Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
We get ready within minutes and my coffee is probably still warm by the time we’re out.
I’m locking the door when something creaks behind me. But when I turn my head, ready for another fight, relief floods my body. It’s just Mrs. Treville.
“My goodness, you’re up so early?” she asks, stepping out of her apartment in a puffy coat.
Saint takes off his woolen hat. “Yes, we planned to walk in the woods first thing in the morning.”
She chuckles. “See, I also like to move first thing even before the sun is up. Keeps the blood pumping. It’s nice to see you two… get along so well.” She gives me a meaningful smirk that transports me back to a more innocent time when I wasn’t killing people.
I stroke Saint’s arm. “It’s been a crazy time.”
Mrs. Treville glances at us as she locks her door. “I haven’t seen much of you. Have you been away?”
Saint speaks before I can come up with a sensible excuse. His smile doesn’t give away even a hint of how he really feels about tonight. “Oh, we’ve been around. Just so busy being cooped up with each other. Are you sure we didn’t chat last week? About the cake Rowan got us? I could swear we did.”
Mrs. Treville stalls. “We might have…”
We chat for a bit more, and even take the elevator together before wishing Mrs. Treville a Merry Christmas, in case we don’t see her until the twenty-fifth.
As soon as we’re in the car though, Saint’s face falls.
“People can be very suggestible. It’s good to have an alibi, in case we need it,” he explains without me needing to ask.
I nod. “Right. An older person might think they just forgot when they last saw you.”
“Works the same with young people. Memory can be funny like that. It’s surprisingly easy to implant false memories in another person when they don’t expect it. People like to be in the center of events,” he says, driving onto the empty street. The town is quiet this early in the day, and while we have stumbled upon our neighbor and seen one delivery truck in front of a grocery store, we reach the police station without seeing another soul.
Built out of red brick, the single-storey building looks more like a doctor’s office, but it’s a small town, with few cops. The dead bodies at the house where I’ve been taken? Miles Brown’s corpse at the mall? I doubt this department ever dealt with a night like this one.
I hope to doze off in the car, because I don’t expect they’ll be letting Otto go anywhere. I’m fatigued, and while my headache has gotten a bit better, in an ideal world, I’d be curled up against Saint under a warm comforter.
Saint, on the other hand, looks as awake as Otto was after snorting his two lines. His lips are a tight line, and he grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
“Fuck. I left Brown’s phone at that house. That’ll tie Otto to the murder. They will not be letting him go,” he says and slaps the wheel before leaning back in the seat, defeated.
As if that bastard finally getting busted for something was a bad thing.
Exhaustion pulls on my eyelids, so I rest my head against the window, about to get some shut-eye, when Saint taps my hand. “Have you ever been inside? Maybe there’s a way to enter unseen? A station this small might not be fully secure, since they probably deal with DIUs and theft most of the time.”
I glance at him, unsure why we would even consider taking such risks. “I’ve been in there, but… why are you asking? He won’t escape, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Saint exhales and kneads the steering wheel, as if that motion could somehow get the vehicle moving. His lips are twisted, and a deep groove appears between his brows. “Because we won’t reach him once he gets transferred. Now might be our only chance,” he mutters and pulls out his phone.
I shrug, surprised I don’t really care that much. Worst case scenario, we’ll get him a few years down the line, or he rots in prison for the rest of his miserable life. If we’re lucky, maybe someone shanks him, solving the problem for us.
But I entertain him with a sleepy smile. “Or we could shoot up the police station to get arrested with too.”
Saint grunts, browsing something on the screen. “Those cops are innocent. I bet they do their jobs well enough most of the time. But maybe if I can find plans for the building somehow—”
“Saint. That was a joke.”
Something’s off and I can’t put my finger on it.
When Saint turns my way with his teeth bared, I recoil at the snap in his voice. “Why would you joke about it? I just told you this might be our only chance to get him. There’s only two damn days left until Christmas!”