Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“That’s not the case,” I admitted. “His horses are gone. His house is cleaned out. And he put a leave of absence in at work. Paul Junior told me about that today.”
Both women stared at me. Both equally sisters in their own right.
Though, Birdee was clearly nowhere near as close to me as Cody.
“That’s fucking bullshit,” Birdee declared. “Who just leaves like that and doesn’t say goodbye?”
“We never made any promises to each other,” I admitted. “We just slept together. That’s it. We didn’t exchange any promises or words other than very shallow thoughts. He didn’t know how I felt about him at all.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Cody scowled. “That really pisses me off.”
“Did we just agree on something?” Birdee looked at Cody.
Cody flipped her off, and Birdee smiled.
I, on the other hand, looked between the two like they were nuts.
“Did y’all become friends without me?” I asked.
Because I wasn’t quite there yet with Birdee. Every time I looked at her, I felt like I was looking at an enemy.
That wasn’t something that I could just turn off overnight.
“Not quite yet,” Cody admitted. “Maybe we’ll get there. We can bond over the bullshit that is Romeo.”
I smiled sadly. “How about we talk about anything but?”
I plugged the computer in, then powered it up.
It went straight into the computer home, skipping the part that asked you to enter a password.
“Did you sign into this already?”
“I did,” Birdee admitted. “Well, Dad did. He left it open, and when he gave it to me, I just took it.”
I started poking around. “Did you look on it?”
“No,” she admitted. “I wasn’t kidding when I said that I suck at computers. I didn’t want to mess anything up, so I just brought it here.”
“Well, let’s just change all these settings and make it stay on until we want it to turn off,” Cody suggested, taking the computer over from me and pressing a ton of buttons.
Moments later it was on the counter between all of us. “What do you think that file folder on the desktop is?”
“It’s all the evil deeds she’s done to us over the course of our lives,” I quipped.
She clicked on it and photos, as well as a few Word docs, started to pop up.
“Whoa.” Cody leaned forward. “Isn’t that…”
She clicked on a news article and my breath caught in my throat.
Romeo.
Only, it wasn’t the Romeo I knew. It was a photo with an accompanying article featuring a much younger Romeo.
Murder He Wrote
* * *
Six months ago, Romeo Hayes Rossi, twenty-four, of Dallas, Texas, beat and caused the man his wife was having an affair with to go into a coma. With the overwhelming evidence stacking against him, things are not looking good for Rossi.
* * *
When asked among his friends in his neighborhood, they all had nothing but good to say about him.
* * *
Romeo cleaned up our streets and made it safe for our children to play outside. He didn’t hurt anybody, least of all this man. Whatever evidence the cops were able to collect was planted. Romeo wouldn’t hurt anyone. Says one concerned citizen.
* * *
Romeo helped keep my family’s bakery open. They cleaned up the riffraff that were trying to make it impossible to keep the business open. Every morning he’s the first one there to buy a pastry. If he did it, I’ll give up my spot in the bakery business. He’s all class and doesn’t deserve to be put through the wringer for false accusations. Another neighbor shares.
* * *
Jury deliberation starts at eight in the morning sharp. More updates will be in tomorrow’s edition of Dallas Times.
I swallowed hard at the article in bold.
Cody clicked out of it without a word and moved on to the next article.
This one was simple.
Romeo Rossi sentenced to life in prison for the attempted murder of Camden James.
Another swift inhale.
“Oh, shit.”
I looked from the article that Cody had pulled up to the one that’d pulled up to the side of the other article.
Romeo Rossi, among others, prison break gone wrong.
I inhaled swiftly as I stared in shock at the image of a dead man covered in a white sheet partially stuck in a half broken-down wall. The photo underneath that showed the wall in comparison to some sky-high fences with razor wire on top.
Romeo Rossi, the man sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife’s affair partner, was killed late Monday night in his attempt to break out of prison along with four other men. The other four men, listed in the mug shot photos below, were also serving life sentences. Now, five men are deceased, and the penitentiary in Huntsville will be taking their time to do a complete audit of the prison’s “high end” security.
Cody kept clicking, but I’d seen enough.
Did you kill someone?