Page 37 of Forced Into Your Arms
I stared at him for a second, frowning in confusion. “You really came all the way up here just to ask me that?”
“I’m here, ain’t I?”
“You could’ve called.”
“I don’t have your number.”
“I’m pretty sure you have people who could’ve gotten it for you. You look like the type.”
“I could’ve.”
I rolled my eyes, not at all surprised by his response. “Then why didn’t you?”
Vice looked at me for a moment before pulling out one of the chairs.
“Youplanningon standing through this whole conversation?” He asked me like this was about to be a long conversation.
Even so, I said, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I wanted to ask you in person.”
That was the closest thing to an explanation I was probably going to get. I sat across from him, still trying to figure out why he’d chosen to come himself when he could’ve called the detective.
“I haven’t remembered anything else,” I told him. “I’ve replayed that night more times than I care to admit, and everything I told you is still all I know.”
“You sure?”
The question irritated me more than it should have. “You think I haven’t been trying to remember?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” I shifted in my chair, feeling the frustration I’d worked hard to control start climbing again. “I hear that conversation every time I close my eyes. I remember the gunshots, your cousin falling in front of me, and having hisblood all over my hands. Trust me, if there was something else, I would’ve told you.”
Vice didn’t interrupt or try to defend himself. He sat there quietly, watching me until I’d gotten everything out.
“I ain’t say you didn’t try,” he said after a moment.
“But you made it sound like I was holding something back.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He leaned back in the chair and rubbed a hand across his jaw. For the first time since he walked into the room, he looked tired. Not physically tired the way I felt after working twelve hours, but like his mind hadn’t stopped moving since his cousin died.
“I found out my cousin was asking questions before he got killed,” he finally said. “Questions about me.”
“What kind of questions?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
“Do you think it had something to do with what I heard?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I came back.”
His tone had changed. The edge was gone, and for the first time, I understood that he wasn’t questioning whether I’d been truthful. He was searching for something to make Sam’s death make sense.
“I’m sorry,” I said, relaxing my arms. “I really don’t remember anything else.”
