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A sinking feeling started up in the pit of my stomach, but Sasha carried on like she was reporting on some fictional case she’d seen on CSI, getting more and more excited with every fact she listed off.
“Next, opportunity. Well, he lives with them. Easy access to all their foods and drinks. Hell, he could have even stabbed them with an injection in their sleep.”
“That seems unlikely.”
She waved her hands around, too hyped up for my skepticism. “Whatever. It’s always someone the victim knows. Kian knew Bart and Miranda better than anyone.”
It made me think of the photos again. How many there were, and how Vaughn had thought it strange. I’d talked him out of it, but maybe it was? Sasha certainly seemed to be implying that more was going on than met the eye.
“Surely not better than Vaughn’s mom and stepdad? I forget their names…I did meet them at the wedding…”
“Riva and Karmichael. And for the record, I think Kian knew them much better than Riva and Karmichael, if you know what I mean. The three of them did live together. All alone. In that big house. You can’t tell me that’s not a weird situation. Good-looking guy like Kian. Your mom and Bart were the hot older couple, searching for a third…”
I tried to stem the anger flooding in at her implying there was something scandalous happening between the three of them. It was nothing more than pure gossip. But Sasha lived right next door. If anyone was going to know what had happened in that house over the last few months, maybe it would be her. I could at least listen and keep an open mind.
She leaned forward, her voice dropping low like she was telling scary stories. “But here’s the kicker. The night before they left for their wedding, I heard screams. And not the, ‘Oh, Daddy, fuck me harder,’ sort of screams. The bad kind.”
“Masculine or feminine?”
“Unless there was another female there that night, it was definitely your mom. I was outside putting my trash out, and I heard it clear as day. They must have had a window open, because I was standing there eavesdropping, as you do, and then they slammed the window closed.” She sighed dreamily. “I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall in there that night. If I’d known it was going to end in murder, I would have snuck over with a glass to press up against the wall.”
“Did you tell the cops any of this?”
“They didn’t question me. And I’ve watched enough crime shows to know I have no proof. But it’s fun to hypothesize, don’t you think?”
I gave her a tight smile. “Probably more fun when it’s not your roommate accused of murdering your mother, but sure. Fun.”
Sasha cringed, suitably ashamed. “Shit. I’m sorry. I got carried away.”
The doorbell rang, pinging through the otherwise quiet house.
Sasha glanced over. “That probably is the pizza guy.”
“I’ll let him in on my way out.”
Sasha trailed me to the door and collected her pizza while I trudged home with the eggs. But when I got inside, I just switched the oven off and sat at the kitchen counter, staring into space.
I’d just convinced Vaughn that Kian was harmless, but now maybe I wasn’t so sure.
I pulled out my suspect list and put an asterisk next to Kian’s name.
29
VAUGHN
“I just need to stop in at the hardware store before we go back to the house, okay?”
I groaned. “Have you gotten any quicker at doing that since we were in high school?”
Kian’s gaze strayed to a guy in cement-splattered workpants and a shirt with “Hennessy Exterior Painting” printed on the back. The guy’s biceps bulged from carrying two enormous cans of paint toward a truck with the same logo painted on the side.
Eventually, he dragged his gaze back to me. “What do you have against the hardware store, Vaughn? Truly, how did it hurt you? Because for as long as I’ve known you, which is a fucking long time, you’ve always complained about the place.”
I ignored the flicker of something inside me that hated the way Kian had noticed that guy. “It’s not the place I hate. It’s that when you drag me here it’s a minimum one-hour stay. Often more like two. They need a bored friend’s section where tortured people like me can congregate.”
He snorted on a laugh. “And do what? Play video games? Do arts and crafts, or sing along to an acoustic guitar?”
“So we can formulate a plot to get our loved one to actually leave the damn store in a reasonable amount of time.”