She was with me. She tried to leave once while I was asleep, but obviously I kept her there.” I showed him my hand. “And when I was awake after that, she was in my sight. We spent the entire night together, too. The moment that she got home from your house until y’all separated us when we arrived here.”
Luke’s mouth clenched closed, and the muscles in his jaw started to twitch.
“I know she didn’t do it,” he finally said. “We just had to have every T crossed and I dotted. We had to do this the right way, which is why my daughter is currently in the next room over being questioned.”
I sighed. “So, you’re watching me instead of watching her?”
“I’m watching you because I started to hear everything you did this morning while you were awake, and they were things that I shouldn’t hear about my daughter.” He paused. “Which we’ll be talking about later.”
“Am I fired?” I questioned.
He looked like he wanted to say yes, but settled with, “No.”
“Then I can go to work?” I asked.
“You don’t even care that Jakobe was killed and my daughter was the prime suspect?” Luke wondered, looking miffed.
I stood up and tucked my chair under the table with my foot.
“Actually, I care that she was the prime suspect,” I admitted. “But I don’t give one flying motherfuck that the dude is dead. Sucks for him, not for me, and definitely not for Katy. Katy who was scared to death, like you knew, but wasn’t showing it.”
Bridges made a grunting noise that almost sounded like he agreed with me.
Luke sighed and scratched his head.
“I can’t say I’m all that broken up over the news, either,” he admitted. “But I still have to find whoever did this, even though, as her father, I’m grateful.”
Luke and I shared a look.
One that continued on so long that I would’ve said we had some sort of connection had he not turned on his heels and walked out of the room without another word.
Captain Morgan grunted out a ‘holy fuck’ under his breath.
I found myself grinning.
“Wipe that grin off
your face, kid,” he instructed.
I snorted. “I’m only five years younger than you. Not a kid by a long shot.”
“I might have more questions,” Bridges said as he stood to leave at the same time Morgan and I did.
“I’m sure you know where to find me,” I said as I exited the interrogation room.
Just as I’d stepped foot into the hallway, the door to the next interrogation room over was yanked open, and a very embarrassed looking Hastings exited, followed shortly by Katy.
Katy took one look at me, one look at her retreating father, then took two long steps in my direction.
I was actually kind of happy that she’d chosen me.
I’d never admit it, but I was happy.
“Did you hear that Jakobe was killed?” she asked.
I nodded. “I did.”
“Did you know that by you handcuffing us together, you offered me an airtight alibi?” she asked.
I nodded again.
The smile that broke out over her face was beautiful and breathtaking.
I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and never let go.
“Same time tonight?” she teased.
I snorted. “You got it, babe.”
“You’re not worried about my dad, are you?” she asked.
I looked at the man that I thought would be gone by now but stopped when I saw him turned around, staring down the long length of the hallway at the two of us.
“Uhh,” I hesitated.
She turned to see her father looking at us as well.
“All he wants is to see me happy,” she said.
“I’m not sure that he wants to see you happy with the one man on the police force that makes him have suicidal thoughts, though,” Bridges murmured.
Katy scoffed. “Logan’s not that bad.”
I started to chuckle.
“Oh, your father really does hate me. Don’t let his act fool you,” I told her. “He might tolerate me, allow me to keep my job, but I’ve just royally fucked myself over. There will be no more anything when it comes to the police department. I can kiss any promotion, raise, and commendation goodbye.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” she said.
“No,” Hastings chuckled. “Of course not. He loves the fact that Logan Gibbs slept with his baby girl.”
Hide Your Crazy Page 13