really thought that? It was inconceivable. That wasn’t Kai. But then she would have said Kai wouldn’t use her, wouldn’t manipulate her emotions in order to get what he wanted and then dump her.
I’m happy to help, but this stuff with Kori has to stop. It makes me sick. I can’t keep this up.
Sleeping with her made him sick.
“Would you cover for your boyfriend? Would you allow his brother to go free?”
She wanted to go home. “I don’t know anything.”
Rush flipped open the folder, turning it so the photos were facing her. “This is why I’m here. These women are why I’m here, and I want to make sure you don’t allow your soft heart to aid and abet the man who killed them. Kori, I’m here to make sure you’re not next, that your friend Sarah isn’t next.”
She looked down and her stomach flipped. The women in the photos were all dead, their vacant eyes staring up. They’d all been stabbed like Lena had been. Kori couldn’t forget the way the white shirt Lena had been wearing had turned to a bloody color, the way it smelled.
There were so many of them. So many.
She couldn’t help it.
“There’s a trash can to your right, sweetheart,” Rush said.
She stumbled out of her seat and dropped to her knees, emptying the contents of her stomach into the can. She could hear Rush at the door calling for someone as she heaved.
Who could do that? She’d worked on movie sets and they always laughed as they poured blood on the “dead” actress, who usually joked and complained the whole time. She’d played around with retractable knives and goofed off with prop guns.
This was real. Those girls were dead. Mia’s friend was one of them. Someone had stabbed her over and over and left her behind like she was nothing more than trash to be picked up.
She didn’t know Jared. She didn’t know Kai the way she thought she did. She would have said Kai wouldn’t hurt a fly, would never do anything secretive. How could she think she knew Jared if she didn’t even know the man she’d fallen in love with?
An emptiness swept through her. How could she know anyone if she couldn’t know Kai? He’d been everything to her.
Maybe this time she would go somewhere and be truly alone. She had some money saved. There were places she could go where no one could ever touch her again.
“Here.” Rush stood over her, a washcloth in his hand. “When you’re ready, I’ve got a cold soda for you. It should settle your stomach.”
She took the cloth and ran it over her face. It was cold and it seemed to seep into her skin. She rose, refusing Rush’s hand up.
She was alone now.
Kori made it back to the table. Loyalty had kept her mouth shut, but there was something more going on now. Those girls were real.
“Kori, when we found Jared, he was with Sarah,” Rush said, his voice gentler than before. “He’d taken her to a private room. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t gotten there in time. There might have been two victims.”
She still wasn’t sure it was Jared. Her heart ached at the thought, but she shoved it aside. Her heart was a stupid thing.
Justice. That was all that was important now.
“I’ll start at the beginning of the evening. Jared had a limo pick us up. Me and Jared and Kai.” She settled back and began her story.
* * * *
“What the hell is taking so long?” Kai demanded as he paced.
He’d been separated from Kori for hours. Every minute that dragged by was a minute too long. What the hell was happening and why were they being detained by the police? There was zero question in Kai’s mind that this was a detention. Oh, there might not be a lock on the door, but he suspected if he or Jared tried to leave, they would be stopped and quickly.
“I don’t know.” Jared sat in one of four metal seats, his head in his hand. “I can’t believe she’s dead. I didn’t see her. You did. Are you sure it was her? Maybe it was some other woman.”
“It was her.” He’d never forget the sight. He’d run in at the sound of Kori’s scream, and for a moment he’d thought it was Kori’s blood that coated the floor. For a moment he’d thought something horrible had happened to his Kori, and his life had stopped. He’d