Huh. Well, I guess Julia’d had time to do some damage. I let go a long breath and settled back against the couch. “I’m not sure what Julia told you but I’m fine.”
“Now.” She blew out a long breath. “But I feel responsible, for getting us into this and bringing you back into this environment. I didn’t know, but even so, I was being petty because you annoyed me, but I’m sorry. Can we—”
“Stop it, Kat. I’m fine.”
She blinked. “I just wish you’d told me. I could have—”
I stiffened and faced her. “There’s a lot we haven’t told each other, now isn’t there?”
She blinked, her eyes darting to one of my eyes, then the other. I took a minute to appreciate how pretty and blue they were. It was difficult to discern her mood. She seemed, wound up but also sad.
“You’re right, there is. Like I haven’t told you everything about what’s going on with me. So I shouldn’t have expected…” Her voice died out.
I tilted my head, studying her. She was acting really weird. “Are you all right? Were you out in the heat too long or something?”
She drew back and continued that expressionless stare that was actually starting to worry me. Maybe there was something wrong…
“I’m pretty sure if I go back to Canada that I might be in serious trouble.” She drew in a long deep breath and let it out, as if this fact had been some great burden to her for some time. Maybe it had?
I blinked. “Okay, what did you do?”
She bit her lip. “It’s not what I did. It’s what I didn’t do.”
I shook my head. “I’m confused.”
She stared up at the ceiling in contemplation, rubbing at a spot between her eyes, like her headache was still bothering her. “A few months before I left Canada, my brother got mixed up in something that was way over his head. He had this group of friends that we barely knew. I suspect they were the ones supplying him with whatever shit he was on. Anyway, I don’t know the exact circumstances, but he was involved in a robbery and caught on surveillance with a few of the others.”
Wow. I frowned. Derek hadn’t struck me as the sharpest tool in the shed but he hadn’t really screamed criminal either. I nodded encouraging her to continue.
She clenched her teeth together for a moment as if remembering something that particularly angered her. Then she began twisting a long strand of coppery hair around her index finger. I watched her wind and unwind and rewind it again, strangely fascinated.
“The thing is, all the images of him were blurred or the lighting was bad or something. He wasn’t immediately recognizable though some of the others involved were. But the guys who were caught were happy to name him as part of the group for whatever reason—maybe they got a plea deal or something.”
I shifted in my seat, eyes still on that coil of hair. “How does this involve you?”
Her mouth thinned grimly. “I’m getting to it… so the people naming him, of course, didn’t have any concrete evidence that Derek was with them. He’d been smart enough not to text them about it and there was no other documentation of him being in on it. Or any of the usual forms of evidence. But Derek didn’t have an alibi, either. He swore to us up down and sideways that he was innocent but I could tell by the way he was suddenly flush with cash that he was likely involved. I found it hard to believe that his friends would just hand over the loot from their crime without him being in on it. Of course, my parents believe him one hundred percent.”
I blew out a breath. “Well they’d better get a rowboat ‘cause they are clearly deep in denial.”
She snorted at that and looked up. To my dismay, she dropped the coil of hair and began twisting her wedding ring instead. “That’s a new one.”
I didn’t say anything else, and she returned my stare. I half wondered if she was going to continue with the story and if she veered away from it, then should I try to pin her down? She was silent so long I almost thought she wouldn’t finish the story.
But she finally took a long and noisy breath, almost as if she was fighting back some emotion. “They’re so convinced he’s innocent, that they hired a really expensive lawyer to take his case.