“It does matter.”
“I didn’t go in anyone’s house. I don’t even know which house it was. Look, all you need to do is tell whoever needs to know that there’s some kind of mix-up so I can go home. I work under contract. Every hour I’m in here is lost wages.”
“I understand, Mr. Sutter. I’m moving as quickly as possible.” He darted his eyes over the page in front of him. “This officer says he saw you just before one.”
“I guess.”
“Witnesses have you leaving Phil’s around ten-thirty. Neighbors spot you driving in the dark around eleven. What happened between eleven and one?”
“I went for a drive. Then when I got close to camp, my car stalled.”
“So for almost two hours, you sat on the side of the road, waiting for a jump?”
“Yeah, so fucking what? I drove around a while before that.”
Grimes closed the file with a sigh. “Look, Mr.—”
“Manning,” I said. “I’m not mister anything.”
“Manning, I’m on your side. Anything you tell me is confidential. I can’t win this if you don’t work with me.”
I ran my hands over my face and looked up at the ceiling. “There’s nothing to win. I didn’t do it.”
“I’ve got news for you, Manning, and you aren’t going to like it. Your case doesn’t look great. The residents of that ritzy suburb want someone to go down for this, so the prosecutor will try to wrap this up as soon as possible. You’re the strongest suspect, and far as I can tell, you move from job to job and don’t come from the best background.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“You’re suspicious. I’m sorry.” He took off his glasses and set them on the paperwork. “If you don’t tell me where you were, if nobody can vouch for you, then the police are going to think you’re hiding something. They want guys like you to be guilty so they can close it and move on. Give me something to work with. Otherwise, guilty or not, there’s a chance you’ll go away for this.”
I lowered my chin, meeting his eye. Under the table, my knee bounced up and down. I wasn’t na?ve, not even when it came to the criminal justice system. It’d done right by me in the past, but I came from a line of bad men. Maybe based on that alone, I should be put away. Before I really did hurt someone the way my dad had. For fuck’s sake, I’d almost taken advantage of Lake that night. Maybe I deserved this, but either way, being charged with a crime I didn’t commit seemed like a cruel joke.
I’d already given Grimes my story, though. At least what I was willing to share. I opened my hands on the table. “I got nothing, man.”
Grimes nodded slowly, studying me. After a few seconds, he peeked in the file and back at me. “Who’s Lake Kaplan?”
Time as I knew it came to a screeching halt. The air in the room evaporated, fluorescent overhead lights became blinding. Lake was off-limits. Period. How the fuck had he even gotten her name? My hands twitched with the urge to grab Dexter by his mayo-stained lapels.
“I take it by your silence you recognize the name,” he said.
“Where’d you hear it?”
“She left a message with my office a few hours ago.” He opened and closed the arms of his glasses. If he was preparing to gloat, he didn’t seem happy about it. “I called back, but nobody answered. The machine belongs to a family.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Goddamn stubborn Lake. I knew she’d try to help, but I’d hoped the threat of making things worse would be enough to stop her. The thought that Mr. Kaplan could’ve picked up the phone made me sweat. I wiped my palms on my scrubs. “Please don’t tell me you left a message.”
“Lake mentioned it was sensitive, so I didn’t. She sounded young, Manning. So now I have to ask why a young girl has information I need.”
I looked at the table. “She’s nobody. My girlfriend’s little sister.”
“How little?”
“Sixteen.”
“I see.” He proceeded slowly, as if deliberating over his words. “What’s her involvement?”
For what felt like the hundredth time in three days, Lake’s face came to mind, her big, blue, gullible eyes, the way her chin ended in a point, like a heart. She’d looked terrified when I’d last seen her. Then hurt when I’d dismissed her to get Tiffany. Making her feel like a kid was the only way I could get her to leave.
Somehow, I’d dragged a girl, who was younger than Maddy would’ve been if she were alive, into my mess. I laced my hands together. “Nothing else to tell.”
“Whatever you say stays between us, Manning. If . . . something happened with her—”
“Nothing happened.”
“But if I know what occurred in those two hours, I can start building your defense. I need the truth.”
“I told you. Nothing . . . fucking . . . happened.”