Night Sky by Suzanne Brockmann Read Free Book Online Page A

I.”
    â€œDid Mr. Rodriguez ever touch Sasha inappropriately?”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œDid Mr. Rodriguez ever touch you inappropriately?”
    â€œWhat? Absolutely not!” I laughed my surprise again, then looked at Mrs. Diaprollo, but she was busy staring at the tops of her nails.
    â€œDid Mr. Rodriguez ever touch your leg?”
    Okay, now he was really pissing me off. “Seriously?” I asked.
    Hughes took another sip of his drink. “Please answer the question.”
    â€œNo, he didn’t touch my leg.”
    â€œDid he ever touch you on the rear?”
    â€œMy lord,” I said. “I know what inappropriate means. He didn’t touch me inappropriately. He didn’t touch me anywhere at all— ever !”
    Hughes nodded. “Did he ever touch your—?”
    At this, Mrs. Diaprollo cut him off, slamming her hands down on the table with surprising force, as she sat up pin straight in her chair. “Detective, Skylar knows what inappropriate means, and her answer was no. I think this has been established.”
    And just like that, old stuffy Diaprollo earned some serious points in my book.
    There was a moment of brief silence. Hughes sat back just slightly and retrieved a manila folder from his pile of paperwork. He opened it and slid the contents across the table to me. Tapping his callused finger on the glossy paper, he looked up at me, his eyes red-rimmed and serious.
    I looked down. It was a picture of Sasha, Edmund, and me. Carmen had taken it one evening, right before the two grown-ups left for the movies. Sasha and I had just come out of the pool, and we still had our bathing suits on. Mr. Rodriguez stood between us, his arms slung loosely around our shoulders. I remembered the moment clearly, because Carmen had told us all to make funny faces. We’d laughed the first time we’d seen the photo.
    I wasn’t laughing now.
    â€œMs. Reid, can you please identify the people in this photograph?”
    I shook my head, because, again, I knew where he was going. Yes, in this picture, Edmund was touching me. “This is effed up.” Only I didn’t say effed . I used the full f-bomb.
    Mrs. Diaprollo groaned a little as if it had physically wounded her, but she kept her mouth shut.
    The detective began to repeat himself. “Can you please identify—”
    â€œI know what you’re trying to do.” I bit my lip. “You’re making Edmund look like a bad guy, but he’s not—”
    Hughes interrupted me. “Did Mr. Rodriguez request that you address him familiarly by using his first name?”
    I felt the room getting smaller and smaller. For everything I said to try to clear up the situation, the detective had a counter-question that made it sound ten times worse.
    This time, I thought before I spoke. “Both Carmen and Edmund said it was okay to call them by their first names,” I replied. “Ed…Mr. Rodriguez…is a nice man. He treated me like family.”
    Hughes finally took a pen out of his pocket and picked up his notepad. His chin was rough with stubble, and he scratched the side of his jaw with the closed pen before popping off the cap and scribbling something down. Then he rubbed his eyes and turned a page of his notepad. Throughout the entire string of questions, Hughes failed to make eye contact with me for more than a few seconds at a time.
    He didn’t care.
    He was too tired to care.
    I felt my face get hotter, and I swallowed hard.
    â€œAre you aware of any problems that Mr. Rodriguez has been having lately? With money or…?”
    â€œNo!” I wanted to stop talking about Edmund! Sasha’s disappearance had nothing to do with him! She was still out there, somewhere, and this idiot was just wasting everyone’s time. “Why don’t you ask him about that? I’m sure if you just talked to him for two minutes, you’d see that—”
    â€œWe’re