“That bad?”
“Worse,” she replied. “I’ve got to go. Remember. Any answers you get, I’ll take them.”
“You don’t even believe in this bullshit,” he argued.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” she snapped right back.
It was an argument they’d had many times, and he couldn’t blame her because he was definitely on the same side in terms of not knowing what to believe. Obviously he was a believer, but sometimes it all just seemed too damn far-fetched to be feasible. As he went to answer her, he realized she’d already hung up on him. He swore, staring down at his phone.
A man standing nearby, waiting for a bus, laughed at him. “Had to be a woman,” he stated. “Those are the only calls that can screw us over so badly.”
Simon looked at him, realized what the guy was saying, then chose to ignore him and walked away.
“You can run, but you can’t hide,” the guy called out with a laugh.
The trouble was, it was almost true. The guy was right in some ways, and it was all Simon could do to figure out how it would ever work with Kate. Simon was used to having his relationships be a little more amiable. He was wealthy, busy, decent-looking, and confident. Women tended to fawn all over him. Although his last relationship had ended with a less-than-stellar result, he’d firmly expected that, when he was ready, he would find somebody new, somebody better suited to him.
Kate was not even close to what he had imagined. She was contrary, cranky, independent, and she worked too damn hard. And he just couldn’t get enough of her.
Chapter 3
Detective Kate Morganwalked into the jail cell and asked for the prisoner she had sent to sober up. She was given the log-in book to take a look at. She identified the prisoner and asked to speak with him, then headed over to the interview room she had been assigned and sat down, waiting.
Soon the prisoner walked in on his own accord, looking a little sheepish and red-eyed. He sat down nervously on the chair across the table from her. “Good morning, ma’am,” he started.
She looked at him in surprise and just waited.
He winced. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the streets, but I ain’t never seen anything like that.”
“Hopefully you’ll never see it again either,” she replied in a quiet voice.
He nodded. “I know. Look. It wasn’t the right thing under the circumstances, but I just couldn’t think of anything to do but drink enough to stop seeing that. Turns out it was burned into my brain.” He wiped his mouth and cleared his throat a couple times. “Could I possibly get a drink of water?”
She nodded, then walked to the door and asked for water for the interviewee. When it was delivered in a bottle, he uncapped it and drank. She watched, as he gulped the bulk of it in one sitting, then wiped his mouth again.
“Thank you,” he said. “Nothing like alcohol to make your throat dry.”
She wanted to ask why he continued to drink, if that were the case, but she had come to accept it as one of those things. It didn’t matter what answer he gave; the addiction was real. Or almost as uncontrollable as anything else in life. She pulled her notepad toward her and picked up the pen. “Now tell me. What did you see?”
“The devil,” he replied instantly. “No doubt in my mind, the devil himself was there last night.”
She put down the pen, crossed her arms, and looked at him.
He immediately held up his hand. “I get it. You don’t believe me. But I’m telling you, it was the devil.”
“And what was he doing?”
“Nothing good,” he stated.
“Did you see him kill that woman?”
The witness immediately shook his head. “Nope, nope, nope, nope. I didn’t see nothing like that.”
“So then what did you see?”
“He came out of the alleyway, wearing a big cloak and a mask with horns,” he told her.
“So this devil wore the devil’s mask?”