Aggro - CoraLee June Page 0,47
he was seasoned in delivering horrific news to families, in stark contrast to Brown’s blunt and matter-of-fact style.
He leaned forward and put a reassuring hand on Chase’s shoulder and looked him in the eye, “The fetal DNA might be a direct link to her killer. We are going to find who did this to your sister and her baby.”
Chase nodded, but his eyes were vacant, like he couldn’t actually process any of this. I reached out and patted his knee. “Thank you, detective,” I said softly.
Detective Rodriguez nodded. “We’ll be talking to Kai Lewis, also. Until we get the DNA back, we won’t know for sure, but since they were romantically involved, we need to inform him about the baby. Do you have any reason to believe that Kai knew she was pregnant?”
Chase looked at me, waiting for my answer. “Kai hasn’t mentioned it. Violet was drinking heavily the night of the party. Maybe she didn’t even know,” I replied.
“Or she knew and didn’t care,” Brown interjected before pinning his lips shut. I glared at him. Heartless bastard.
“I know my best friend. She wanted a big family. We might be young, but if Violet knew she was pregnant, she would have taken that very seriously. She wouldn’t have been drinking, and she would have told me. We told each other everything,” I said out loud to the detective before thinking to myself, or at least I thought we did.
Detective Rodriguez looked at the ground before staring at me. “I took the liberty of calling a few doctors’ offices in the area to see if she had set up any prenatal appointments. Turns out, she made an appointment at the local women’s clinic for an abortion. The appointment was for a few days after her birthday, I’m guessing because you need to be eighteen to have the procedure done without parental consent. Violet Jones knew she was pregnant. Now we just need to know who else knew, and if they weren’t happy about the news.”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked.
“I’m just saying, there might be another player in this. Kai was our initial suspect, but there could be someone else. We are going to thoroughly examine every lead.”
I swallowed. Lex. Oh my God, what if this was Lex’s baby? What if that’s why Violet wanted an abortion? I debated on telling the police this information. What if Kai found out and was mad? What if Kai was so mad he…
I looked over at Chase, who was turning pale. I wasn’t sure how much more of this conversation he could take. “I’ll just walk you out,” I said while standing up. Both detectives nodded, and we headed to the door.
Once at the threshold, I lowered my voice. “Can you discreetly look into Lex Lewis? Kai’s brother. Violet and him might have been seeing each other. I’m not for sure, but…”
Detective Rodriguez pulled out a notepad and wrote down my request. I felt a multitude of emotions for revealing my suspicions. I knew it was the right thing to do, but it felt wrong, too. “I’m familiar with Lex. He’s been on my radar for quite some time now. I’ll look into it. People can do insane things when they’re jealous, Breeze. Be careful. We will keep you updated.”
I closed the door behind the detectives and took a moment to center myself before going back to Chase. Violet was pregnant and scheduled an abortion, and she never even mentioned it to me. I pushed down the feeling that I didn’t really know her after all and walked back to the living room to console her mourning twin.
Chase was standing by the window, watching the water roll up onto the sand and then retreat back into the ocean. I stood next to him, the beautiful view in front of us perverted by the detectives’ words. The images of Vi’s mangled body that I had tried so hard to repress came flooding back. The thought of a tiny fetus being among the carnage broke me.
Tears fell freely from my eyes. I could see the tears also streaming down Chase’s anguished face reflected in the window. I turned into him and buried my face in his shoulder. Chase reciprocated, wrapping his arms around me. His body heaved against mine. I don’t know how long we stood there holding each other and crying, but when my eyes burned and had no more tears to give, I broke our embrace. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t have to.
Day