Critical Instinct by Crouch Janie

Author:Crouch, Janie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Calamity Jane Publishing
Published: 2017-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Paige felt weak. Dazed. She glanced around the room. Everything in here was gray: the walls, the floors, the furniture, the two-way mirror thingy. It was difficult to get her bearings.

She’d been in here for hours, answering question after question. The same question after question.

And then the pictures.

Oh God, she was too late. Teresa Cavasos was already dead. The pictures. They were still sitting in front of her right now, but Paige had turned them over.

Detective Schliesman had put them right in front of Paige so casually. They were gruesome. Horrific. The woman had died from being stabbed, after being severely beaten.

Paige knew what a beating like that felt like. The debilitating pain that throws your entire body into a panic. Hearing your own bones break and knowing there was nothing you can do about it. Your own blood filling up your nose and mouth until you wonder if you might choke on it.

It was impossible for Paige to ever forget it. She didn’t need a picture to remind her.

But more disturbing than the violence of it all, more disturbing than the fact that the detective had obviously wanted to catch Paige off guard —and had succeeded— was the content of one of the pictures Schliesman had shown her.

Like she was playing some sort of twisted game of solitaire, Paige flipped the middle picture over and studied it again.

Paige had drawn that very image a few weeks ago. It was sitting in the portfolio where she kept all the drawings from her sleep.

With all the bruising, Paige hadn’t realized she had drawn Teresa Cavasos twice: once when she was alive and once when she was dead. Although her clothing had been a prominent part of the picture she’d drawn of Teresa in the parking lot, only the top part of her collar was in the other picture she’d drawn of the woman’s death.

The same as the photograph she was looking at now.

But it was obviously the same shirt, now that Paige was studying it. No wonder Detective Schliesman had asked her so many questions about the clothing in the photo. It was what Teresa had been wearing when she died.

Paige needed to call a lawyer. Through the exhausted haze of her mind she knew that was true. Schliesman had known Teresa Cavasos was dead the entire time she’d been questioning Paige. She must have been hoping Paige would confess or say something incriminating against herself.

Paige vaguely wondered if saying ‘hey, I drew a picture of this exact death scenario too’ would be incriminating enough for the detective.

She didn’t know how to get a lawyer. Who to call. Was she allowed to use her phone now? Could she leave the room? She knew the door was still locked.

God, she just wanted to see Brett.

Not as her lover or to fall into his arms. Just to see someone who didn’t think she had killed some poor woman in a horrible way. Just to see someone whose colors weren’t an angry, accusatory red.

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