Unscrewed by Lois Greiman Read Free Book Online Page A

crap. Paint me with acne, squeeze me into a tuba, and I was back in high school.
    Laney shifted beside me, exuding a double dose of moral support and blatant curiosity.
    “And this is?” The senator glanced to my left.
    “Elaine Butterfield,” she said. Her voice didn’t warble one iota. But why would it? She was wearing real clothes. And she was Elaine Butterfield.
    “It is very good to meet you,” he said. Releasing my hand, he reached for hers, but neither his fingers nor his gaze lingered. Didn’t rest on her cleavage. Didn’t slip to her legs. Like a miracle, he turned back to me.
    “So you were there, at my house, this past night?” he asked.
    The question seemed to squeeze the breath from my lungs.
    “Yes, sir. I was,” I said. “For a short while.”
    “And my son, he was there also.”
    I remembered the snarling rage on Rivera’s face as they pinned him to the floor. “Yes.”
    He drew a deep breath, fortifying himself. “And my Salina…” He paused, fought for strength. “She was already dead?”
    A crappy day had just turned worse. “I believe so. I’m sorry.”
    He nodded, lifted his chin a small degree. “So tell me, Ms. McMullen, in your educated opinion, what do you believe happened last night?”
    “You were there. You tell me.”
    The words were a growl from my left. The three of us turned in stunned unison. Lieutenant Jack Rivera stood not five feet away, hair rumpled, eyes sparking.
    “Gerald.” The senator straightened. His lips pursed. “They have released you as promised. I am glad.”
    “So what went wrong?” Rivera took a step closer. His face was unshaven, his shirt untucked. “She threaten to leave you again?”
    I saw tension in the senator’s body language for the first time. “I think it would be unwise for you to make a spectacle at your place of employment, Gerald.”
    “Unwise?” The word was a snarl. Around us, every living soul stopped, breath held, listening in gleeful horror. “You sorry son of a bitch. What’d you do?”
    “I thought perhaps you had learned to control your temper,” said the elder Rivera. “But I see now that you have not. Not last night, and not this morning.”
    “Control?” Reaching past me, Rivera snatched up a chair and slammed it against the wall. Half the room jumped. Captain Kindred’s door sprang open.
    “Lieutenant!” His voice cracked like a whip.
    A muscle jumped in Rivera’s stubbled jaw. His gaze skipped to me, rested a heartbeat, then turned toward the captain.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kindred’s voice was a low rumble, barely audible in the sweating silence of the room as he strode toward us.
    Rivera shifted his gaze back to his father. His fists tightened on the chair, veins bulging beneath the folded cuffs of his sleeves.
    “You wanna lose your badge? That what you want?” Kindred asked. His voice was a raspy threat.
    The muscle jumped in Rivera’s jaw again.
    “Look at me,” the captain snarled, thumping a hand against Rivera’s chest. “’Cuz I’m the man that can make it happen.”
    Rivera gritted his teeth, eyes blazing. Their gazes clashed. Dark on dark, sparking with rage and frustration and regret.
    “We been through some shit together, Lieutenant,” Kindred said, stepping up close, blocking the senator from Rivera’s sight. “But I’ll do what needs doing. You can damn sure bank on that.”
    The chair trembled in Rivera’s hand. He set it aside, straightened, then shifted his gaze to me, smoldering hot with tight-coiled frustration.
    I opened my mouth, but if I had any fabulous verbal plans, I have no idea what they were. He was Rivera, as volatile as meth, as unpredictable as a schizophrenic. Maybe he was innocent. But maybe he was guilty as hell.
    Our gazes fused for one elongated moment as he probed my soul, and then he nodded grimly, turned, and walked out the door.
    The captain closed his eyes and eased his big hands open. Around me, people began chattering