Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 118693 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118693 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
“No, I never called the police, and to be honest I didn’t think she was relevant.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “I think she made Rochelle more uncomfortable than she did me. She had a crush on me, that was obvious. I made it clear to her I wasn’t available and asked her to not call me when I was at the station. She did what I asked.”
“So you never heard from her after that?”
Robert moved about uneasily in his seat.
“Oh. My. God. You did, didn’t you?” Rochelle asked.
Robert’s hand went through his hair as my father leaned over to me and said, “I think you just made a bad situation even worse.”
Glaring at him, I replied, “Dad. Please be quiet.”
He lifted his hands in surrender.
“Um, Rochelle, I don’t mean to be rude, but if I could ask Robert the questions and have him answer them without interruption, that would make this a lot easier and faster. That or we can plan to do this in the office, in private.”
Rochelle shot me a dirty look. “Fine. Ask away.”
“There’s no need to be rude to my lawyer, Rochelle.”
She turned away and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Robert, did she contact you again?”
“Not really. Every now and then I would see her and her son walking by the station. Or they would be in the same store as me. Little encounters every now and then. She lived close to the station, she said, so I wasn’t surprised when I would see her at the grocery store, ya know. Half the time she wouldn’t see me, so I didn’t even think anything of it…until the night at the club.”
“What night at the club?” I asked.
“Me and a few other firefighters went out to celebrate one of the guys getting married. I saw her at the bar and at first, didn’t think anything about it. Then she came up to me. Started asking me to dance, telling me how much she liked me and that her kid liked me. She said she wanted to marry a firefighter. I laughed it off at first and told her I was there with the guys and that my fiancée would be joining me soon.”
I looked at Rochelle. “Did you join him?”
She nodded, and said, “After I got there, she started hanging on a few other firefighters. Flirting big-time with them. Even tried to get one of them to…you know…take her home.”
“Do you remember who the firefighter was? Did he take her home?” Why did I ask that? A part of me feared it was Finn.
Robert laughed. “Hell no. As much as people think we’re out for one thing, that ain’t the truth. Some of the guys like to have fun, but they’re not stupid. Colton told her she needed to take a cab home.”
“Colton Harris?” my father asked.
Robert nodded. “Yeah. She was pretty much trying to get Colton and Finn Ward’s attention.”
“Finn Ward’s?” I asked before I was able to stop myself.
“Yeah. You know him?”
I could feel the heat from my father’s stare. “Um, yes, I’ve met him. So, none of the guys left with her. Do you know who she left with?”
“No one. She got pretty wasted. I had the bartender call her a taxi, and I walked her out to it, made sure she got in, and that was the last time I saw her.”
I quickly jotted down a few notes before looking up at Robert. “Did anything happen before she got in the cab?”
He looked down and tapped nervously on the table. Rochelle was staring at him, and I could tell she was about to unleash on him. Clearly, something happened he didn’t tell his fiancée about.
Leaning in, I took Robert’s hand in mine. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything.”
He glanced up and looked directly into my eyes. “What does this have to do with Casey Stevens accusing me of assaulting her?”
“It depends on if my hunch is right, and the only way I’ll know is if you tell me what happened between you and…what is her name?”
“Bryn Derks. Her name is Bryn Derks.”
I wrote down the name before piercing his eyes with mine again.
“Before she got into the cab, she begged me to kiss her. I told her no, that I was very happily in love with Rochelle. She got pissed off. I mean really pissed off. Started going on and on about how all men were the same. Then she just started crying. I couldn’t figure out what in the hell was going on. She finally told me her husband was a firefighter and that he had died in a car accident a few months before she started bringing her son to the library. When Mark—that’s her son’s name—started showing an interest in me, she thought it was a sign. I gave her a hug. I was only trying to be kind to her. When I went to pull away, she kissed me. I broke off the kiss immediately. Opened the cab door, told the driver to make sure she got home, and then started to walk off.”