The Suspect

chapter 37

"Oh."

I want to smack my head as soon as the word leaves my mouth. Fuck, is that what I just said? I'm not even sure since everything seems to be spinning around me right now.

Clearing my throat, I find my voice and speak louder this time, "That's great news, Agent. Uh...I—who was it?"

He moves to grab a file off his desk when he winces in pain. I remain rooted to the floor, letting him take his own sweet time with it. The file is just a little out of arm's reach and his little baby fingers wiggle to reach it. I would laugh if I didn't just hear that the murderer was caught. Once he finally grabs it, he holds it out to me and I just I'm required to take quite a few steps forward due to the fact that his arm is the size of a twizzler.

I give him a firm smile while taking it from him. I take a deep breath, praying his picture is not smack dab in the middle once I open it. I take the plain brown cover between two fingers and slowly reveal who the person behind this is.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I see it's not Tatum, but the person in here confuses me just as much. It's him. The guy from the Ball. The one I interrogated. My mind is going at a million miles per hour trying to find an explanation as to why Miller would pin it on this guy.

"Well, seems like your little detour was useful after all," Miller chirps up and it takes all the strength in me to not drown him in the bottle of rubbing alcohol he has next to his bandages.

I close the file and force my mouth into a warm smile, "I guess so. I presume he has been transported to a higher security facility then?" I ask Miller.

He shakes his head, "We didn't have to. The guy was found dead in his cell last night. Turns out he took his own life. Karma's definitely a bitch, isn't it?"

I feel overwhelmed with this information.

At one end, I want to take the needle he's using to stitch himself up and accidentally stab an artery so he bleeds a sinful yet slow death. And on the other end, I want to know more. How did he really die?

A cool wave passes over me as Miller focuses on his wound. I watch him slowly thread the needle through his skin when I notice something I must've turned a blind eye over before. This is the first time I'm seeing him without a shirt—and that's when I see it.

The flames. My mind immediately races back to that day, the guy's words replaying in my head constantly. The flames. On body.

Holy fuck. It's a tattoo. Flames etch and curve their way up to his right pec, stopping right before his neck. They lap back toward his shoulder where they seem to disappear since I can't see that side of him. My eyes drop and that's when I see his shoes. Brown shoes.

If I had any doubts that Miller was behind all of this before, they're all gone now.

Karma certainly is a bitch, and I'm about to serve him a whole fucking plate of it.

~~

Kiara and I have a more than silent trip back home. I was staring out the window for the majority of the ride while she just kept drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently. A weird awkwardness loomed around the car and I think the both of us breathed a sigh of relief once we got home.

Kiara half expected me to break down or cry or I don't know, hit something...or someone rather. I didn't do any of those, however. Perhaps, I'm still in shock. I don't even know anymore. And then there's the fight with Tatum that's the other thing on my mind. What he said hurt me. He may have just slapped me across the face with his words. After the experiences I've had with people in the past making comments along the same lines, I didn't expect Tatum to be added to the list of them.