“Scarlett, you were never supposed to be involved in this. You should have just stayed out of it.”
“Stayed out of what?”
“There’s Scarlett, listening in on the other side of the doors. There’s Scarlett, fiddle-fucking around with the evidence logs. There’s Scarlett, making copies of the case file to bring home to her perfect little boyfriend,” Tyler mocked. “It’s all I kept hearing. I warned you though. I told you that if you didn’tback away, you were going to end up just like her. And look at you now.” He twirled the knife around his fingers, playing with it.
“Youleft that note on my car? You broke into my apartment too, didn’t you? I know someone had been in my apartment that night. It was you, wasn’t it?”
“What—” Tyler started.
“Shut up,” Captain yelled. “Shut up, the both of you. Let me think.”
My heart thundered. The noise around me muffled as the sound of my own blood flow drowned out everything else.
“No. No. Captain, I don’t understand. How does he know about those things? How didyouknow?” My brain was slow to make the connection, focused as much as I was on just staying alive, but it was clear that whatever Tyler knew, it was because of Captain Langston.Hewas the dirty cop. The one keeping Ryan locked up on Alana’s murder so that Tyler could walk free.
“There isn’t a spot in that building that I don’t have a feed on, Hart. You think I didn’t see you making copies of our internal case file and leaving it for Wilder in your desk drawer or taking pictures down in the evidence room? If Monroe hadn’t walked in when he did, you would have been down there all day. You would have noticed that Monroe’s name signed out the cigarette, but it was my email address attached to it.”
This couldn’t be happening. It didn’t make any sense. I asked the only question on my mind. “Why?”
“Why? My idiot nephew told me he left the butt behind. I needed to intercept the results, otherwise it would have ruled Redmond out. I didn’t frame the guy. I just left it ambiguousenough, hardly a crime.”
What? He didn’t think that falsifying records was considered a crime? He didn’t feel the least bit guilty knowing Ryan was in jail for something Tyler—his nephew—did?
“You didn’t listen, Scarlett. You kept inserting yourself where you had no business being. Getting rid of you was the safest thing—for all of us.”
A momentary slap of indignation flared within me. He specifically fired me because he thought I was a threat to his nephew—the murderer! The gall!
And then I remembered that now was really not the time to worry about that. A literal murderer was still blocking my path to the front while his corrupt uncle stood in the way of my escape out the back.
I needed to keep him talking until I could figure out a plan. I said the first thing that came to my mind. “You fired me but not Luke? How does that make any sense?”
“I couldn’t fire Wilder. He’s the best cop we’ve got. He has a spotless record and an impeccable reputation. Firing him over a tiny indiscretion would raise too many questions. You, on the other hand, no one would bat an eye. Besides, his feud with Monroe was keeping him plenty occupied for a while,” he said. Now that he had started talking, he kept going, like he needed to get it off his chest. “When Monroe asked me to meet him for pizza, I thought he might have had questions about the veracity of the case, but then he told me to expect some fallout from his affair. The timing of that couldn’t have been any more perfect. A distraction to keep them both occupied enough to lose focus. I mean, Monroe never even questioned why the forensic report came through me instead of directly to him.”
The sound of a phone ringing seemed to capture all of our attention. Langston glanced down at it, the streetlight outside highlighting his one raised brow.
“And if it isn’t your partner in crime,” he said. His choice of words would have been laughable, given the current predicament.
“I bet he’ll be so cut up about her death he won’t have the energy to worry about anything else,” Tyler said. He clearly didn’t know Luke. If there was one person on this planet that I could count on to avenge my death, it was Luke. By the sounds of it, he had already put together the pieces that I was just figuring out. He already knew that Tyler had murdered poor Alana. I had no doubt that he would go to the ends of the Earth to get justice for me and his unborn baby. Not that I was going to allow that to happen. It wasn’t an option, and I needed to focus if I wanted any chance of making it out of this unharmed.
The text alerts sounded next. A minute later, another call.
“You can’t take another life, Tyler. This town won’t stand for it. I won’t be able to cover it up for you this time. There’s no one else to let the blame fall to. We need to get you out of here.”
Tyler sneered at Langston. “You didn’t cover it up the first time either, otherwise Wilder wouldn’t be on my ass.” He twirled his knife again, his eyes bouncing between Langston and me. “You know what I’m thinking?” His voice was eerily calm. He pointed the tip of the knife at Langston. “I think you’re about to go down for corruption. And she—” With a flick of his wrist, the knife was pointing directly at me now. “—was the reason it came to light. You needed to silence the witness before she could talk. Sad, really. She was kind ofhot.” He shrugged, a callous smirk tilting the corners of his lips. “But you were so cut up about it you had to take your own life too.”
This was not how I saw my afternoon going.
My only thoughts turned to an escape plan. I needed to get out of here, away from the both of them. I needed to protect my child. Langston was yelling at Tyler, keeping him distracted. This was my best chance to make a move.
“You ungrateful like fuck. You want to threaten me? What’s your plan, you imbecile? That I ran into your knife after I killed Scarlett? Just plunged it into my chest like some fucking Shakespeare shit?”
I carefully put the broom down, leaning it against the display table behind me. Reaching back without turning around, my fingers connected with the cool touch of ceramic. I traded my original weapon for something with more heft, wrapping my fingers around the neck of the vase and oh… so… slowly… moving it around to the front of me.
Tyler’s attention was focused on his uncle. I took stock of my situation and surroundings. I would essentially have to slip past both of them to get out the back while the front was really only guarded by Tyler. The door was locked though, and although it locked from the inside, it would take precious seconds with my shaking hands to unlock it. I couldn’t just make a run for it, but if I created a big enough scene, caused enough damage to just hold him back for a moment, I could do it.
I had to.
I took a breath, trying to calm my rapid pulse, to no avail.
