Delinquents Turned Fugitives - Ann Denton Page 0,113

be possible with an amulet like that, should it?

Muller’s face and grip were both furious when he realized it was gone. “You little bitch!” He shook me.

“Ow! What the hell?”

Just a little more. I just needed to push him a little more.

Suddenly, I found myself back in the trees, farther down the hill, disoriented.

What just happened?

Detective Muller stood near me and his hand was in his pocket.

I shook off the strange feeling of deja vu surging through me and remembered our plan. The asshole detective probably had an illegal Honesty Amulet on him. I had to be careful. I needed to get some space, since the range of the amulet was limited.

I turned and hurried up the hill.

Muller was on me within moments, his arm wrapping around mine and yanking me to a stop.

It hurt, but I played it up. Malcolm was supposed to be here soon, with Teddy, and a live camera feed.

“Ow.”

Muller ignored me when I tried to wrench my arm away. Instead, he leaned over me. “What did you do after you left the Unnatural Ball on April twelfth?”

Not a good question when I could feel my tongue tugging at me to tell the truth. “I ran to my limo and cried.”

Fake cried, but that was still crying, I told myself.

“Your stepfather left early too.”

Shit.

I didn’t want him bringing up the fucker just yet. I didn’t need the asshole ghost swooping in and screwing this up for me just when Muller was about to prove himself asshole of the year. My eyes darted toward the funeral, but I couldn’t see it clearly from where we stood; it was impossible to get an eye on Claude.

“You hated him didn’t you? I can see it on your face.”

Fuck. Abort. Abort.

I couldn’t lie. Where the hell were my guys? Why weren’t Z and Andros stopping this? Why weren’t they rewinding him?

“Wouldn’t you hate someone who screwed up your family and burned you every chance they got?” The vitriolic words were out of my mouth before I could shove them back in. I tried to tighten my throat at the very end, to make it sound like I was about to cry, but I didn’t know if it worked.

It definitely didn’t work for Muller. And he was too close for me to check and see if Teddy and Malcolm were in place near the crypt.

“Did you hate him enough to kill him?” he asked.

I tried to force my eyes to stay on the detective but they couldn’t help wandering slightly away from his intensely hateful gaze. I spotted a blue butterfly in the grass nearby. It was frozen, wings outstretched as if it had been caught just as it was about to launch into the air.

Shit. Muller had frozen everything around us, which probably included my crew.

It was just me and him.

And he had an Honesty Amulet.

Two minutes. That was the longest most Tocks lasted. I just had to outwit him for two minutes. And then he’d be spent. And we’d be in control again.

I closed my eyes and remembered Z’s words about outwitting Honesty Amulets and how he’d done it in the vault. I just had to tell the truth, but a random truth.

“Imagining killing someone and actually doing it are two totally different things.” There. Generic. True.

“Did you pay someone to kill him?”

Technically, none of my crew had been paid yet because the job wasn’t over. Andros hadn’t gotten a dime from me. So that was an easy, “No.” I glared up at him. “I can’t even believe you’re doing this shit on the day of my mother’s funeral!” I yanked my arm out of his grip. “Don’t I get a lawyer?”

I blinked and his arm was on me again. Had he sped himself up? I wasn’t sure. But the butterfly near us started flying again, its wings pumping as it fluttered higher in the air, so I knew that whatever Muller had done with his power had released the freeze on everything around us. My guys would be active again.

“Don’t lie to me.”

I laughed at the absurdity of his anger. “I can’t. You have an illegal honesty amulet in your pocket right now, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He’d blurted out the answer before he could think.

“Do you use an illegal honesty amulet to question all your suspects?”

“Yes.”

Muller’s face turned nearly purple in rage. It was a beautiful shade of anger and I wished he’d wear it more often.

We rewound, but this time, he was sloppy about it. This time I