Page 64 of The Knight

I don't need to hear them read me my rights. I won't say anything incriminating. I won't say anything at all.

After everything, it turns out I'm still just the pawn in someone else's story.

I have the feeling I'll be needing that lawyer now.

Chapter 26

The picture they paint in the interrogation room is dramatic. It's the type of crime you'd see solved on late night TV: young girl falls for boy, boy kisses her but doesn't love her back. He returns to his ex-girlfriend. She falls into a jealous rage.

One day, it becomes too much, and she stabs the girlfriend to death.

The whole thing is ludicrous; it falls apart if you examine it from any angle. Georgia hasn't been with Tanner in months, and if I wanted to kill her, I had plenty of opportunities before now. But the detective in charge of the case isn't looking for other suspects. After all, he was suspicious of me once before, and he's even more certain I did something terrible now that I've been found standing over a dead body with blood on my hands.

What I don't get is how they knew I'd be in that bathroom with her. But maybe they didn't need that part of the crime scene to make sense. All they needed was for the DA and ADA to look the other way when the timeline didn't add up, and a detective hungry enough to go after the easy suspect, because she's the one he wanted from the start.

"This interrogation is over." Robert Pierce himself walks through the door after what feels like hours. "I need to speak to my client."

Detective Lyons narrows his eyes, but gets up from the table, heading towards the door. "You get fifteen minutes. I'll be back."

"With more than circumstantial evidence, I hope."

"Count on it."

The door closes, and I fold my hands together as the lawyer sits across from me, wincing at the feeling of dried blood on my hands.

I still can't believe it.

Girls like Georgia Johnson don't die.

Pure spite should keep them going if nothing else.

"How are you doing? Jesus." Robert Pierce pulls a slim rectangular package out of his briefcase, and it takes me until he tears it open to realize that it's a hand wipe. "They should've let you clean up. Use this."

Wiping my hands off, I watch as the wipe turns a bright color of pink. It seems impossible that so much blood wouldn't stain a dark red, but there it is anyway, like a neon highlighter.

Looking up at the lawyer, I ask him, "Can I trust you?"

"As much as anyone." Leaning forward, he adds in a low voice, "Lukas DuPont wrote the check for me himself. I'm told that should mean something to you."

My shoulders relax. It's hard to trust anyone now that this has happened, when I can barely put the pieces together, but at least I know one thing: Lukas would never work with the Syndicate, so there's no way the lawyer is one of them.

"I just don't understand. How could someone have killed Georgia inside the courthouse?" My mind keeps replaying what happened. "The bailiff was standing right there—until he wasn't. But I was just in the bathroom right next to her, and I didn't hear her scream."

Quietly, he says, "Let's not dwell on who the killer might be just yet. Instead I want to talk about your timeline, and figure out why youcouldn'thave done this. Let's go over things minute by minute."

I do. He gives me a bottle of water. I drink it. I ask him to call my mom, and he jots down her number. Then he asks, "Could that laptop you had me get so many months ago have anything to do with this?"

I pause, sudden stricken. "I left it in my dorm room. It was the first time I left it... but Holly was there. No one could have taken it." But somehow, I know. "It's probably gone now. I never even got to copy the evidence that was there. Maybe if I had... but why kill Georgia? I thought she was safe. It makes no sense."

"If there's anything exculpatory on that laptop, we need it. I'll have my people on it right away."

"Your people?"

"Yes—the assistant who picked it up in the first place was a Coleridge grad, so he knew the layout of the place. He's since moved on, but I'll get one of my interns on it as soon as I step out of this room. You have my word."

I swallow, shaking my head. "No, go get it yourself. No one can be trusted. Not with this."

He frowns, looking up into my eyes, a strange expression on his face. "A little paranoid, aren't we?"

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