Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
“Yeah, it does a little. But I need to be here. This is my home.” My mother and I came here a few months before she died. She really enjoyed herself. Even rode the Ferris Wheel. “Let me ask ya something, Porsche.”
“Okay. What is it?” He heard what sounded like her placing a pen down on a desk.
“You told me that I was ruled out as a suspect. I even gave you a DNA sample a while back with no pushback. Now you ask me where I am and I’m not gonna lie to you, so I tell you the truth, and then you act all weird. Like I don’t have the right to be here. I’ve already got half this place looking at me crazy. I don’t need you following them in line.”
“First of all, I’m not acting strange, Nikolai, but you and I both know that was an awkward response. An awkward situation, really.”
“How can the response be awkward if it’s the truth?”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
“No, Porsche, I don’t know it.” He ached with inner anguish. “You want me to tell you that I’m at the gas station, at my father’s house, the coffee house, my house, or at the shop, instead? I can’t do that because that’s not where I’m at right now. I could have avoided this entire conversation, not even called you, but for what? What would it solve? What would have happened if I kept this information to myself, and then one of your new Portland cop friends says, ‘Hey, P.I. Lee! We saw Mr. Raven on the beach. The beach he said he doesn’t go to.’ Then, all of my credibility is shot out the window.”
“I understand why you’re telling me this, Nikolai. That’s not the issue. The issue is that I just wish you would’ve told me beforehand.”
“Why? So you could prepare? It’s not the fucking prom.”
“Stop it. Stop it right now. I have no idea why you have an attitude with me about this. Of course you have the right to go where you want, but you have to understand how this looks!”
“It would look worse if I didn’t come here ever again. For the rest of my life. As if I couldn’t face it. I don’t hide from nobody, you hear me? You think I’m going to hide away like some ogre under a bridge? I like being at home sometimes, but I’m not the type to never leave my house. I like hangin’ with friends. Going out for a drink with my buddies sometimes. I am just picky about the company I keep, and that’s my right. If that is what makes people say I’m anti-social, or that I’m the kind of guy who would do some shit like this based on that alone, then so be it.”
“Jesus…” She exhaled as if frustrated. “That’s fine and good, Nikolai, but you were a number one suspect in a murder investigation that is still ongoing! Why can’t you understand why I’d be concerned?! You act like I’m just pulling this out of my butt, trying to split hairs.”
“What kinda crap is this? I get your point just fine. The problem is you don’t get mine. I don’t have to report my whereabouts to you, we’re not married, and you said you wanted to move slow. That goes for both of us because you don’t have to tell me shit, either. This is crazy… this entire conversation is crazy.” He heard her sigh. “If there’s a murder on the moon, Porsche, and someone says they saw a guy who looked like me talkin’ to an alien and Neil Armstrong the day before it happened, am I not allowed to go there on the next NASA expedition if that alien ends up dead?”
“…Neil Armstrong is dead.”
“And so is the imaginary alien and the motherfuckers they found on this beach.”
“God help me. You are exhausting.”
“Means I last a long time. You usually like that…”
She snorted. “Nik, at this point, it seems like you’re trying to pick a fight with me. What’s really going on here? What is wrong with you?”
“Before you started working on that case for your client, this was my city. My beach. I’m guilty until proven innocent in this town. That’s not justice. This is why some people don’t trust the police around here. They find a tooth in the ground and run with it, not realizing they’ve left an entire skull behind in their haste. I’m tired of bein’ that lone tooth, and you’re not making it any easier.”
He pointed in the air as if she were standing right before him, his body a heated mess of pulsing veins and a fast-beating heart. He’d never lost his temper with her. She’d annoyed him on occasion, but this hurt, and he struggled at that moment to figure out how to explain it to her in a way that she could understand.