Thirty and a Half Excuses
Page 84

“Yeah. I think maybe I can.” If what I told him wasn’t enough, then I’d tell him the rest.
He nodded. “Okay, let’s give it a try.”
“Do you know how Miss Dorothy died?”
“We’re not releasing that information to the public yet.”
“Was she poisoned?”
Mason’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
“What if I told you something like this happened before, but the women were poisoned?”
“Hypothetically, it could be very important.” He studied his hands as he absently rubbed his thumb across the back of the knuckle on his index finger. “Were they all older women?”
Taking Mason’s cue, I leaned in closer to him. “Hypothetically, there were two women. One older and one younger—much younger. The younger one had dated a certain someone a few times.”
He tensed, his fingers splaying on the table. “Only two? Did it stop without an arrest?”
“Yes. But someone moved.”
“To Henryetta?”
I didn’t answer.
Mason turned to face me, his eyes pleading with me. “You have to tell the police, Rose.”
Indignant, I jerked away from him. “I’m not telling the police anything.”
“Rose, listen to me. There could be a serial killer on the loose.”
“I don’t care.” I pushed at him to let me out of the booth. “I’m not telling the police diddly squat.”
Mason refused to budge. “You have a responsibility to tell them.”
More responsibility talk. I was sick to death of it. “Mason, what am I going to tell them? That I saw someone murdered? In a vision?”
“You can tell them about what happened to Jonah Pruitt before he moved here. That’s enough to help them with their investigation of this case.”
“You and I both know the Henryetta Police are a band of imbeciles who look at a person’s past and decide they’re guilty before they know all the facts. I’m not putting someone else in that situation. No one should have to go through what…” My voice trailed off.
Mason’s face softened. “What you did.”
I pushed his arm. “Let me out.”
“No.” He lowered his gaze into my face. “No one should have to go through what you did, right?”
My hands balled into fists. “I’m not going to talk about this.”
“The police assumed you’d murdered your mother because they thought you were odd. You knew things you shouldn’t have known. They barely looked at the evidence, just presumed you guilty. They just had to wait to get enough evidence to arrest you.”
Helplessness bubbled up in my chest, making me anxious. “Stop.”
“Who believed you were innocent? Violet? Joe?”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” I didn’t want to relive that awful time, when I felt so alone and desperate. I started crying again. “Mason, let me out. I just want to go home.”
He grabbed my shoulders. “Jonah Pruitt isn’t you, Rose. Bruce Wayne Decker wasn’t you.”
I pulled out of his grasp. “How can you say that? They’re just like me! Everyone was ready to send Bruce Wayne to the electric chair.”
“And what about you, Rose? What did people think about you?”
“Why are you doin’ this, Mason?” I cried, my shoulders shaking.
He reached up and wiped away my tears. “Because I want you to look good and hard at why you’re risking your life to help someone you hardly know.” He lifted my chin, his jaw squared in determination. “Why are you really doing this?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. Tell me.”
Why was I doing this? Because it really was the right thing to do. And because I wanted to save the woman in my vision. But Mason was right, it went deeper than that.
“Joe hates for you to take risks like this…hell, so do I. What makes you so determined to try to help someone you hardly know?”
“Because no one helped me.” Resentment washed through me. “Every person in this town would have gladly sent me to prison.” My jaw hardened. “No one fought for me.”
His eyes softened. “I would have fought for you, Rose.”
“Don’t do this, Mason.” I shook my head, my voice hardening. “You would have taken the pathetic evidence Detective Taylor collected, and you would have tried me before a jury of my peers.” I lifted my gaze to his. “And you would have sent me to prison for the rest of my life.”
His eyes widened in bewilderment. “How can you say that?”
My hands balled into fists, my anger raging. “Because you were doing exactly the same thing to Bruce Wayne when we met.”
His face paled.
I pushed against him again. “I have to go.”
“I don’t want you to leave with things like this.”
“Mason, please.” My voice broke. “I can’t do this right now.”
Panic filled his eyes. “I pushed you too hard. I’m sorry. I’m scared for you, Rose. I can’t stand back and watch you get hurt. I just want you to know what you’re getting into.”
I started crying again. “Mason. Please.”
He slid out of the booth, standing next to the table as I scrambled out. He started to follow me to the door, but the waitress shouted, “You can’t leave before you pay!”