Page 8 of Thicker Than Water
Julia and I exchange a look, brows equally furrowed.
“A suspect?” I repeat, whirling back to Wyatt. “A suspect for what?”
He rubs the back of his neck. Shifts from side to side. “The murder of Gavin Reed.”
Chapter ThreeJULIA
I choke on my own gasp.
“What the hell, Wyatt?” Sienna says, pounding on my back. “Is this a joke?”
“I wish it was.” Wyatt watches me, waiting for my fit to pass. When I gulp in a breath, then successfully push it out, he continues. “But with the crash yesterday, they found evidence linking Jason to Gavin Reed.”
“Of course he’s linked to Gavin Reed,” Sienna hisses. “Gavin’s his boss.”
Wyatt glances into the hallway, sweeping it with his eyes. “They found a knife in Jason’s car that—”
“You mean his pocketknife? Our dad gave it to him. He carries it everywhere.”
“They found traces of blood on it.”
Blood? Jason uses that knife to tighten screws on Aiden’s desk, to open packages, to snip loose threads from his sweaters.
“And the blade itself,” Wyatt adds, “is consistent with Reed’s wound.”
My mouth pops open again, but nothing—neither words nor air—comes out.
“So?” Sienna says. “Now everyone with a pocketknife is a suspect?”
“No, but”—Wyatt lowers his voice—“they also found Gavin’s phone. In Jason’s car.”
I stare at Wyatt, forcing myself to breathe, but Sienna takes only a second to absorb this information.
“That makes my brother a murderer?”
“No,” Wyatt says. “It makes him a suspect.”
“Yeah, of murder. That’s what you said. That my brother—the same guy who had to close his eyes during the Red Wedding onGame of Thrones—somehow stabbed his boss? And smothered him? And stitched up his lips?”
Wyatt shakes his head. “All they have right now is the knife and the phone. They’ve submitted the blood for testing. They should know within a few days if it’s a match, but—”
“It won’t be,” Sienna cuts in.
“But for now,” Wyatt continues, “protocol dictates that—”
“I don’t care about your protocol! Wyatt, youknowJason.”
How well do you know this man?
I touch my left temple, where my mother’s voice rings loudest. It’s what she said to me, years ago, when I told her I was marrying Jason, defying her warning to never trust a man—a conviction she clung to after marrying my father at twenty-one, then losing him at twenty-two, when he went out for diaper cream and never came back. For most of my childhood, my mother wore her misery and regret like a too-tight wedding ring, and instead of confetti or well wishes, she threw doubt on my decision to commit to Jason.I understand there’s a baby involved, she said,but really, Julia, how well do you know this man?
It disturbs me how the question comes back to me now, as Sienna’s ex-boyfriend, an officer of the law, informs us that Jason is somehow, impossibly, a suspect in a murder investigation.
A voice rumbles in the hallway, where a stocky man with salt-and-pepper hair leans across the nurses’ station. Wyatt whips his head toward the sound, then back to Sienna, piercing her with his stare.
“Try to be calm when Beck’s here,” he whispers. “Otherwise, he’ll keep you in the dark.”
He turns toward the man—Beck, apparently—who’s approaching us now. “I figured I’d wait for you up here,” Wyatt says.
