Blackout by Steven Henry

Author:Steven Henry
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Clickworks Press
Published: 2022-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Erin hauled Xander Yates into the interrogation room, tossed him unceremoniously into the chair, and slammed the door. He was still wearing the handcuffs she’d borrowed from one of the Patrol uniforms who’d arrived as backup. She’d gotten away from Columbia as fast as she could, leaving a trail of flashing lights, cops, and chattering students in her wake.

She hadn’t bothered to change her clothes, or even bandage the cut on her face. The drying blood and smeared makeup gave her a savage appearance. Yates shrank away from her. He was a small guy and his fear made him seem smaller.

“Okay, Xander,” she snarled. “Start talking.”

“About what?” he stammered. “Those pills aren’t anything. They’re just, like, allergy medication.”

“We’re going to test them, you know,” she said. “If you’re carrying it around, Rohypnol will get you charged with criminal possession. But with your pal Royal in custody, you’re looking at criminal sale of a controlled substance. Because I’m guessing that girl he dosed up earlier this evening is coasting on pills you provided. And that makes you an accessory to attempted rape, too.”

“Hey, whatever he did with that shit is on him, not on me. It’s not my fault.” Yates adopted an air of wounded innocence that was about as convincing as if he’d been a fox in a henhouse, bloody feathers all over his mouth.

“You came to college to get an education, right?” Erin said. “Tonight’s lesson is about consequences. There’s only one way for you to get out of this without going to prison for a really long time, and that’s to tell me what I need to know. You ready to play ball?”

“What do you want?” he asked, and Erin knew she had him.

“Christopher Millhouse,” she said. “Creepy Chris. You know him? Dark hair, skinny, pale, kind of smug?”

“Yeah, I know him,” Yates said.

“Did you sell to him recently?”

“Hey, I don’t sell to anybody!”

“Knock it off!” Erin shouted, banging her hand on the table for emphasis. Yates jumped and shrank back again. “Don’t give me that crap! We both know exactly what you’ve been doing, and I don’t have time for your bullshit. Give me what you’ve got, or you’re going straight to Riker’s Island, right into GenPop, and you can feed the other inmates your excuses. Chris Millhouse; yes or no?”

“I might’ve given him a couple pills,” Yates said. “Maybe.”

“When might this have happened?” she demanded.

“At a party. Like, a week ago.”

“What’d he want them for?”

“Like I said, that’s on him,” Yates said. “I don’t ask.”

“How did he know to come to you? Dealers don’t deal to just anybody. Somebody vouched for him.”

“He said he was a friend of Royal’s,” Yates said sulkily. “He said he was pledging Sigma and they had a thing he needed the pills for.”

Erin’s stomach twisted. She wanted to grab a handful of Yates’s greasy hair and bang his face into the tabletop until she knocked some decency into him. “How many pills?” she asked.

“Like, two.”

That was what Erin needed. She had a dealer who’d provided drugs to Millhouse.

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