Not his women. His women couldn’t cry rape even if they wanted to.
His women couldn’t talk.
He stared at Becca. He’d already decided to only keep her for twenty-four hours. He’d kept Angie for too long and it had ruined his excitement. The clock was ticking. It was after midnight.
“Wake up.” He tapped her. She moaned but didn’t open her eyes.
He slapped her and her eyes opened. Like a bug pinned to a board, she squirmed, realized she was trapped, and fought harder.
“It’s time, Becca.”
She tried to scream.
CARINA AND NICK ARRIVED together at the police station early Thursday morning. They didn’t talk much on the drive over. Carina was sure Nick was uncomfortable about having his brother brought in, even willingly, for questioning in a capital murder case.
Her? She didn’t want to talk for fear of saying something stupid. Something like, “Why were you in my dreams last night?”
As soon as her head had hit the pillow, she’d been out. And dreaming about Nick Thomas, his hard body, his too-sexy-for-words cowboy hat. If Nick was an example of the type of men who lived in Montana, maybe she should put in for a transfer.
She’d woken up rested for the first time all week. She didn’t remember every detail of her dream-probably good, lest she blush when she saw Nick-but in her dream she had kissed him and he had pulled her into his arms. Then the way dreams go, they were both naked in her bed and he was about to make love to her…
She cleared her mind, focused on the task at hand. “Ready?” she asked Nick.
“Yes.”
She’d agreed to let Nick observe the interview, but suggested that he stand in the adjoining room where he could watch and listen unnoticed by his brother. He nodded a curt agreement, his face blank. She didn’t know what he was thinking.
At least Steve had taken Nick’s advice and retained a criminal defense attorney. Both were waiting in the interview room.
In the adjoining room, Dillon and Will joined Carina and Nick. “Are we ready?” Carina asked her brother and her partner. On the phone late last night they had decided that the primary purpose of the meeting was to push Steve Thomas to tell the truth about Friday night as well as his past arguments with Angie. Next, they would ascertain what, if anything, he knew about the deleted comments.
They entered the room, leaving Nick behind, introduced themselves, and set up a recorder.
“Let’s start with how you met Angela Vance,” Carina began.
They’d met last September at the beginning of the school year when he sat next to Angie in computer class.
“We became friends immediately.” Steve sat military straight, hands clasped in front of him.
“When did you become romantically involved?” Carina asked.
“In December.”
“How did it happen?”
Steve tensed. “Why does that matter?”
“Anything, no matter how small, could be relevant.”
Steve glanced down at his hands and Carina couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to come up with a believable lie. “She asked if I wanted to get together one weekend. I said sure. I thought she meant go out for a date.”
“What did she mean?”
He paused long enough for Carina to prompt him again.
“She wanted to be ‘friends with benefits.’ ”
Carina had heard about such “special” friendships. Friends who had sex but no emotional or permanent attachment. An open relationship. Angie had written about several “friends with benefits” relationships in her journal, including hers with Steve. Carina would be a failure at that sort of arrangement. She loved sex, but it meant little without an emotional commitment. Maybe she was a romantic at heart, but the idea of an eighteen-year-old being so nonchalant about meaningful relationships made Carina sad.
“And what did you want?” she asked Steve.
“I wanted what Angie wanted.”
Carina didn’t believe him. “So you were okay with the relationship.”
“More or less.”
“I don’t think you’re telling us everything.”
“It’s not important.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do!” he said, his fists clenching. “This isn’t about me, it’s about Angie. I didn’t kill her. I keep saying it and you don’t believe me.”
Dillon interjected. “You and Angie had a sexual relationship that you wanted to be exclusive, but she didn’t.”
“But that makes it look wrong, or like I would want to hurt her because we didn’t want the same thing.”
Dillon continued. “Steve, what we want is the truth. Sometimes the truth shines a light on things that you know nothing about.”
Steve didn’t say anything for a long minute. “Yes, I cared a lot about Angie and I didn’t like having an open relationship. I was monogamous, but Angie wasn’t comfortable with that. She thought we should both be seeing other people.”
“And did you and Angie break up because you couldn’t agree on the type of relationship you wanted?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then why?”
“I discovered her journal and confronted her.”
“What was her reaction?”
A faint tic pulsed in Steve’s cheek. “She told me to lighten up.”
“And then she broke up with you, correct?”
He nodded.
“Please answer for the tape, Mr. Thomas.”
“Yes, she broke up with me the next day. But I understood. It hurt, but I understood.”
“Understood what?” Carina asked.
“Angie needed attention from men. Her father skipped town when she was young. Used to promise to visit, never made it. The last time she saw him, she was thirteen. He didn’t come to her, she ran away and tracked him down in San Francisco. With his new wife. He didn’t want children, never had, and told Angie that.
“She was devastated. She lost her virginity when she was fourteen to a nineteen-year-old high school senior and just fell into that cycle.”
“So you think she slept with you because she wanted to sleep with her father?” Dillon asked.
“No! She slept with me-and others-because she wanted to feel love. She equated sex with love. And I-” he stopped.
“Go on,” Dillon prompted. “What did you get from your friendship with Angie?”
“I thought I could help her.”
“If you showed her love then maybe she wouldn’t think it had to come with sex, too.”
“Exactly!” Steve’s face lit up. “We were making a lot of progress. Until the journal fiasco. I didn’t handle that right at all. Maybe if I’d done something differently, said something more supportive, didn’t argue with her-I don’t know.” He sank his face into his hands.
“What prompted Angie to get a restraining order against you?” Carina asked.
“I don’t know why she did it, except she was scared. Not of me,” he continued quickly, “but of other things going on.”
“But she got the restraining order against you ,” Will interjected. “No one else. She was scared of you.”
“She wasn’t scared of me,” Steve insisted.
“You fought with Angie on January 19 at the Sand Shack in front of witnesses,” Will said. “What was that argument about?”
“After I discovered her journal online, I was worried about her. I started monitoring the page and the comments because she was really going too far, even engaging in conversations with some of these guys. The night before our fight there was a comment that really disturbed her. She called me, accused me of posting it to scare her. I, of course, said I didn’t. I’d never purposefully scare her.”
This was the first they’d heard of Angie contacting Steve after the breakup. It would be easy enough to check through her phone records, which they already had a copy of.
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