Arresting Developments. Lena Diaz

you erased your footprints, again, to make sure that I didn’t look bad if I’d kept my word and said I was alone after the crash and that no one helped me. Do I have that right? You were protecting me? Again?”

      “Can we get to what matters please?”

      “What matters to me is that everything everyone else is telling me about you makes you out to be a killer. But everything—every single thing that I’ve personally experienced with you—tells me the opposite. You seem to me like an intelligent, warm, caring person who puts everyone else’s welfare above her own. Why aren’t you berating me for telling about you helping me after I promised I wouldn’t?”

      “It wasn’t your fault. We already discussed this. You were delirious. And it wasn’t a fair promise anyway—to ask someone who doesn’t know me to lie for me. I’m sorry I asked. I shouldn’t have.”

      “You’re doing it again.”

      She tugged her hands and this time he let them go, although seemingly reluctantly. She clasped her hands beneath the table again. “Look, Mr. Lassiter—”

      “Dex.” He grinned “We’ve slept together. I think we can use first names after that, don’t you?”

      She blinked. “I don’t know what you think you remember, but we most certainly have not slept together.”

      “I’m wounded. You don’t remember us lying together beside the fire? You stayed with me all night, and we both slept, off and on.” He winked.

      She leaned across the table and thumped it impatiently. “Will you be serious? Please?”

      “Oh, I’m always serious about...sleeping.”

      She threw her hands up. “I can see this is going nowhere. You might as well leave. I’ll talk to that lawyer of yours again and tell him—”

      “He’s your lawyer now, too.”

      She swallowed hard. “Yes... I suppose. Ah, thank you for that. I promise that I’ll pay you back one day. As soon as I can get out on bail, I’ll look into a court-appointed lawyer.”

      “I wouldn’t advise that. Garreth’s one of the best around, even if he doesn’t practice criminal law anymore. He’ll make sure to arrange an equally competent criminal attorney. Murder charges are far too serious to skimp on representation. Florida isn’t shy about sticking needles in people’s arms. The death penalty is nothing to play around with.”

      She swallowed hard. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

      “Well, I have. This is serious, Amber. Your life is at stake.”

      “Aren’t you even going to ask if I did it?”

      “No.”

      “Why not?”

      He shrugged. “Because I know that you didn’t kill him. You’re not built that way. You could have left me to die out in the swamp. But even though you knew it might mean getting caught and going to jail, you helped me. If you did that for a stranger, I have no doubt you would never have done anything to harm your family.”

      “Thank you,” she whispered. “You have no idea how good it feels to have someone actually believe in me.”

      His smile faded. “Yeah, about that. I’m guessing your aunt Freddie hasn’t exactly been supportive. She certainly doesn’t strike me as someone in your court.”

      “Well, you can’t really blame her. Grandpa was her daddy.”

      “And yet he left most everything to you. Not her. That seems rather telling.”

      She shrugged. “They never had the best relationship.”