He smiles as I tear it open. Once it’s in place, he takes his time with me, teasing me to the peak of sanity before dropping me over the edge. I bite my lips, trying to stay quiet, but if these walls are anything like Lilah’s, I know what Kate’s hearing.
I wrap myself around Tro and hold on, because there’s not a minute with him that’s not a wild ride.
Chapter 35
Tro
They let me back into my apartment the next day and tell me not to leave town. When I look around, I realize a lot of my shit is missing, bagged and tagged for evidence, no doubt. I try to send Lucky back to Lilah’s place, but she refuses to go until we know what’s happening.
What happens is: Eight o’clock the following morning, there’s a knock on my door. And this time, the cop on the other side says, “Trotte Michael Tanner, we have a warrant for your arrest.”
I wasn’t asleep, but Lucky was. I watch her wake to the sound and her eyes pull wide. She grabs onto me, her fingers digging into my arm.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whisper, then kiss her with every fiber of my being. I gently pull myself out of her grasp and go to the door.
When I open it, it’s the same two uniforms who were here before. The larger one reaches for my arm and slaps a cuff on my wrist and the other one rattles off my rights. They shove me into the back of a cruiser and haul me back to the station, where they take my mug shots, my prints, and all my stuff, giving me an orange jumpsuit to put on instead.
My lawyer is there by noon, taking me through everything he knows they have, the most compelling being my busted guitar in my old man’s truck, the large quantity of his blood on my floor, and the bit they didn’t tell us before: his body was wrapped in the decayed remnants of a blanket from my apartment. A blanket with my hair all over it.
“There’s no useable blood evidence in the truck because it’s been under water for almost three years,” he tells me. “But the cause of death is exsanguination from a knife wound to the back, which they believe supports their theory that he died on your living room floor. They haven’t recovered a murder weapon as of yet.”
“That’s why all my knives are missing,” I say with a nod, the pieces fitting together in my head. “So…what happens now?”
“They have forty-eight hours to arraign you, and with this case they’ll put it off as long as they can while they scramble to get as much of the evidence from your apartment processed as possible.” He looks through his notes, rubbing at the soul patch under his lip as he reads. “They made the arrest faster than they might have wanted to because you have means and they were afraid you’d flee if they waited too long.”
“Why would I run?” I ask. “I didn’t do it.” And Lucky’s right here. No way I’m going anywhere.
“Apparently, they’re not convinced of that,” he says, looking up at me with a skeptic’s eye.
I’ve been arrested more than once on drunk and disorderly and I get how the arraignment thing works. “They’ll set bail at the arraignment, right?”
“Maybe. More likely, they’ll set a separate hearing for that. Again, if they really think you’re a flight risk, they’ll try to keep you without bail as long as they can. And it’s possible they will try to convince the judge to deny bail altogether.”
I feel my head shaking as he says it. “They can’t do that.”
“It’s very unusual for the judge to grant that request. We’ll fight it with everything we have.”
As he packs up his things and leaves, I’m left with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Looks like my old man is going to figure out a way to ruin my life even from the grave.
Chapter 36
Shiloh
Tro’s arraignment is closed. Kate and I go down to the courthouse anyway, and when we get there, I see why. It’s a madhouse, news vans lining both sides of the street for the entire block. Reporters mill on the lawn outside, chatting in small groups.
We slip inside and go through the metal detector…and find a sea of reporters in the corridor outside the courtroom as well.
My chest is so tight my heart can barely beat. I keep my hood up and my sunglasses on, because the last thing Tro needs is for someone to spot me here. I shouldn’t have come.
But I had to.
I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I know there’s nothing I can do but make this worse for him, but I need to be here for him even if he doesn’t know I am.
There’s a commotion in the hallway, and over the heads of the reporters I see them usher Tro through the crowd. The decibel level rises from murmur to cacophony as everyone shoves mics at Tro and asks questions all at once, but Tro keeps his head down and moves with his lawyer and the bailiff, who has a tight grasp on his arm, to the door of the courtroom. It closes behind them and the hall buzzes as the crews all film their snippet for the evening news.
I take Kate’s hand and pull her toward the other end of the hall, to where the crowd is thinner and there’s an empty bench.