My heart thumps, my mind shuts down. “I—”

My lawyer sighs. “I guess self-defense is out of the question now.”

Fuck.

Keels ends my questions there, for now, and moves on to Laney. Same standard questions with her.

What was her relationship with Cooper Kennedy?

How long have they known each other?

Were they intimate? (Like it fucking matters.)

And I start to wonder if maybe these fucking detectives are on the Kennedys’ Fuck You payroll. Then they ask something that has Laney sitting up, joining me. Where was she the first week of May? She was in Charlotte, in a hotel. But she’s taking too long to answer, and her eyes are everywhere at once. She won’t make eye contact with Keels and she won’t look at me, even when I squeeze her hand. I whisper, “You were in Charlotte, remember? In a hotel. You needed to get away for a while.”

Her throat bobs with her swallow, but she still doesn’t speak.

Mayfield flips his notepad, page after page, as if we have all the time in the fucking world. I wish they’d leave. I wish we could go back to fifteen minutes ago when one minute was the greatest thing in the world.

Mayfield finds what he’s looking for among his notes. “So you weren’t in the hospital… Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte? Is that what you’re saying?”

Her eyes go wide like they did when I asked her about her glasses, deer meet headlights, and nothing makes sense.

Mayfield continues, “It says here you were complaining about stomach pains. Two broken ribs, swelling around your jaw, large bruise on your back? That doesn’t sound like stomach pains to me.”

Brian sits higher. Two deer in headlights. “Lois. What is he saying?”

Lane shakes her head. “What do you want me to say?” she whispers.

Keels is blunt. “The truth, Miss Sanders.” Cunt.

Lane’s cry is quiet, almost silent. “I think you can guess, detectives.”

“We have to hear it from you.”

“You want me to tell you that my boyfriend used me as a punching bag?”

Rage.

White. Hot. Rage.

“Which boyfriend?” Keels asks. “Cooper or Luc—”

“No!” she almost shouts. “Lucas would never… God, what is wrong with you two? Why are you even here when he’s down the hall!” Her volume rises with each word. “You want the truth. Fine! I tried to break up with Cooper the previous week. We were in his dorm room, and he wouldn’t let me leave. He locked me in there and said we could “talk it out” but we didn’t talk. He yelled, hit, slapped, punched. And then he fucked me as if it was going to make everything okay.”

I cover my mouth to stop the puke because it’s right fucking there, like my anger, ready to explode.

“And it wasn’t the first time this happened. It’d been going on for months, and I’m sorry,” she cries, spit flying from her mouth, and she lets go of my hand and continues, “I’m sorry, Dad. I couldn’t tell you.” She looks at me. “I couldn’t tell either of you because I thought he’d do something to hurt you and I couldn’t…”

She cries into her hands.

Brian cries into his shirt.

And I’m too fucking angry to cry.

Keels looks at me, speaks to Laney. “If that happened, Ms. Sanders, then why is Cooper Kennedy’s signature on the hospital bill?”

“It’s not,” she sobs. “It’s not Cooper’s. It’s his mom’s.”

I’m on my feet before I can think, before the consequences come to me, and I march for the door with one thing on my mind: I’m going to finish Cooper fucking Kennedy. “Lucas!” Judge Nelson yells at the same time Dad grasps my arms, keeps me in place. The judge is in front of me now, her eyes red and raw. “Don’t do this, Lucas. Don’t make me question my investments.”

LOIS

“Your boyfriend’s got quite the temper, doesn’t he?” Keels asks, watching Luke storm out of the room.

I glare at him, eyes wide in shock. The Kennedys had requested detectives from a different precinct because they felt like Misty’s connection would somehow sway the investigation. I didn’t tell Lucas. I knew how he felt about the Kennedys. “You have no idea, do you?” I croak.

Keels crosses his arms, widens his stance like he’s readying himself for a confrontation. But he’s a blur. Everything is. I lost my glasses the moment I lost my breath somewhere in the parking lot of the hotel. He asks, “No idea about what, Miss Sanders?”

“Lucas isn’t the threat here, sir. Luke’s reaction is because he has a heart, not a temper. You heard everything I said, right?”

They don’t respond.

“Because you’re both looking at us like you don’t know us, like you don’t understand us. We’re just kids, detectives. We didn’t plan for this to happen. You think Luke’s got a temper? Imagine if I were your mother or your wife, your sister”—I glance at Dad—“your daughter. And then try to fathom how you would react if you were Luke.” I wipe my eyes, a memory searing my brain. “I got my first period when I was thirteen. By then it was just Dad and me. I didn’t know what was happening or what to do, and we didn’t have the supplies I needed. It was a Saturday; Dad was working overtime so I was all alone. I sat in my bathroom and I called my mom but she didn’t answer, not that she’d do anything, but I was that desperate. I called Lucy, Luke’s older sister, but she didn’t answer, either. Then I called Luke. I was in tears by the time he picked up the phone. I was so nervous and scared and awkward. He thought something had happened to me, and he kept insisting he call 911. When I finally told him what was happening, he took charge as if it was something he’d done a thousand times before. He raided his sister’s bathroom and packed everything in his backpack and rode his bike over to my house. He sat on the other side of the bathroom door while I—you know—and he read the instructions out loud to me. He kept saying things like, ‘This is normal, Lane. Nothing to worry about, Lane. It just means you’re a woman, Lane…’” I speak through the giant knot in my throat. “Lucas is still that same amazing boy he was back then, and up until Saturday night, he’d never laid a hand on anybody. He’s the most caring, most gentle person I know. He tucks his little brother into bed every night. Without fail. No matter where we are or what’s happening, 7 pm comes along and he’s there for his youngest brother. He’s there for all of them. It was those qualities in Luke I found in Cooper that made me fall for him in the first place.”

The detectives are listening to me now, not just hearing me. Mayfield says, his voice weak, “Will you please tell us about your relationship with Cooper Kennedy. In detail?”

I nod slowly, fear of the memories squeezing my throat shut. I twist my hands, look over at Dad. “You can leave, Dad… if you want to.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He sits on the bed next to me, his arm around me. “It won’t be any harder for me to hear than it is for you to tell. You’re braver than anyone I know.”