Siding With The Killer

18) Unless I Had A Death Wish

EIGHTEEN

            By the time I got to the police station, Claudia had been walking out, shrugging on her Ladakh Blanket stripe jacket, which looked too ugly to serve as a circus tent. She wrapped her arms around herself, looking both slightly cold and slightly angry. For the first day of April, I wasn’t off to a great start. As she stormed down the sidewalk, I quickly unbuckled my seatbelt and threw open my car door. I stood up and waved my arm to catch her attention.

            “Claudia!”

            She turned, searching for the person who had called her. After locking her eyes on me, her pissed off expression became furious. She glared at me as I waved her over. Claudia ignored me, turned and kept walking. I rolled my eyes, she was being ridiculous. I watched her stomp away from me until in a matter of seconds, April’s showers started to kick in. A few drops trickled down the side of my face and I quickly climbed back into my car, shielding my hair and make up from the rain.

            I drove forward until my car was beside Claudia. I lowered my window and she looked straight ahead, ignoring me. “Get in the car, Claudia,” I commanded. She kept marching forward, jumping when we heard thunder. “Claudia, I’m serious.”

            With another boom of thunder, rain went from drizzling to pouring and it didn’t take long until Claudia and her ugly jacket were soaked. She glanced at my car with temptation, but kept walking. As she came to the end of the street to wait for the light to turn red, I pulled up beside her and reached over to swing my passenger door open.

            “Goddamn it, Claudia! Get in the freaking car!” I shouted over the sound of thunder and showering rain. She reluctantly climbed into my car, looking forward, not once looking in my direction. I rolled my eyes and stepped on the pedal hard as the light turned green, throwing Claudia forward, since she hadn’t bothered to put on her seatbelt.

            “Seatbelt for safety, Claudia, darling,” I smirked. She scowled at me as she clicked on her seatbelt. She still refused to speak to me, but I didn’t care. All she had to do was sit there and hear what I had to say. All she had to know was that I didn’t tip her off to the cops- that is was Topher.

            “How’d you get out? Did you offer free babysitting?” I asked, sarcastically.

            “I denied the accusations you made and they sent me home since I had no history with these kind of things,” Claudia answered, frowning at me.

            “I didn’t tell the cops about your secret, so quit it with the attitude,” I defended as I turned a sharp corner, tossing Claudia’s side into the door of the passenger seat. She rubbed her arm.

            “Whatever,” She shrugged, her forehead creased. It was obvious she didn’t believe me and that she was still pissed.

            “What about you, huh?” I questioned.

            “What?”

            “I’m so bad because you think I told your secret. I’m so bad because you can’t trust me,” I began. “Why are you the victim when you’re the untrustworthy one?”

            Claudia opened her mouth to defend herself but no words came out. She looked at me, bewildered, and then closed it. She didn’t know how to respond. Claudia knew I was right.

            “You lure parents into trusting you with their kid only to leave with their family heirlooms. It’s probably because you’ve got the whole big-toothy-smile-with-adorable-eyes-too-big-for-my-face look to trick them into thinking you’re some kind of angel,” I scoffed. “Why do you do that, anyway?”