The whole time you spoke to the person, you were trying to read between the lines as well.
What were they going to do next?
What did the eye shift and shoulder shrug mean?
And I’d been watching all of this for going on two hours now.
Leaving the woman, Cinder Murphy, with her lawyer, Alex came out and joined us in the room attached to the one he’d been in
“What do you think?”
I didn’t take my eyes off her as I answered. “I don’t think her tears were fake. Her recent memory recollection is to the left and slightly down. Her farther back memory is to the top right, and she accessed it about sixty percent of the time. When you asked her who took Mrs. Johansen’s medication, she blinked rapidly, signaling increased anxiety and adrenaline.”
There was a misassumption that it was an exact science—everybody looks in one precise direction if they were lying. No, it was individual to each person, so you had to watch and read everything they were doing when they answered carefully.
DB was standing with his arms crossed, watching and listening to Cinder and her lawyer whispering. “I agree with Logan, and,” he glanced at me, “I’m kind of impressed right now you paid that much attention to the body language course.”
“Pays to be able to understand body language if you go into a situation thinking someone’s innocent, then they pull a gun or knife on you, or totally lose their shit and attack you.” The latter was something I had a lot of experience of, the former only a little experience, but it only took once for you to approach calls differently.
Moving to stand between us, Alex copied his son’s pose and frowned at the two people in the room in front of us. “What else did you see?”
“When you asked her if she knew about what’d happened, she did a lot of grooming inside her mouth with her tongue when she replied with that long-winded story.”
“Damn,” DB murmured, “he’s right. I saw that but didn’t add it to my list.”
“That’s important, son. The buildup of proteins inside the mouth happens because of increased anxiety, so the suspect will instinctually lick around their cheeks and where they feel it gathering.”
“That can happen if someone’s stressed because they’re innocent, though.”
Clapping DB on the shoulder, Alex pointed out, “That’s where the rest of the body language and the context of the situation all come into play to help you make a choice.” Then, turning to me, he asked, “What do you think?”
“I don’t think she’s guilty of all of the crime,” I hedged. “I do think she was part of it and is covering for Diego Mantoya, though.”
The crime itself was breaking and entering into an elderly lady called Mrs. Albright’s home, knocking her out with one punch to the eighty-eight-year-old woman’s face. They then stole cash, jewelry, and her medications, some of which they’d be able to sell for a lot of money, given that it included drugs like Gabapentin and Morphine.
We’d found three sets of fingerprints on the jewelry box and medicine cabinet that didn’t belong to her or her daughter and had traced them back to Cinder Murphy, Diego Mantoya, and one unknown suspect.
The key was getting her to talk.
“Why don’t you send in Logan?” Garrett asked, laughing in the doorway. “When she saw him as we were bringing her through, she stopped and practically drooled.”
The two Bells—DB and Alex—looked at me, making me feel uncomfortable.
“You up for it?”
Was I?
Cracking my knuckles, I nodded toward the door. “Let’s do it, but you’re coming in with me,” I told Alex, needing the support for this.
As we entered the room, the shifty-looking lawyer sneered at me. “Is it rookie day?”
Ass wank.
Ignoring the guy, Alex introduced me to Cinder, and both of us made to sit down on the uncomfortable plastic chairs. Thanks to my nerves and how uncomfortable I was, I dragged mine and made the feet screech loudly across the floor.
Thankfully it acted as an ice breaker. “My bad, I apologize for that.”
Cinder burst out laughing, and miraculously so did the skeezy lawyer.
“I hate it when my chair does that. Like, in high school, I was always in trouble ‘cause we had these stools that were old and falling apart. If you breathed, it made it sound like an owl screeching,” Cinder giggled.
Leaning in, I smiled gently, and started on the basics of making her comfortable so that I could read her body language correctly like I’d been taught. “That must have been really embarrassing. Which school did you go to?”
Her blink rates were normal, and she looked slightly down to her left. “One in Kansas that you’ve never heard of. It’s kind of a small town, so people don’t really know it.”
The lawyer, aka the skeezy rat, sighed and drummed his fingers on the table, but no one paid him any attention.
“Did you just move here recently?”
Her whole body tensed slightly, and her jaw shifted. “Yeah, only five weeks ago.”
Hoping to keep her relaxed for as long as possible, I asked more questions about her childhood, her favorite things about Piersville, and her favorite places that she’d been to, all the while gauging her responses. I’d been right before with where her eyes went to for farther back memories and more recent ones. Awesome.
Knowing the time was right, I asked gently, “Where did you meet Diego Mantoya?”
When she looked up to the left, I discreetly watched the rest of her body language as she replied. “I only just met him at a party. He’s a friend of a friend type of guy, so I don’t really know him at all.”
After a couple more questions about the party and the friend, she started to change her answers.
“We’d been hanging out, and when he said he needed to visit his grandma, I didn’t think anything of it.” Nodding encouragingly at her, I kept my body language relaxed. “I wasn’t even inside the house when he and his brother went in. I stayed outside and had a smoke.”
That was strange, seeing as how his brother wasn’t involved in things usually. “Cullan Watts was there?”
“No, Ashesh. At least, he introduced him as his brother.”
After getting identifying details for Ashesh, she confirmed she’d be able to work with our artist on getting a sketch together.
Looking at her lawyer for confirmation, he sneered, “My client intends to work with you fully to clear her name.”
“I appreciate that,” I murmured, looking down at the paper with fingerprints on it that Alex slid across the table to me. “The thing is, Cinder, we found fingerprints on some items of furniture in the house. We’ve cross-referenced them with the ones we took when you first came in, and they match. Can you tell us how they got there?”
What followed was hell on my brain. She twitched, she grasped at excuses, she backtracked, and then she broke.
“He pulled me inside and made me go through drawers and shit to find everything possible. The medicine cabinet kept closing, so he made me hold it while he emptied everything—and she had a lot of stuff in there. It was orange bottles, not stuff you get in a store, you know?”
“We know,” I assured her, leaning forward to show her I was genuine. “The problem is, Cinder, a lot of the medications in there are serious. If someone takes them, it could easily kill them, so we need to find out where they could be. The lady also has a heart problem, so if she hadn’t been taken into hospital after Diego knocked her out, she might have died without them.”
Chewing on her lower lip, she mumbled, “That’s bad shit. I don’t want anyone to die because of me.”
“So you understand why we need to track them down?”
Taking a deep breath, she flashed me a wide smile. “I do. I think I know where he has them.”
Holding his hand in the air, Alex asked, “You think, or you know?”
“Oh, I know. Diego didn’t tell me they could kill someone, and I’m not down with t
hat. I ran out of the house as soon as I could, but I should have called 911 for the old lady.”
And that’s how we ended up paying a ‘visit’ to one of the newly built houses, right across the road from where Jarrod Klein and his fiancée lived.
The proximity to him was just as well because we were grateful for the water in their faucets by the time we were done, thanks to the pepper spray bombs that went off ‘accidentally’ during it.
Being the kind people we were, we also helped out Diego, and his non-brother brother, Ashesh, who’d been separating the pills into baggies when we’d turned up.
That didn’t mean any of us came out of it without some sort of problem.
They’d grabbed modified canisters that continued spraying without someone holding the trigger on them and had thrown them around the small room when we went in thinking they were smoke bombs, and releasing pepper spray that burned your eyes, skin and lungs.
The thing was, Diego Mantoya was a skinny little kid whose real name was Jordy Watts. He just used the other name to scare people into thinking he was some big-time guy, and when he met with people, he introduced himself as one of Diego’s enforcers. It was Ashesh who ended up being the one we should’ve worried about.
At two-hundred and eighty pounds, he hit me like a linebacker before using my chest as a trampoline to launch off of as he tried to escape. Fortunately, I had quick hands, and even with no oxygen in my lungs and my eyes burning, I managed to grab onto him and hold on for life.
As it was, DB had needed to get his eyes flushed, and Garrett was going to have some wicked swollen eyes for a while after he’d reacted badly to it. My throat that like I’d rubbed it raw with acid, and my sinuses were so full, it felt like they were overflowing out my eyes. And that didn’t even take into account the bruises from the bull, Ashesh.
Once it was all done and they were transferred back to the department for questioning and a stay in the cells, I walked out, knowing I was going to go to the only person who could clear my mind of my day. I was struggling to see and was a total mess, but I didn’t even think about not going to her.
I didn’t have my Bexley back yet, but at least she was here, and was talking to me. Every moment I could take with her was something that soothed my soul. For seven years I’d had something eating away inside me, missing her and hating myself for what’d happened. Now that she was back, it’d changed to wanting and needing her.
She was the one person who’d ever made me feel whole. And I needed her back.
I just hoped she didn’t have that damn dog with her.
Chapter Four
Bexley
It was just a house. Houses existed everywhere.
So why couldn’t I just walk up to it? I had the keys in my hand and knew how to unlock a door—
“You doh,” a deep voice with what sounded like blocked sinuses said behind me, making me jump. “Dust pud the key in de lock and open dit.”
Turning, my jaw dropped when I saw Logan. His face was pink, but it was his eyes. Holy shit, they were swollen and bright red.
Instinctively I reached out to touch his face, then turned it to the side to look more closely at his eye. “What the hell happened to you?”
Pulling a tissue out of his pocket, he blew his nose loudly. “A kid wid pepper prays.”
“A kid with pepper spray?”
With his sinuses cleared slightly, it was slightly easier to understand him. “Yeah. Dey dot it wad a fog bomb, but pigged up da wrong oned.”
“Jesus,” I breathed, watching his eyes start watering again. “How many did they throw?”
“Dree, in a smalled room.”
“Three?” I winced when he nodded.
I’d been downwind when an old lady maced a guy she thought was trying to steal her purse, and that shit was no fun. Three of them in a small room? Damn!
“Have you seen a doctor?”
Taking pity on him with how hard he was squinting, I pulled my pink mirrored Ray-Bans out of the neck of my t-shirt and passed them to him. He didn’t even think about it, he just popped them on his face and sighed.
Not waiting for an answer to my previous question, I pulled my phone out. “Stand still. I want a photo of someone wearing them whose face matches the color of the lenses.”
Humor—it was what we used to have all the time, and I was hoping the awkwardness between us would go away if I brought it back. And, because I was slightly twisted, I really did want the photo, so I took it with him giving me the middle finger.
“Now that’s one for your Christmas cards this year,” I snickered, holding it up so he could see it too.
The grin he flashed would’ve made me sigh, even with the bad juju hanging over us, but the small line of snot making its way out of his nose made me cringe.
“You might wanna…” I pointed under my nose, staring at the patch that was growing.
Why wasn’t it dropping down? Surely gravity would do that?
Pulling out the tissue again, he wiped, but on the wrong side. “Danks.”
“No, the other side. Dear God, Logan, catch it before it goes in your damn mouth!”
The most puke-worthy thing happened then. He wiped the correct side, but a string attached itself to the tissue and followed it.
My stomach compressed at the sight, making a “hurgurt” noise come out of me at the same time as I covered my mouth.
Turning his back to me, he blew his nose loudly and then turned around again and shrugged. “Dorry. It’s liked my dinuses are workinged overdime.”
As gross as it was—and as someone with a weak constitution when it came to stuff like that, it was hell—it’d defused the emotions I was feeling at the prospect of knowing I was going into Pops’ house for the first time since he’d died.
“Are they going to be like that for long?”
“Only ‘til my deyes dop watering and my dose dops’d doing da snod ding.”
“Did they give you any idea how long your nose would take to stop doing the snot thing?”
Shaking his head, he tried breathing through his nose and grimaced when that ended up with snot going into his mouth. Remembering how sick stuff like that made me, he held his hand up and turned away again to do whatever he had to do. A six foot three inch tall man blowing his snotty nose was still as gross as a kid doing, and I’d argue my ass off if anyone said otherwise.
Enough. I couldn’t stand and watch this for much longer, or I’d throw up. Head colds were torture for me because of this, and when we were at school, I’d had to leave to be sick when someone had one a lot. Don’t even get me started on when I had one myself. It was pure hell! I liked to think I’d outgrown it, but this was proof I hadn’t.
Glaring at the front door, I made my choice. “Okay, I’m going to do it. I can do it.”
A large hand gripped my shoulder comfortingly and also gave me strength. “Wand me do comed wid you?”
Glancing over it, I smiled gratefully at him. “Would you mind? I’ll understand if you’re not up to it.”
Pointing at the pink glasses still on his face, he shook his head. “I’m good, dese help.” Then, looking around us, he frowned. “Where’d Doyle?”
Smirking at how much Pops’ dog hated him, I winked. “He’s at home with Mom and Dad, so you’re safe. I didn’t want to upset him by bringing him here just yet.”
When he rolled his eyes, I squared my shoulders and walked up to the door, and somehow managed to get the key into the lock even with a shaking hand.
The smell of him and a million memories of being here with Pops hit me at once, and it was like losing him all over again. I felt pain and happiness, and like I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.
None of it felt real, even the funeral.
I just wanted him back, and it sucked that it’d never happen.
Only just holding back the tears, I walked into the living room and saw his chair, the one he’d sat in since way before I was born. The cushion had the two indentatio
ns in it from his ass cheeks, his book was still on the floor where it’d fallen when he’d had the heart attack, and his empty mug was on the end table with his glasses next to it. It was like he’d just left it, not like he’d been gone for almost two weeks.
“How—” I croaked, reaching up to rub my throat. “How am I meant to live here?”
Hearing Logan blow his nose again, I almost laughed. “You hold ondo da memories, and you creade newd ones.”
“Nude or new?”
“Dew.”
“I always wanted him to tear down the wood paneling from the walls. There’s even some on the ceilings in a couple of rooms. I hate it,” I whispered. “I also don’t like the dark red in this room or the bright yellow in the bathrooms. The old appliances in the kitchen need to be updated…” I stopped and thought about it. “The whole kitchen needs to be updated if I’m honest. I just don’t know if I can.”
I was overwhelmed by it all, but then he offered, “I can’d help’d you.”
“Where do I start?”
Grabbing my hand, he tugged me toward the glass doors that led out to the large yard at the back. “We go droo id droom by droom and make a lisd.”
So that’s what we did. We went through each room in the house apart from his bedroom, listing what needed to be changed. I knew this was what Pops wanted me to do, so I pushed down how uncomfortable and wrong it felt and went with it.
If I took it on one room at a time, it might make it easier. But I couldn’t touch his bedroom yet. I wasn’t ready for that.
What made it easier was that Logan never let go of my hand once. It was strange, and it didn’t feel like it used to, but something about it helped keep me sane.
We had a long list of stuff to do by the end, and my eyes were almost watering at how expensive it was going to be. I was going to turn part of the basement into a laundry room and just redecorate the rest of it once the wooden paneling was down. I had a preference for light colors, so I was going to paint the whole house white.
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