“It isn’t what you think,” Black said.
“It is,” Beth said, still angry at him, but also at herself for falling for it, even for a minute. Ransom would kill her if he could see her right now. He’d told her a hundred times never to talk to cops alone, that they were dangerous. He was right. Why was she too stupid to listen? “Let me out of the car,” she said.
Detective Black’s voice was tight. “Beth, I’m not letting you out of the car.”
“Do it!” she shouted, grabbing the door handle. She wasn’t going to jump out of a moving car—at least, she didn’t think she was. But she was just drunk enough that her emotions were out of control, ping-ponging through her head, making her crazy.
“It’s pitch-black out there and dangerous.” Black’s jaw was tight; he was angry now, too, though he didn’t even slow his driving. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. I’m not pulling over and letting you out. I’m taking you home.”
“Fuck,” Beth said, just to shock him. Then she said it a dozen more times, filling the car with the word. Men hated it when she said “fuck.” Women hated it, too, but it was more fun to shock men, watch the expressions on their faces as their opinion of her changed. And it always changed. Even the good-looking ones, the ones who’d started out looking at her with appreciation—their opinions changed just like everyone else’s did.
Detective Black waited it out, grimly driving the car as Beth finished her tantrum. When she finally slumped silent into her seat, he said, “I told you, it isn’t what you think. I didn’t do this to entrap you. I did it to warn you.”
Beth didn’t feel drunk anymore. She felt painfully sober, her head throbbing, her throat sore from all of the shouting she’d done. She wanted to be drunk again. She was drained and tired and she didn’t want to look at him anymore, because the more she looked at him, the more she was tempted to ask him to come inside the house with her, just to see if he’d say yes. She could feel the thin thread of possibility, the razor’s edge that she could ask him and he’d come, even though everything about it was wrong, even though he had his kindergarten teacher. Maybe, just maybe, he’d ruin himself for her. She could taste that on her tongue, and she wanted to spit it out.
“Listen,” he said when she didn’t speak, oblivious to the turmoil in her exhausted brain. “It looks bad for you. I’m telling you this in my professional capacity. Do you understand?”
She tried to bring her mind around. “They’re going to arrest me.”
“It looks likely. You’re their only suspect, and they have to arrest someone. The public has to see someone blamed for this.”
That made Beth angry again, because she saw the meaning of what he was saying. “You don’t believe I did it.”
He was silent for a second. “I’ve lain awake every night for a week, trying to figure it out.” He sounded almost as if he were talking to himself instead of her. They were in Arlen Heights now, winding through her darkened neighborhood. “I can’t understand why you would suddenly kill two random people. Why it feels wrong to me, yet it feels right at the same time. When I look at you, I see a dangerous killer, and I also see a girl who was left alone to wander lost after her parents died. I see both of those things at the same time, and it drives me crazy.”
Beth sat silent, her eyes burning. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried.
“Then I finally got it,” Black said. There was quiet wonder in his voice. “Damn it, the answer finally came to me, and it’s worse than I thought. You’re very clever, Beth, and I hate to say it, but you’re also goddamned brave. What I still don’t know is why you would do it.”
He pulled into her driveway now, his headlights illuminating the mansion that she hated so much. “Why I would do what?” she asked, her voice dull, her stomach turning. Maybe whatever he thought he knew was wrong, but hope was dying in her by the minute. It had been dying since she got in the car.