Free The Devil's Snare: a Mystery Suspense Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 4) by T Patrick Phelps Page B

Got into it when I started working at my job. My sales manager was an amazing salesman, a great manager and addicted to probably six different drugs. He got me to try it when he did a ride-along day with me.”
    “A what?”
    “Ride-along day. It’s when a sales manager spends the day with a rep visiting accounts. Anyway, he and I made two or three sales calls, got nothing going and the appointment I had scheduled for one in the afternoon called to cancel. My manager—his name was Tom—says to me, ‘Bo, you have a decision to make.’ I was thinking he was going to blast me for screwing up one of the cold calls I made or for not confirming the appointment before we left for the day. Instead, he said I had to decide whether I wanted to keep making cold calls or go have a drink. I knew Tom liked to drink and the thought of spending the rest of the work day knocking on doors wasn’t appealing, so I said, ‘Let’s have a drink.’ One drink turned into six or seven and seven drinks turned into me and him snorting a bunch of lines.  
    “It’s not true that you get addicted to coke after your first line. That may be true with heroin, you know, shoot up once and you can’t wait till you can shoot up again? Anyway, that was first time I snorted coke. Probably did it one or twice a month since that first time. I did start using more often about a year ago, so I stopped for six straight months.”
    “But you obviously started again,” Nikkie said.
    “Had a party a few months back. A guy from town showed up, brought a heavy bag to share, and, viola, here I am today, accused of a crime I honestly can’t remember if I did or not and getting ready to walk into a clinic, have a needle jabbed into my arm to have my blood tested to see if I had more fun the night of the fire than I remember.”
    It was the first time Nikkie heard Bo admit there was a chance that he was guilty. “You admit that to your father?” she asked.
    “Admit what? About me using coke?”
    “That you’re not as certain about your innocence as you’ve been saying.”
    “I didn’t start that fire,” Bo snapped. “I can’t remember shit about that night, but I remember how I feel about Brian Mack. I would never do anything to hurt him.”
    “Yet, you said you honestly can’t remember if you’re guilty or not. Listen, I’m not asking you to spill your soul here. But if you remember something you’re not telling me, no matter how small or unimportant you think it may be, you need to tell me.”
    Bo held his gaze on Nikkie. To Nikkie, he had the look of someone who needed to tell someone something, but had no idea how to tell it. He started to shake his head, then paused. He dropped his head and began looking at his folded hands on his lap. “I didn’t start that fire,” he began. “But I keep getting these flashes of memory about watching Mack’s house burn. But then I get the feeling that I wasn’t watching it burn but was outside his house before the fire got going. Like I was driving by in my car. One second, I see myself standing in the backyard as the fire starts to rip, the next second, I’m driving somewhere. I have no idea which memory is real, or if either one of them is real. But they both can’t be real. I couldn’t have been in Mack’s backyard and driving past his house at the same time.”
    “That’s not the only memory you’ve been recalling, is it?”
    Bo turned to face Nikkie and smiled. As he smiled, Nikkie began thinking that Bo’s smile was certainly the type that charmed plenty of women’s pants off. But she knew it wasn’t Bo’s normal smile. His normal smile would have his eyes adding their own bit of magic to the package. This smile was nothing but lips revealing very white teeth. “I like you, Nikkie. You’re obviously hot, but I think you have a good head on your shoulders, too.”
    “Brains and boobs, right?” Nikkie said.
    “You said it, not me. But, yeah.” Bo turned his body to face