Twisted Innocence (Moonlighters Series Book 3) by Terri Blackstock

surprised that night. If you did it all the time, they wouldn’t have been. Your family will get over it. Mine will too, if they ever learn the truth that I didn’t walk up to some guy and put a gun to the back of his head and blow his skull off.”
    She stared at him, not sure she believed him. “Okay—what happened, then?”
    “There was a big drug bust. Several dealers got arrested, and some idiot decided I was the snitch. They had to make an example of me.”
    “So I’m a sitting duck here with you, waiting for your maniac friends to come kill you if the police don’t get here first?”
    “It’s not an ideal situation.”
    “Not ideal? Are you crazy? Do you know how many years you could get for kidnapping? That’s what you’re doing here, Creed. Kidnapping!”
    “I’m not a criminal.”
    “You are now.” She saw the war being waged on his face, so she changed her strategy. Lowering her voice, she said, “Let me go, and I won’t tell the police. I can keep my mouth shut.”
    “Why would you? You don’t believe me.”
    She honestly didn’t know if she did. He seemed sincere, but criminals could be manipulators. “Creed, listen to me. When the cops came to my house looking for you, I researched you to see what was going on. There isn’t a warrant out for your arrest yet. They just want you for questioning. You’re just a person of interest. If you got a lawyer and turned yourself in, you could tell them what really happened. If you didn’t do it, you probably have an alibi, right? Some proof of where you were?”
    “That’s the thing. I don’t. They were holding me while ithappened. They planned it all out from the beginning. A way to take us both down. Me and Loco, the guy who was killed. I was there.”
    “At the murder scene?”
    His mouth twitched as he seemed to struggle with his emotions. “It’s all so insane, me dealing drugs. I was waiting tables and wasn’t making enough. I could have gone to work for my dad, but I didn’t want to depend on him. I needed to pay bills, and I didn’t want to ask my parents for money, so I wound up selling weed. Then I figured I could make more selling coke. Just a little here and there, to friends who were going to buy anyway. But after a few weeks, I told my supplier I wanted out. Next thing I know, the DEA drug bust happens. I guess it looked suspicious that I got out right before that happened. My suppliers suspected Loco too, because he was arrested for dealing a few days before the bust, and then the police let him go with a tiny bond. They thought he had made a deal with the police, and if you ask me, he probably did.”
    “So you saw who killed him?”
    “Yes. They shot him right in front of me.” His face glistened with sweat, and his trembling hand came up to wipe his mouth. “It’s not like in the movies. It was sick . . . worst thing I ever saw. One of the guys cut me . . . knife across the ribs.”
    He lifted his shirt, showed Holly the newly healing cut. She sucked in a breath.
    “It wasn’t a deep cut, but I was bleeding. Miller told me to take my shirt off to blot it, and when I did, he shoved the gun into my hand and put the knife into Loco’s. I realized they were staging the scene, and I dropped my shirt and the gun and made a run for it. They shot at me and chased me, but I got away.”
    Holly tried to picture the scene. “Why didn’t you go straight to the police?”
    “You don’t understand,” he said. “Those guys have people there. They have people everywhere. They’re looking for me. They want me dead.”
    “They’re not omniscient, like God. Maybe you’re overestimating them.”
    “I’m not, okay? I’m not.”
    Silence hung heavy over the motor home as Holly played out the scene in her head. Finally, Creed said, “I would have been a good father, I think. I had a great family. Good parents.”
    “Had? What are you, dead already?”
    He didn’t answer, and she realized that he didn’t expect to survive