Free Fruit of All Evil by Paige Shelton Page A

perspiration to bead on my back. I had to get inside that building, and quickly.
    I took another side step and grabbed the window frame. But it wouldn’t budge. At all. Even a little bit. Because of my angle, and the darkness both outside and inside the building, I couldn’t see the lock. The window had gone up so easily the first time—I couldn’t help but think that it had been locked again. Had someone seen what I was doing and then locked me out?
    I thought about pounding on the window. Someone would eventually hear and help, but I really hated getting caught doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing. A new resolve swept through me and wiped away the panic. I was going to try the other window and see if it opened before I gave in and gave up.
    Being able to move along the ledge made me grateful for my small feet, but there wasn’t much else that was good about it.
    Long seconds passed before my side steps took me to the next window. This one was frosted, so I had no idea what was behind it, except that there were clearly no lights on.
    I grabbed the bottom sash, gritted my teeth, and sent a silent prayer out to the universe that it wasn’t locked.
    It wasn’t. In fact, apparently it had recently been oiled. It was the first time I’d experienced a window “flying” open. The speed caused an air suck, and I was pulled through the opening. Fortunately, the floor wasn’t that far down. I know I made some sort of umph sound when I landed, but it wasn’t loud.
    It was dark in the room, but the light from the courtyard illuminated just enough to let me know exactly where I was: the men’s bathroom. It could have been worse—it could have been occupied.
    I was so happy to be off the ledge and so impressed with my newly learned skills that I didn’t care much about what someone would think if they saw me exiting the men’s bathroom, or how I was going to appear in the police station from a place no one saw me go to in the first place. I put on my shoes and started to make my way back to where I’d started.
    But as I reached the door, I heard a male voice moving in my direction. The person attached to the voice either was going to come in here or move on to the cell room.
    I turned to examine the bathroom. There really was no other place to hide, no choices other than where everyone hides when they’re hiding in a bathroom. I hurried into one of the two stalls, shut the door, locked it (glad I didn’t need a purse strap to keep this one closed), and stood on the toilet. Along with all the adrenaline, there was a good dose of humiliation running through my system. I was hiding in the men’s bathroom at the police station. A new low.
    Sure enough, the person came through the door and switched on the light. He was talking on his cell phone as he went about his business, and fortunately he didn’t attempt to open the stall door.
    Once I thought I might not be discovered, I focused on who the person was. It didn’t take long, because it was a voice I’d heard often enough. I was getting to know Drew Forsyth far too well.
    â€œYes, okay, I can talk better now,” he said. “I know. I did the best I could. I hope it was good enough.”
    He said uh-huh a number of times before wrapping up the conversation by saying, “Enough was enough, you’re right.” Pause. “I don’t care, just make it look good. We’ll talk later.” He snapped the phone shut.
    I told myself that he could have been talking about any number of things, not necessarily about participating in his mother’s murder. Nonetheless, I didn’t like the sound of it.
    He washed his hands, turned off the light, and left the room. I hurried off my perch, grabbed a paper towel and stuck it in my pocket, and hoped the hallway was clear.
    Once out of the bathroom, I took a deep cleansing breath and gave myself a silent pep talk. So far, so