The Win: Rebels of Ridgecrest High (Book 4)
The Win: Chapter 2

I’ve always said my mom is an actress. Only, I didn’t know how good she really was until now. Malcolm’s barely been gone, and she’s acting like nothing’s changed at all. At home, she’s been her usual self. She ordered a new Versace handbag, booked a trip to the salon, and called her interior designer and asked her to come by to update the apartment.

The very same apartment Malcolm was alive in mere days ago. The one we’re in now, after the police finished their investigation. That room—the guest bedroom—is no longer being used. It’s where all my nightmares start in each night, only to wake up and see the blood on my hands.

How could I have killed him and not remember a thing?

The doctors told me I blocked out the incident and that Mom’s in shock. That’s why she’s behaving like Malcolm is going to come home at any moment. That she believes he is. I know better. She’s fake. Everything about her is, right down to the French manicure she got this morning while the police interrogated me. Our lawyer told us not to speak to the media, that we need to keep quiet to help with my case.

On the television screen in front of me is the sad widow on the news, sobbing into her Kleenex. Completely different to the person I’m living with off-screen. Like she cares whether speaking to the press will ruin my case. Being in the spotlight is what she loves the most. She has no heart; she only cares about herself, and the rest of us are just pawns in her game. Just what that game is, I don’t yet know. But I’m going to replace out.

“It’s been so hard for me and our baby. She will never know her father.” Mom holds her freshly manicured nails over her rounded belly.

I roll my eyes when the reporters fall for it and tell her how sorry they are for her loss. Is it a loss to her? Really? Malcom’s bank account seems to be working well enough for her, and the only thing she’s lost is an old man she married for money.

“I will never know love like Malcolm again.”

My stomach turns at the lie.

For her performance on the screen, she deserves an Oscar. She doesn’t care he’s gone. She only married him for the money, and now that he’s dead, she’s a rich woman and loving it. She can’t even wait until he’s in the ground to be lap up all the attention. I feel sorry for Malcolm, falling into this viper’s trap.

“How are you feeling after replaceing your daughter had murdered Malcolm?”

My breath catches in my throat. Fuck . . . don’t answer them. Please don’t say a thing, Mom. This is why you’re not supposed to speak to the press. It will only make things harder on me. Please don’t answer, Mom.

“It was very hard walking in and replaceing her holding the bloody knife and his lifeless body there. I will never get that image from my mind.” She lets out a fake sob as my body sinks to the floor.

I drop my face into my hands and cry. Why? Why would she say that? Unless she wants me to go down for this murder . . .

It’s been a week. One entire week since I woke up with blood on my hands, and I can’t get the memory of Malcolm’s eyes from my mind. I haven’t slept. Every time I do, I have nightmares. I’ve barely eaten, and I just want to go home . . . back to Kate’s house. I’ll even stop seeing Asher until I’m eighteen, if that’s what they want. I just don’t want to be here anymore.

My dad and Kate have been here for me all week. They are my only support; even if I can barely see them. Mom doesn’t care what happens to me. She only cares about all the money she’s just inherited. I wonder how she got Malcolm to screw over his own child and leave him nothing.

I’ve been asking where Junior is. He was here that night, but I haven’t seen him since. I never liked the guy, but I don’t want something bad to happen to him, either. Like, this was his dad. That’s gotta be hard news to take. He has a drug problem; I just hope he hasn’t done any harm to himself.

His own mother can’t even replace him. She has been by every day, looking for him, and I feel sorry for Gail when we have to tell her we haven’t seen him. The cops want to question him about that night, but even they can’t seem to locate him. Someone needs to be looking after him right now. This isn’t the time for him to be alone.

Dad and Kate have been working with the lawyer Mom hired to help me. I know I didn’t kill him . . . I wasn’t even awake. This lawyer doesn’t believe me. He seems to think I’m wasting time by not admitting to killing Malcolm. That he can get me a deal if I admit to it. He wants to get the charges lessened from murder to manslaughter, so I don’t end up with a life sentence.

I will not admit to something I didn’t do. I didn’t kill him. The only people who believe me here are Dad and Kate.

Dad can’t afford another lawyer for me; I wouldn’t even ask him. But Kate has suggested helping replace another one. I know she doesn’t have the money for that. Her ex-husband doesn’t even give her any child support. I overheard that conversation with my dad when they were talking about how much they would need for a lawyer. It made me sad to know that asshole doesn’t see his kids and doesn’t pay for them, either.

I said I was fine; I don’t need another lawyer. That it’s a misunderstanding and the truth will come out. Only it’s not . . . it’s not getting better.

And I’m not fine.

I’m barely holding on here. I don’t trust anyone and anything they say. My phone might be bugged, by my mom? The cops? I don’t know I just can’t take the chance. So the only messages I have sent to the guys is that I love them. They clued on fast and sent the same in return after blowing up my phone with questions on that first day. The day Malcolm died, it was on the news, everywhere.

The press has labeled me a killer. A monster.

The cops have questioned me many times about the sexual abuse my mother told them about. Asking if that’s the motive behind my killing Malcolm. I’ve told them repeatedly, until my voice was hoarse, and my eyes couldn’t see through the tears, that I didn’t kill him. That he never abused me. Not once.

He was good to me, but that’s not good enough for them. It’s not what they want to hear. They want me to confess to killing him, to get it off my chest. Live without the guilt.

The only guilt I have is not telling my dad about Asher and me. If he’d known about us, he wouldn’t have sent me back here. Malcolm would still be alive . . . at least, I hope he would be.

But once again, I’m locked in a room with my lawyer, George Batten, an old and graying man. He’s the worst lawyer I’ve ever met. I swear, Mom found him on Craigslist and is paying him peanuts. He wears an outdated, ill-fitting suit, and his briefcase is falling apart.

He can’t even organize his own paperwork. It all slips out every time he opens the case, and he can never replace mine. He never interjects when the cops ask me questions they shouldn’t; he just sits there and watches the clock. Probably counting how many peanuts he gets before going back to the circus.

I’m at the station with the same two cops who’ve interrogated me from the start, Officer Holliday, a middle-aged, balding guy, and Officer Andrews, a brunette woman in her thirties. She told me to call her by her first name, Grace. As if we were going to be best friends and I’d spill the beans to her in a “girl talk” session. She has tried girl talk multiple times. But I’m not dumb; I see what game she’s playing. My mom plays it too. Only, she’s much better at it.

Right now, I’m going over what happened that night and morning, again. Same story, over and over. Nothing new or different, since nothing else has changed.

“Malcolm wanted me to come back. He said something happened and wanted me to come back for a few days. I assumed it had to do with Mom and the baby.” I don’t mention that, when he called, I said “no” to returning and told him she’s not my mother.

“With Junior there that night, I thought maybe he wanted to tell us they were getting a divorce. They didn’t look happy. He appeared . . . somber. Mom seemed like she was trying to delay things, but Malcolm wanted us to sit down to talk. But I had a headache from crying over what happened back home with Dad. I don’t remember a thing after I sat on that couch.”

“So, you were angry at your dad, and you took it out on Malcolm.”

I grip the sides of my head and take a deep breath to stop myself from screaming at him. Holliday has been chasing this story for a week. He nods as he scribbles something on his notepad.

“No. Why don’t you listen to me?” I know why—because it looks like I killed him. From the outside looking in, I would think so too. But there is much more to this story, I just know it.

“That’s not the truth, and we know it, Mila. Let’s not dance around this again today. Let’s get this guilt that’s eating at you. I can see how much it’s affecting you; you’ve lost weight. Tell us the truth. That you killed Malcolm. His blood is on your hands.”

I look down to my shaking hands . . . blood. Thick, red blood coated them while the cops trained their guns on me. My ears rang, and I didn’t understand what was happening. I was groggy . . . so tired. Even now, I hear the voice of my mother telling them not to shoot me. That it was self-defense.

Why would I have killed him? No matter how many times I play it over in my head, I can’t understand how I ended up there.

I had no defensive wounds, no cuts on my hands, and no marks on my body at all. Yet, I had killed a grown man with a knife? Someone had stabbed him multiple times. There were defensive wounds. He had tried to fend off his attacker. He could have easily fought me off; I’m five-five on a good day, and he was at least six-three and had a hundred pounds on me.

I was wearing the same outfit I walked off the plane with. I didn’t change; I just went to bed? In the guest room? Not even my bedroom. But how did I get there? My mother wouldn’t have been able to carry me, but Malcolm could have. Did he attack me? And I killed him? But where did I get a knife from? I would have had to go to the kitchen and get one, come back and stab him, and somehow fight him off without getting one mark on me.

All these questions have been asked . . . by me. But there are no answers. The officers just stare at me like I should tell them how it all happened. Like I have the answers and am just trying to delay things.

The cops believe I did it, and to anyone on the outside, it would look like that. I had the knife in my hand, his blood on my hands and his body beside me. They just want me to say I did it and charge me. Close the case and move on. I know, because I overheard them talking about it. How they can’t just let me get away with saying it was self-defense. I already killed a man back home with a knife in self-defense and got away with it. Only I didn’t, and I can’t tell them that. I’m not a killer.

Why would I have a knife in my room? Unless it was premeditated.

“Mila, it’s okay. This is a safe space,” Grace says. “Tell us why you killed Malcolm, what really happened, and we’ll understand. We get it. He’d abused you, and it was more than you could take, so you did what you had to stop him. Then we can all go home and have a shower.”

The only reason I get to go home is because my mom always keeps up the self-defense argument, and I’m in her custody. At least I don’t have to stay here in a cell.

Fake therapist Grace is at it again. Putting stories out there and hoping I’ll cave from the pressure of being in here for hours and finally tell them I did it. I look from her to Holliday and his bald patch. He plays his bad cop to her good cop; maybe he should get an Oscar with my mother.

“You can’t deny you were holding the knife. That you were covered in his blood, and he was lying on your bed beside you. The evidence doesn’t lie, Mila. Your mother called nine-one-one as soon as she saw what had happened. She feared for her own life.”

Feared for her own life? The hell.

I let out a deep, shuddering breath and sag into the chair. I don’t speak, and I don’t look at them. Anything I say will be turned against me. My lawyer just shifts his weight on his chair, and I internally roll my eyes at him. Useless prick.

“Do you want us to play the tape of her call? You can hear how scared she is. It might help you remember what really happened,” Grace suggests.

Do I want to hear it? Of course, I do. It’s the best thing they’ve offered all day.

“Yes.” I grit out between my teeth, because I know there’s more to this story than what Mom said, and she has to know what really happened. She won’t talk to me about it, she doesn’t want to be caught in a lie herself. But I will catch her . . . it’s just a matter of time.

As I pull my sleeves down over my hands, I tuck my knees to my chest and rest my cheek on them. I want to go home. I want to hug my boys. God, it hurts so bad to think about them. It’s like a stab to the chest that I might never get to see them again.

I wait as they start the tape. The hairs on my arms raise as I hear her voice, that dramatic wailing that is obviously an act. How can they not hear that?

“Come, hurry, my husband tried to attack my daughter, and she killed him. I need help.”

I shake my head but listen as the operator explains how to give CPR to Malcolm, and she’s telling them I’m holding the knife at her, so she can’t get in the room to help him.

“I’m scared she might kill me if I try help to him. Please hurry. I’m pregnant and scared.” There’s a muffled sound and then she says, “Put down the knife. Beep. It’s okay. You’re safe now, Mila.”

I sit up taller and listen more closely and hear a beep again.

That’s the sound the refrigerator makes when the door is left open too long. And who stands in front of the fridge too long?

Junior.

“Go back.” I sit up and point at the table. “She isn’t in the room. She’s in the kitchen. Listen to the beep in the background.”

Officer Holliday’s eyes narrow, and he sits back a little, crossing his arms over his chest. But Grace gives a puzzled expression and nods, reaching for the recording. I let out a deep breath. She believes me. At least it’s a step in the right direction.

“Go back just a little bit. You will hear it. The beep warning you to close the door. Junior stands in front of the refrigerator all the time, and it beeps. Malcolm was always yelling at him to close the door.”

Holliday just points at me with a sly smile. “Ah, good try. Junior wasn’t there.”

“Yes, he was.” I swear to God. What is this guy smoking? “Malcolm Junior was there when I got to the apartment. That’s what I’ve said from the start. You never listen.”

He shifts in his chair, making himself look bigger, and I run my hands through my lifeless hair.

“So, you’re saying Junior was at the apartment when you got there, but he wasn’t when you killed your stepfather.” Grace tilts her head, and I know she wants me to say yes . . . yes, he was there and yes, I killed Malcolm. Sly bitch. I’m tired as all hell, but not that tired.

“All I remember about when I got to the apartment is the headache, Mom giving me something for it, and sitting down beside Junior. Malcolm said he had a headache as well, and Mom got him something. Then just waking up in the room with everything.”

“So, you both had a headache, and your mom got you what? Advil?”

I look up at Grace and shake my head. “She didn’t have any. She gave me two white pills.” I freeze as a shiver runs down my spine.

I knew my mom didn’t like me . . . but she could never. She wouldn’t. Not her own daughter. I look up at Grace. Holy shit. The reason I fell asleep so fast finally makes sense. I was exhausted already, and I never just pass out like that.

“She drugged me.”

She drugged me, and then she framed me.