Secret Worlds by Kate Corcino, Linsey Hall, Katie Salidas, Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley, Rainy Kaye, Debbie Herbert, Aimee Easterling, Kyoko M., Caethes Faron, Susan Stec, Noree Cosper, Samantha LaFantasie, J.E. Taylor, L.G. Castillo, Lisa Swallow, Rachel McClellan, A.J. Colby, Catherine Stine, Angel Lawson, Lucy Leroux Read Free Book Online Page B

me.

Chapter 6
    I hadn’t been inside The Castle in days. No one had, what with the crime scene tape stretched across it, blocking the entrance with its creepy yellow and black barrier. That didn’t stop people from talking about it, though.
    Not five minutes went by without me overhearing someone recall that gruesome moment. Either they were recounting what they saw firsthand (with a few embellishments thrown in for good measure) or they were repeating what they heard from a friend who
had
been there. No one seemed to have seen exactly the same thing. The only thing everyone agreed on was that they were absolutely, never ever, under any circumstance, without question, going back to that club.
    They had even taken to calling it “The Casket” instead of “The Castle.”
    Turned out the only thing worse for a business than a small town murder was an
unsolved
small town murder. And worse for me, the girl—like every other who seemed to get herself in trouble within a twenty mile radius—looked disturbingly like me. But she wasn’t me. I was me.
    In the two days since that girl came crashing through the roof, I had been through three rounds of police questioning, and within the confines of those sessions, I learned that Abram had only moved to town a few months prior. I also learned that he came from old money. I did not, however, find out Abram’s address. And since he had deliberately been sending me to voicemail for days now, I was starting to worry.
    It wasn’t that I cared, per se. He was, after all, an arrogant prick. But his business had fallen through, the last time I saw him, he was sick, and if I knew the people in this town the way I thought I did, there were probably more than a few who thought he was the murderer.
    Which was absolutely ridiculous. Abram was a lot of awful things, but he wasn’t a killer. He just wasn’t.
    Right?
    And while the town and the police had already asked him their fair share of questions, I wasn’t about to let him off the hook from mine. I had waited long enough and damned if I was going to wait any longer.
    I found him exactly where I thought I would: at the first place I had ever seen him—the bottom of the stairwell leading to The Castle’s entrance. He stood there, his back to me, arms folded, staring at The Castle’s door from the bottom of the stairs. His black slacks matched a t-shirt that hugged his arms, chest, and shoulders in a way that made him look impossibly large and defined.
    “Be careful,” he said without looking up at me. “I’m not in the mood to catch you today.”
    Gritting my teeth, I padded my way down the steps. “Don’t worry,” I answered, infusing a light tone in my voice that I didn’t really feel. “I think I’ve got this much under control.”
    “Really?” He swerved to face me, cutting those dark eyes right in my direction. The stubble on his cheeks had been shortened since last I saw him, but there was still a hint of darkness in his expression, which matched his eyes perfectly.
    “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, settling next to him.
    “It means it would be the first thing you had under control.” He sounded more tired than angry, but that didn’t stop the rage from bubbling up in my chest.
    “You can’t be serious.” I pitted my hands on my hips. “You’re not seriously going to blame this on me!”
    “No,” he said, raising a mitt-like hand to shush me. “You didn’t kill that girl.”
    “Carla,” I said, moving closer. “The paper said her name was Carla Rogers.”
    “I know her name, Ms. Bellamy. Trust me, in the last few days, I’ve learned more about that girl than I ever cared to know.” One of his hands balled into a fist at his chest. “She was a graduate student, she came here from Anchorage, and according to her friends, she had just went through a bad breakup with her boyfriend and wanted to go out that night to ‘relax a little’.” He shook his head morosely. “She was a