"No problem, but whoever she is, don't do anything too extreme."
"She?"
"Yes. When I knocked her down, I realized she was a woman."
Russell shrugged, bent down to turn the face-down Lori over, then peeled off the ridiculous baby mask.
The grinning baby-face mask, with its exaggeratedly deep facial contours, cast heavy shadows under the nighttime lighting, making it look exceptionally creepy.
"Lori? How could it be... It shouldn't have been her..."
Seeing the face beneath the mask, Tali covered her mouth in horror. No matter what, she could not imagine that the person trying to kill her would be her roommate.
She had always thought that, even if their relationship was merely ordinary and they were not intimate best friends, they were still much closer than she was with the other sorority members.
Tali covered her mouth and collapsed against the headboard, silently crying as she struggled to accept reality. Her eyeshadow blurred in her tears, turning her face into a mess.
At a time like this, offering a broad shoulder or chest and sweetly comforting her with a few cheesy lines would basically guarantee a home run. But Russell merely curled his lip and pulled a coat from the closet to drape over her.
He truly had no such intentions. After talking heart-to-heart through telepathy, he had lost all interest.
Tali wailed a few times. Seeing that Russell had no intention of comforting her, she began doubting her own charm and asked, "Officer, why did Lori want to kill me? We were clearly good friends... I think!"
"I don't know that. I'll take her back to the station and question her about her motive. If you still want to know the reason then, I'll tell you the truth."
Russell shrugged. He was just an ordinary police officer