Read Online See Me by Nicholas Sparks - Free Book Online

about?”
    “No,” Colin answered.
    “You sure about that?”
    Colin watched Margolis instead of answering. He knew the guy would eventually get around to whatever he wanted to say.
    Margolis moved his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “There was a brawl in the parking lot at Crazy Horse a little after midnight. A bunch of guys swinging bottles at each other; a few cars in the lot got dented up and there was a man knocked unconscious. Witnesses said he’d been kicked in the head after he was on the ground. Right now, he’s in the hospital with a cracked skull. That’s assault with a deadly weapon, you know, and as soon as I heard about it, I thought to myself how familiar that sounded. Didn’t I arrest you for something like that right here in Wilmington? Just a few years ago? And haven’t you been in a couple of scrapes since then?”
    Margolis already knew the answers, but Colin answered anyway. “Yes to the first. No to the second.”
    “Oh, that’s right. Because your friends intervened. The goofy guy and the hot blond chick, right?”
    Colin said nothing. Margolis stared. Colin continued to wait until Margolis finally went on.
    “That’s why I’m here, by the way.”
    “Okay.”
    “Just okay?”
    Colin said nothing. He had learned to say as little as possible in the presence of the police.
    “Put yourself in my shoes,” Margolis finally went on. “The thing is, pretty much everyone scattered as soon as the sirens started closing in. A couple of witnesses stuck around and I talked to them, but I figured I was just wasting my time. It’s a lot easier to go straight to the source, don’t you think?”
    Colin hitched his backpack a little higher on his shoulder. “Are we done here?”
    “Not quite. I don’t think you understand what’s going on.”
    “I understand. But none of this concerns me. I wasn’t there.”
    “Can you prove that?”
    “Can you prove otherwise?”
    Margolis took a sip of his coffee, then fished a fresh toothpick from his pocket. He took his time placing it in his mouth. “That almost sounds like you’re trying to hide something.”
    “It was just a question,” Colin said.
    “All right, then. Let’s get to the questions. Where were you Saturday night?”
    “In Jacksonville.”
    “Oh yeah,” he said. “The fight. MMA stuff, right? You told me about that. Did you win?”
    Margolis didn’t care and Colin knew it. He watched Margolis take another sip of coffee.
    “The point is, we were able to get a couple of descriptions from the witnesses, and it turns out that the guy who did the kicking was in his midtwenties, muscular with tattoos on his arms and short brown hair, almost a buzz cut. And wouldn’t you know it, it turns out that the guy was pretty bruised up even
before
the fight started. People had seen him inside. And because I knew you’d just been fighting in Jacksonville… well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened.”
    Colin wondered how much, if any, of Margolis’s story was true. “Do you have any other questions for me?”
    Margolis shifted the toothpick again while setting his coffee on the hood. “Were you at the Crazy Horse on Saturday night?”
    “No.”
    “You didn’t even stop by? For a few minutes?”
    “No.”
    “And if I have a witness that says he saw you there?”
    “Then he’s lying.”
    “But you’re not.”
    Again, Colin didn’t answer. There was no reason to. And part of him suspected that even Margolis knew it, because after a long moment, he crossed his arms, his muscles flexing almost – but not entirely – involuntarily. If the detective really had something, Colin knew he would have already been arrested.
    “All right,” Margolis said. “Then answer this: Where were you between midnight and one a.m. on Sunday?”
    Colin sorted through his memory. “I wasn’t watching the clock. But I was either about to leave Trey’s Diner on Highway 17, or driving home, or changing some