Kings of Linwood Academy - The Complete Box Set: A Dark High School Romance Series by Callie Rose (sight word books .TXT) 📕

Does he think I’m going to make a run for it? Was he just waiting to make sure I actually came inside the house instead of running for the hills?

I know he’s been watching me—at least, when he’s not at school—but he’s usually more subtle about it than this.

His spicy coriander scent still seems to linger on my clothes, and as I slip inside the bedroom, my skin still tingles from the heat of his hands on my arms.

I’ll have to shower before bed tonight. I don’t want his addicting aroma clinging to me, reminding me of something I thought I had.

Something that was never real.

3

The water cascading over my skin is hot, almost painfully so, and I scrub hard with my loofah, massaging the pomegranate body wash into my skin as if I can erase Lincoln and replace him with a gentle fruity scent.

My skin is pink by the time I turn the handle and step out of the shower, but I feel refreshed. Honestly, it wasn’t just Lincoln’s touch I was trying to scrub away, but the stale air of the prison too, the feeling of failure that clings to me all the time now.

I tug on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top, even though it’s not even five o’clock yet. The Black family will have dinner downstairs—served by Gwen, who cooks pretty much all the meals around here—but I don’t plan on leaving this corner of the house for the rest of the evening.

There’s still food in Mom’s little kitchen, so I’ll go over there to grab a bite later. I don’t like spending more time in her apartment than I have to though, because it just reminds me all over again that she’s gone—that she was dragged away unexpectedly.

The police searched her place the same night they arrested her, tearing through her apartment and dumping clothes, books, and couch cushions on the floor while I watched from the doorway, clinging to the frame to stay upright.

Once they finally left, I put everything back as close to the way it was as possible, but it still doesn’t feel right. There’s something off, like a puzzle that’s been put together out of order.

I hate it.

Before I can grab my book and settle on the bed, the doorbell chimes.

My heart slams in my chest, and I move closer to the bedroom door as if drawn by a magnetic force. I don’t know who it is, but the Black family doesn’t get a lot of unexpected visitors. If someone’s at the house now, there’s a good chance it has to do with my mom.

I slip into the hall, padding on bare feet toward the second level balcony that overlooks the grand foyer on three sides. I reach it just as Samuel Black opens the door, and I watch him greet Detective Dunagan with cool civility.

“Detective. What can I do for you this evening?”

He doesn’t open the door wider, and I notice he also doesn’t invite the man in.

“Sorry to bother you again, Mr. Black,” Dunagan says curtly. “I just have a few more questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

Lincoln’s dad shakes his head, irritation clear in his posture even from where I’m standing. “I already answered your questions. I’ve gone along with this sham of an arrest and allowed you to execute your search warrants on my property. I don’t really—”

“Just a few questions, sir. It won’t take much time at all, I promise you.”

“It’s not my time I’m worried about,” the dark-haired man growls, but he sighs and ushers the detective down the stairs of the front stoop, stepping out after him.

Before they go, Dunagan’s gaze flashes upward, landing unerringly on me. I’m so startled that I move back quickly, bumping into the wall and almost taking down a painting that’s hung right behind me.

The detective’s eyes narrow, and he gives me an assessing look that seems tinged with something else too. Pity?

Fuck. I don’t want his sympathy. Especially because it probably means he knows something I don’t.

I don’t know what the police were looking for when they searched Mom’s apartment or her car, but whatever they found in the car was considered important enough to seize the vehicle as evidence. I don’t understand how that’s possible though. If she’s innocent, why is it taking so long to prove that? Why does the detective keep sniffing around her life like a bloodhound on the scent? Like he’s certain that if he keeps poking at things, the ugly truth will pop up like the dead rising from the grave.

All of this might—might—make me question for a second whether everything I thought I knew about my mom was a lie, if I hadn’t seen with my own two eyes the man who did this. And it was a man, I’m sure of that. Even in a black ski mask and dark clothes, the figure was obviously tall and somewhat broad-shouldered. My mom is only slightly taller than me.

The detective’s gaze never leaves me, even as Mr. Black steps outside to join him at the top of the stairs. My mouth opens like I’m about to blurt something out, but before I can say anything, the door closes behind the two men.

I clamp my jaw shut, exhaling sharply through my nostrils. Goddammit. What the hell was I gonna say anyway? I already blabbed everything I know the night he took my mom, and he didn’t believe a word I said.

Who the hell knows what he’s asking Mr. Black? And who the hell knows what Linc’s dad is telling him?

My gut twists around and around itself as I stand with my hands on the balcony railing, staring down at the door.

They arrested my mom based on a “credible tip”, and after searching her car and her apartment, they still haven’t let her go. That means they have something on her—something connecting her to Iris’s murder.

Even though they shouldn’t.

Even though no such thing should exist.

I’m up