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FORTY-FOUR

The interrogation goes downhill from there.

I try to patch together some version of the truth. A version that doesn’t end in me shooting Douglas Garrick dead in his home. I explain about Douglas Garrick being abusive to Wendy, and my attempts to help her. I tell him that Wendy had shown me the gun and said she was using it for protection, and that’s how my fingerprints must’ve gotten on it, although I’m having trouble explaining why Wendy’s fingerprints aren’t on the gun. I can tell from the look on Detective Ramirez’s face that he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.

By the end of my rambling story, I’m certain Ramirez is going to read me my rights and take me to a jail cell. But instead, he shakes his head. “I’ll be right back,” he tells me. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He stands up and leaves the room, the door slamming behind him with a resounding echo, leaving me and Brock alone in the interrogation room.

Brock is staring down at the plastic table, his eyes glassy. He was supposed to be here as my attorney, but he hasn’t said one word in twenty minutes. If I had known how this was going to unfold, I never would’ve asked him to come.

“Brock?” I say.

He slowly lifts his eyes.

“Are you okay?” I say gently.

“ No .” He gives me a seething look. “What the fuck was that, Millie? Seriously?”

“Brock,” I squeak, “you can’t possibly believe—”

“Believe what ?” he snaps at me. “Up until a few hours ago, I didn’t even know you had been in prison for murder. And now I find out that you’ve been cheating on me with that rich asshole you’ve been working for—”

“I wasn’t cheating!” I burst out. “I would never cheat on you!”

“Then what the hell were you doing last Wednesday night?” he says. “What were you doing last night? And all the other nights we were supposed to be having dinner but you blew me off? You must see how this all looks pretty damn suspicious. Especially since, you know, you apparently killed a guy once.”

Well, not just once. But I feel like providing that information wouldn’t help my case. “I told you, I was trying to help Wendy.”

“You were trying to help the woman who is now accusing you of having an affair with her husband and then murdering him?”

Okay, when he says it that way… “I don’t know why she’s telling the detective that. Maybe she panicked. But trust me, he was abusive to her. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Millie.” Brock looks at me with a pained expression on his handsome features. “I called you last night, and you sounded really upset over something. Obviously, you didn’t have a stomach bug. That was a lie.”

“Yes,” I admit. “That was a lie.”

“Millie.” His voice cracks on my name. “Did you kill Douglas Garrick?”

Almost everything Detective Ramirez accused me of was untrue. But one thing was absolutely true. I shot Douglas Garrick. I killed him. And even if I deny everything else, that fact remains.

“Oh Christ,” Brock mutters. “Millie, I can’t believe you would…”

“It’s not what you think though,” I say.

Brock’s plastic chair scrapes against the hard floor of the interrogation room as he gets to his feet. “I can’t represent you, Millie. It’s not appropriate, and… I can’t.”

Despite how useless my boyfriend was during the interrogation, the thought of him abandoning me scares me even more. “You know I don’t have any money for a lawyer…”

“So you can use the public defender,” he says. “Or borrow money, or… I don’t know. But it can’t be me. I’m sorry.”

“So that’s it.” My chin wobbles as I look up at him. “You’re breaking up with me.”

“I guess?” He shakes his head. “Honestly, I don’t even know who you are.” He runs his hand through his hair, pulling obsessively at the strands. “I can’t believe this is happening. I really can’t. I wanted you to meet my parents. I really thought that you and I…”

He doesn’t need to complete the thought. He imagined a future where the two of us would get married. Have children together. Grow old together. He didn’t imagine that it would end in a police station, with me being interrogated for murder.

So really, I can’t blame him for leaving. But I still burst into tears as soon as the door shuts behind him.