Free You Know Who I Am (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries Book 2) by Diane Patterson Page B

Also, my stepfather, and most probably the man who had told my mother not to save me that night eleven years ago when I was covered with blood. Now he saw fit to get me a lawyer.
    Roberto could not have known where I was for the last eleven years. So the question became: How had Roberto known I was in trouble so fast? And if he knew where I was, did my father?
    I glanced up at the window of Colin’s apartment.
    No. I was not going to go there. I smiled and nodded. “Ah. Of course.”
    Ross held up a business card. Nice linen stock and raised printing. On both the front and the back were phone numbers in blue ink. He tapped the number on the back of the card. “You need to call him in the morning,” my lawyer said. “And then tomorrow you and I need to have a talk.”
    “I’d prefer to talk to you first.”
    “That’s what I said. But strangely, that point was non-negotiable.”
    It wouldn’t be, not with Roberto. “And you’re not going to argue anything you’re not paid to.”
    The lawyer’s eyes narrowed. “Something like that. Call after you’ve talked to him.”
    I assumed the number on the front was his cell. I looked at him with a sideways glance. “I look forward to it, Counselor.” Though if I were being truthful, I wasn’t. At all. Of course, as a rule I’m not truthful, either.
    #
    Nathaniel Ross got the police to release me. Powers of persuasion beyond mortal ken perhaps. When they released me, it was 4:30 Tuesday morning. I took Sunset Boulevard for the long drive back to the guesthouse in Pacific Palisades. Sunset was empty, or nearly so. I didn’t think about that during my drive back. Nor did I think about how someone I knew, someone I’d been married to, had been brutally murdered tonight. I didn’t even think about how the detective who inspired such unclean thoughts had pegged me as the murderer.
    No, I mulled over how to tell Stevie that Roberto was back in our lives in a big way. If the thought of dealing with him made me want to jump in my car and head for the Mexican border, it might blow one of Stevie’s circuits. She’d freak out or pass out. Or become a complete and utter mess, unable to take care of herself in the simplest ways.
    Deep down, I suspected she had those little meltdowns to give me something to focus on when things got very, very rough. Which was very thoughtful of her, but I didn’t want her doing it when, for the first time in years, I wanted to have the damn meltdown instead.
    The house was dark and Stevie was sitting in the living room, facing the kitchen. The phone was still clutched in her hand, resting on her knee. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out she’d been frozen in that exact position since I called. I flicked on the overhead lights and tried to smile. It was a complete and total failure as a facial expression.
    “You’re back.” Her voice was full of fear, as though she were expecting me to hit her for not being able to do the impossible. Whereas I had gotten over that urge a decade ago. “I never found—”
    “Everything’s going to be okay, sweetheart.”
    “What happened?” she said.
    “Colin’s dead.”
    She gasped.
    I told her Colin had been murdered, with none of the gruesome details. Not to spare her, surprisingly, but because I didn’t want to relive it again. Even so, I couldn’t wipe the mental image of his open eyes over a large and spreading red pool on the carpet any time soon.
    I mentioned Behar’s appearance outside the apartment, what the cops asked me about, and, lastly, gently, the attorney who showed up.
    “Courtesy of Roberto Montesinos.”
    Stevie sucked in her breath and stared at me. I nodded.
    I gave her the business card Nathaniel had given me. She glanced at both sides. “I have the feeling we’re going to need these phone numbers. Program them into my phone.”
    She nodded as she put the card down on the coffee table. She’d memorized them with a glance. My poor little sister, who remembered every