Fearless The King Series Book One - By Tawdra Kandle Page 0,130

course. I don’t have to go anywhere for now.”

I sighed, more in frustration with myself than with my mother. “Mom, I’m okay. I know I had a bad night, but it’ll get better. Once I get this police thing out of the way-“

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. My heart pounded in my throat, and nausea overwhelmed me. My father was working at home again today, and I heard him answer the door.

“Come on. Let’s go out there and get this done,” my mother said softly, rising and taking me by the hand.

The man standing in our living room was tall. He wore jeans and a collared shirt with the letters “KPD” embroidered on the pocket. In his hand he held a baseball cap. I judged him to be in his early thirties. He regarded me with thinly veiled interest, and his eyes swept over my bandaged neck.

Still looking shaky. Girl did a job on her neck, no doubt. Hate to put her through more, but it’s gotta be done. Procedure, if nothing else… covers us… get this started.

He greeted my mother in subdued tones, and then held out a hand to me. “Tasmyn? Detective Sam Lawrence. Good to see you up and about. I saw you after they brought you into the hospital. You were pretty roughed up.”

I nodded, unable to work my voice yet. He turned to my father again. “Is there some place Tasmyn and I can speak privately?”

My dad scowled. “Does she have to be alone? She’s not the criminal here; I don’t see why her mother and I can’t stay with her.”

“Daddy.” I laid my hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I’ll be all right. I can handle it.”

He hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Why don’t you stay here, and we’ll go into the kitchen. Sit down, please,” he offered belatedly.

We sat across the room from each other, the detective holding his hat between his hands and looking at me with a not-unkind smile.

“Been through a tough time, huh?”

I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice steady. “Yes. It was very frightening, and I was very lucky.”

He squinted at me and thought, She’s not going to give anything away easy. I kept my face as impassive as I could.

The detective shifted in his seat. “I’ve spoken to some of your friends, to the others involved in this situation. It’s quite a story they tell.”

I waited again. That wasn’t really a question, and until he asked me something directly, I didn’t feel the need to volunteer information.

“I’d like to hear your side of things. How did you end up in those woods with Nell Massler?”

I took a deep breath. “I thought my boyfriend was in danger. While I was in the parking lot at school, about to get in my car to go out to him, Nell hit me in the back of the head. When I came around, I was in the clearing, and I was tied to a stake.”

His face revealed nothing, but I could hear him clearly. That agrees with what her friends said. Doesn’t answer the questions they couldn’t.

I tensed, waiting for him to ask those questions. Instead he nodded slowly. “And she cut you there, on your neck, with the knife?”

I was confused by the direction of his question, but I answered. “Yes, with the athame. The same one she used to hit me in the head.”

“Athame… that’s a witch’s knife?”

“Yes. I guess… as far as I know, most of the time it’s used to draw the circle.”

“Yeah… that sounds right. Not that I know that much about it, of course.” He sat quietly for a few more minutes, turning his hat over and over in his hands, examining it closely. I couldn’t get a clear line on his thoughts, but when he spoke again, there was a different intensity in his voice.

“You should know, Nell Massler is going away for the rest of her life. She’s not going to be hurting anyone else again.” His head dipped so that his eyes were shadowed, and I couldn’t see them. “She’s not going to prison. There won’t be a trial. She’s been declared mentally incompetent. Her father has agreed to commit her to an out-of-state hospital.”

My breath caught in my chest. Battling with the relief I felt in hearing that Nell wouldn’t be a threat to me again was the horror at hearing her fate, so eerily reminiscent of her mother’s. An unexpected surge of anger toward