Page 22 of Ash and Poison

“Run, little deer, run, little deer, run. Bang.” He mimicked a gunshot as I turned around.

Seething, I walked away, leaving his arrogant ass behind. It took me a lot to not punch him in the face.

“Hi, Doctor Sharma,” a familiar voice said from behind me.

I turned to see Vincent walking toward me, his face pinched.

“Hi,” I said. “Something wrong?”

“I’m coming from the coroner’s office,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Looks like the killer used something sharp and pointed. Not a regular knife. The wound patterns are all off,” he said as we reached my office.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door for him.

“Come in, Sheriff Bricks.” Motioning him to a chair, I settled behind the desk. “Is there anything else?”

“The coroner’s been trying to find the weapon that matches the wound pattern, but no luck,” Vincent muttered. “The weapon might have been custom-made. Doctor T wasn’t just murdered. The killer tortured him for information. Whoever did it was after something.”

“It looks like that.”

He paused, glancing up briefly before his eyes flickered back to mine. “Asher Maddox is your patient, right?” His voice went down a notch. “You told me you didn’t trust him.”

“That doesn’t mean I think he’s a killer.”

“Do you think he could be involved somehow?” he asked, his expression inscrutable.

“I don’t know,” I said, my voice steady despite the surge of unease trickling down my spine.

“What does your gut say? Do you think he’s capable of something like this?”

Oh! That was straightforward.

“From what I’ve seen, he isn’t violent. He mostly keeps to himself. I just don’t see him killing someone in cold blood.”

Lies.

It came naturally to me. Some truths were even harder to speak than lies. I had lived in a place where truths were often punished with hunger.

Martha, our foster mother, conditioned us to lie whenever she didn’t want to hear about her husband’s misdeeds.

“You don’t know him like I do. He had anger-management issues,” Vincent said.

“Maybe in the past.”

“But when you grow up resenting half the world for your misfortune… Do you think that kind of anger just vanishes with age?”

Vincent didn’t have any solid evidence yet—he had come to fish. If I just agreed with the sheriff, all my problems would disappear. But I’d be bored again. The chase was fun and exhilarating. The chase made me feel alive.

“His anger stemmed from a deeply traumatic incident that had happened in the past. His friend, Riley, killed herself and...”

Vincent went pale. Sweat trailed down his cheeks as he rubbed his cheek, his eyes flickering away from mine.

“You knew her, didn’t you? What happened to Riley?”

“Riley was a disturbed girl. We tried to save her, but It was horrible, the way she died, but no one could have done anything to stop it.” His voice was defensive, like he was trying to explain that he wasn’t to blame for her death. “Doctor T was the one who treated her, so he was investigated. But of course, he was cleared. He had nothing to do with Riley’s suicide.”

Vincent could be telling the truth, or he just didn’t know the full truth. Some men learned to hide their secrets so deep that they became nonexistent.

I had lived with one such man. I knew how good they were at manipulating the masses.