Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“They’re safe,” Cass responded.
I shook my head because the word games were driving me crazy. “Fuck, Cass, just tell me what’s happening! Where are we and why did you bring me here? Where’s Sully? And how the fuck do you know how I take my coffee? We’ve never had coffee together,” I snapped.
Cass flinched for the briefest of moments. He had yet to look at me. When he did lift his eyes, I could honestly say I didn’t recognize them. During the few encounters we’d had in the past couple of weeks, I’d seen a variety of emotions when he’d looked at me, but this time it was different.
He looked so… worn out.
Beaten.
Broken.
I glanced over my shoulder at the open door behind me. He was claustrophobic. Since when? The answer struck me quick and hard.
Prison.
Being in a prison cell for long periods of time would do that.
“This,” Cass said as he motioned to the files in front of him, “is a case we are going to work together.”
“What?” I asked in disbelief. “What case?”
“Our case,” he responded. “All these files represent every piece of evidence the cops had against me when I was put on trial plus some stuff that was never disclosed. You and I are going to stay in this cabin and go through every shred of it. You get to play cop and lawyer, JJ. You get to find the proof in these files that I did what you and everyone in this city, this country, believe I did.”
“I don’t need to look through the evidence because—”
“Because you read the papers, watched the news clips about my trial,” Cass interjected. “Tell me something. If you’d been assigned to investigate this case, would you have relied on the press to get to the truth of what happened? Would you condemn a man to spend the rest of his life in a cage, stripped of every right and freedom, based on what someone else told you happened?”
“No,” I automatically responded because Cass knew it was the only answer a cop—an honest one—would say.
“So find the truth, JJ. Prove it was me beyond a reasonable doubt and I’ll go to the nearest police station and confess to committing the crimes I’m accused of. They’ll toss me back in a cell faster than you can blink.”
I shook my head, but no words came out. The idea of finding concrete proof, which I knew I would if all the evidence really was there, against Cass wasn’t a relief. I hated the idea of him being cuffed and put behind bars, even though that was where he belonged.
Fuck.
I needed to think like a cop and not like someone who’d shared a couple of hot kisses with some guy who’d only been in my life for a few years when I’d been a kid and the occasional holiday whenever he’d been on leave from the Marines.
“Do I get to question you?” I asked.
“Yep. Just like I get to question you. Find me guilty, JJ, but do it the right way. Prove it was me that night.”
“I don’t remember that night,” I barked in frustration. “Everyone knows that. I don’t remember anything that happened weeks, months before that night.”
“Most victims don’t remember traumatic events.”
“It’s not because of trauma, you dick. My brain—”
“May or may not be damaged in the way you think it is,” Cass easily cut in. “I’ve read the news stories, too, JJ—the ones that said you had no memory of what happened because of brain damage—but I’m not going to come to any conclusions until I prove it to myself. I’m not taking someone else’s word for it.”
“What if I say no?” I asked even though I already knew I wouldn’t… couldn’t. I was desperate to fill in the gaps of a time I had no memory of.
“Then we go back to the city. I’m a free man so I’ll go wherever the hell I want, and you, well, you’ll probably go back to trying to prove to your brother that you’re perfectly fine and then you’ll go to some club, drink however much alcohol it takes to start shutting your brain down, and then let any and every guy fuck you so you don’t have to think at all.”
My stomach dropped out at his words. He couldn’t know about any of that. Except he did, which meant…
“You were there. At Tank’s. Last night or the one before.” Humiliation buried itself beneath my skin until it felt like a living thing trying to escape my body in some other way.
Please, God, let me be wrong.
“It was last night,” Cass responded. “And yes, JJ, I was there. I saw everything.”
CHAPTER 11
Cass
Icould see the shame JJ was experiencing because his skin was turning red. His breathing had ticked up too, and he’d dropped his head so he could try to blink back the tears he desperately didn’t want me to see.