Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“I have a three o’clock appointment,” I tell guy at the front desk, but before I can finish, the Detective is standing in front of me.
“Ms. Oliver,” he says looking me over, and the way he looks at me makes me feel as if I have a piece of spinach on my teeth.
“Detective De Luca,” I acknowledge, trying my best to sound my most condescending.
“If you will follow me,” he says, clearly unimpressed.
“Your bodyguard can wait out here,” Detective De Luca says when we reach the outside of the small interrogation room.
“And you can go fuck yourself, Boy-o. I’m sticking close to my daughter in law,” Marcum says, and I can’t help but smile. He hasn’t let me out of his sight since Max left.
“I wasn’t aware that Ms. Oliver and Mr. Kincaid had gotten married.”
“We haven’t yet. Max felt he needed to pay his debt to society first, detective,” I respond.
“Clearly,” he says sarcastically.
His whole attitude is setting me off. I’m doing my best to hold my tongue. Alienating these people will not help Max. I need to get my man home. Marcum and I sit down at a table and wait while Detective De Luca closes the door. He sits down with a yellow legal pad and a pen.
“Before we get started can I get either of you a drink? Soda? Coffee?”
The detective has his own cup of coffee sitting on the table. The smell of it, combined with my nerves is getting to me, so I immediately motion my head no. Marcum doesn’t bother to answer. He’s leaning back in his seat appearing bored as hell. I envy him because I am a step away from screaming like a banshee. There’s silence for a couple of minutes while the detective sifts through papers. I’m think he’s doing it to make sure my nerves kill me. That’s what it feels like.
“I have a doctor’s appointment in an hour,” I tell him, to hurry this along when it becomes apparent I may die of old age before he starts. Marcum reaches behind me and rubs my back soothingly. It almost makes me smile. Max would hate it, but he is so much like his dad. I wonder if I have a son if he will be like the two of them. There are definitely worse things that could happen.
“Oh, that’s right. I had forgotten. You and your abductor are having a child together.”
It takes everything I have, not to flinch at his coldly delivered statement.
“Max did not abduct me. We’ve been over this detective.”
“Pardon me, your boyfriend. I know we have been over this, Ms. Oliver. I’m just finding it hard to connect the dots. There are some major holes in your story.”
“I do not see how,” I tell the asshole. Marcum is continuing to pet my back. He probably thinks I need calming down. I do. I’m about to rip this asshole a new one and then maybe—maybe, I’ll feel better.
“Well, for starters, Ms. Oliver, why did you not go back into the main entrance of the jail, where you would most assuredly be safe? Why follow the inmate further into the jail?”
“His name is Maxwell,” this time Marcum replies, and I almost smile.
The detective doesn’t reply; his eyes are on me the entire time. I take a breath and go over the story and that Max and Marcum have drilled in my head. Honestly, it’s not far off from the truth. Marcum said the best lies always have elements of the truth, so this careful, well-thought out version of the day Max and I met, follows along that line of thinking.
“I told you, detective. The guard panicked. When the alarms sounded, he ran into the chaos. Without him and because the prison alarms were going off, I assumed I couldn’t get the guard to buzz me back in through the locked doors. It was all happening so fast. Max thought if I acted as his prisoner we would have a better chance of making sure I got out of everything safely.”
“That’s the part I don’t get, Ms. Oliver. The cameras show Max manhandling you, and clearly there was fear on your face, a panic even. I saw nothing loving or tender at all, in the way Mr. Kincaid treated you that day, if, in fact, you and he were having this relationship, as you stated.”
“I think we’re about done here,” Marcum says, and the irritation in his voice is clear.
“No, it’s okay, Marcum. The detective here is just doing his job,” I interrupt, and this time I don’t back down from the asshole. I’ll give him my story one more time, so that it’s on record again, without any changes. When they realize that I’m not going to deviate from it, then perhaps they will let go of it and the wheels will slowly start turning. I need Max home. I need him home, now. “I told you, detective; I was terrified. I was in the middle of a prison break. The prison’s guard left me unprotected. Completely unprotected. Max stepped up and saved me. I shudder to think, exactly what would have happened to me if he hadn’t. As it was, the Hernandez brothers tried to get to me. If Max hadn’t rescued me from the state’s negligence of having one, lone guard, and that guard being ill trained. I would have died—or worse. The looks you read on my face were exactly that. Max saved me that day.”