War(17)

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything? Coffee? Water?” he asked.

I shook my head. “N-no,” I croaked, my voice scratchy from disuse.

Which was exactly the opposite of how it should have been, but we’d played this scenario out four, or was it five times now. The detective—I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name, and after all these hours, I’d given up trying—would sit, shuffle his papers, ask me a question or two and then get called away.

“It’s been a crazy day,” he said, smiling yet again.

He’d said that before too, and while I understood, my nerves and patience were frayed to the breaking point. After the debacle with the security guard, the day had only gone downhill. What I had expected to be a short conversation had stretched on and on, and by now, hours had passed. I couldn’t say how many, though. The room they had stuck me in didn’t have a clock or a window.

The walls were padded. When I’d first walked in, I’d found that surprising. Not anymore. Between boredom, anxiousness, and flares of pissed-off at how long this was taking, I was halfway to banging my head against the nearest hard object. So what had struck me as a poor design choice initially was now looking more and more like a favor from a kind soul.

“Okay,” he said, avidly reading from his stack of papers.

During each of the many interruptions, I’d wanted to look through them. He’d been reading them nonstop, and whatever was in them was doing a much better job of holding his attention than I seemed to be. I’d managed to refrain, barely. It was only knowing how much my mama would have frowned on snooping that had kept me from doing it.

Although, in this case, even she might have made an exception.

The detective—I really should have asked his name—was avidly poring over those pages almost feverishly. So rather than scream at him that I wanted out of this room, or smack the papers out of his hands, I stared at him.

He was completely bald, his hair shaved down to his dark brown skin, I suspected to hide thinning hair, though he wore the look well. He had a nice build, was the type who worked out, I could tell, and he dressed his well-earned body quite nicely in slacks and a jacket that were definitely off the rack but still expensive.

Not as expensive as Priest’s had been, but then, I expected not many could afford the clearly custom items Priest had been wearing. And they had fit him so well, the jacket cut perfectly to show his trim waist and broad shoulders, tight enough that his strong, defined back couldn’t be missed, but loose enough he could move unfettered.

Yeah, the clothes had been made for the man, and the man wore the hell out of them.

“Ms. Meadows?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you all right?”

I blinked and then focused on the detective who watched with a concerned look in his eyes.

“I-I’m fine,” I said. I added what I hoped was a smile but was more like a twisted grimace to the end of the sentence, certain that it wouldn’t convince him of my mental stability, but I was at a loss for what else to do.

What the fuck was wrong with me? Between last night and today had I lost all remnants of my sanity?

I was at a police station giving a statement after a shooting and…whatever that had been with Priest, and I was fucking daydreaming about him, not crying in relief I’d survived.

If anything, though, my increasingly wayward thoughts proved I needed to get out of here and home, and the way to do that was to answer Detective Whatshisname’s questions.

“I’m fine,” I said, smiling again, this time hopefully more sanely. “I am a little tired, though. If we could—”

“Of course. We’ll get this wrapped up. Just walk me through what you saw one more time,” he said.

I nodded. “Nothing, really. I was leaving and heard the sounds. Figured they were gunshots, so I got in my car and drove away.”

The detective had again looked down at his papers, something for which I was grateful. I hadn’t been entirely forthcoming, or forthcoming at all really, and had decided not to say anything about Priest. I wasn’t trying to protect him, certainly not, but my gut told me not to mention him.

The logical part of my brain was saying otherwise, which left me confused, conflicted, and exhausted. Pulled in two completely different directions. But I’d made my decision, and I’d stick with it, saying nothing about Priest.

That decision aside, I wasn’t immune from the guilty feeling creeping over me, yet another reason I needed to get out of here.

“And that’s all?” the detective said.

I nodded.

“Good. I have your information if I need you,” he said.