Page 96 of Kill For Me Kill For You
She listened as she watched him pull away in his car. He might come back. In fact, it was a certainty.
‘Hi, Amanda, it’s Detective Farrow. I called at your place late last night and again this morning – you didn’t answer the com. We have to talk, urgently. You can get me on this number. We need you to come into the precinct. Call me back.’
The tone was formal. Not the same cop who’d held her while she wept, and whose heart had been broken by the loss of her family. Farrow had looked out for her. Stayed in touch. Kept her out of jail when she should’ve been arrested outside Crone’s building. Made sure she went to group therapy and didn’t violate her parole.
This didn’t sound friendly any more.
She watched Farrow pull away in his car, but the relief didn’t last long.
She left the laundromat, went round the side of the building to the line of dumpsters, lifted the lid on one that looked almost full and dumped the bag of clothes.
Her knee was beginning to bark again when she got back into her apartment, pleased and relieved that he hadn’t hammered down her door. Don’t cops need a warrant for that? Maybe that’s where Farrow was headed. He might be on his way to get a warrant and then he would be back.
She packed a few things in a bag. Her laptop, the money, some clothes, Sparkles the unicorn and Luis’s wedding ring. She couldn’t leave those behind. Not ever. As she went into the bathroom to grab her toothbrush and personal items, she froze. Her hands full. Listening.
She thought she’d heard someone knocking.
She quickly stuffed everything she needed into her gym bag, zipped it up and then . . .
Knock, knock.
Jesus.
He couldn’t have come back so soon, she thought. If he went out to get a warrant then there was no way he could have made it back that fast.
Knock, knock. And this time, the knocking came with a voice.
‘Amanda White?’
She moved quietly to the front door. It was closed, but not bolted or locked. She carefully raised her eye to the peephole in the center of the door.
On the other side stood a man in a pale brown suit. White shirt. Yellow tie. Small, squat, balding and a shoulder bag on his arm. A man in his late fifties maybe. The skirt of hair that remained round the crown of his skull was almost completely gray, with only a few dark streaks here and there. His shirt buttons strained at his small, round belly.
A cop. A detective. They had come to arrest her.
The man’s eye level rose, and a knowing smile curled his jelly cheeks.
‘I know you’re in there. I can see you blocking the light in the peephole. You need to open the door. There’s no way around this, Miss White.’
She ducked, instinctively. It felt as if he was able to see through the peephole – as if he was looking her right in the eye.
Knock, knock.
‘Come on. Let’s not make a scene for the neighbors. Open up,’ he said.
She swore. It was too late. She’d run out of time. With no Naomi, she would have to face the charges alone. And she would suffer for what she had done to Quinn. Her shoulders slumped, and she reached out for the door lock.
She turned it, opening the door.
The man still wore that sickly smile as he spoke. ‘Amanda White?’
She nodded, her stomach tightening, bile in her throat.
He reached behind his back. Handcuffs, she thought. Amanda held out her hands, closed her eyes.
She awaited the sensation of cold steel snapping round her wrists. She had failed. And it was time to face up to what she had done.
She felt something in her hands. Paper. No handcuffs. She opened her eyes. A brown letter-sized envelope in her grip.
