Mia sat down next to me, pushing my coffee toward me and craning her neck to see my phone. “So, let’s see those texts.”
“I ...” God, had I sent them to someone else last night by accident? Could I have been so careless? And stupid? I flipped back to my main text page and scrolled down.
There were no texts at all from the night before.
“They aren’t on my phone,” I said, fighting to keep my breathing steady.
“Maybe you sent them to someone else,” Mia said.
“No. They’re nowhere.” I slammed my phone down on the table. “Oh God. What is happening to me now? I know I sent them. I remember texting you.”
Mia picked up my phone and started scrolling through. “You’re right. I’m not seeing anything.”
I groaned and put my head in my hands. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Well, brace yourself, because it’s about to get worse.”
I eyed Mia. Her face was solemn.
“I don’t know if I can handle any worse.”
“Maybe drink some coffee,” she said, pushing the cup closer to me.
I reached over and took a sip. “You better tell me,” I sighed.
“The cops want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Gwyn’s murder.”
Oh God. I had forgotten about Gwyn. “Wait. What?”
“Daniel called me this morning,” she said. “He told me about Gwyn. And he asked me about you. When I couldn’t find you, he told me to tell you to get yourself together because Detective Timmons would likely want you to go by the station today.”
I blinked. “Why didn’t he call me?”
Mia gave me a “duh” look. “Probably because it doesn’t look good for him to be talking to you. He’s a cop. You’re a ... person of interest.”
I closed my eyes. Of course. “Am I doomed to be a ‘person of interest’ every time there is a crime in this town?”
“Maybe.”
“So, what happened to Gwyn? How was she killed?”
Mia shook her head. “He didn’t say. But I think it happened last night, based on his reaction to me not being able to find you.”
“You mean, while I was at a bar you didn’t ask me to meet you at.” All the pieces started to slip into place. “Mia, I’m still being set up.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Set up? No, I’m sure it was just a mix up.”
“No. Someone texted me on your phone and told me to meet you there. And something happened to me. I was drugged or something. I would never have just fallen asleep in my car.”
Mia held her hand out. “Whoa. One thing at a time. How could someone text you from my phone? It was with me the whole time.”
“At work,” I said.
“Yes, I told you. I had to work late.”
“Do you carry your phone around when you’re waitressing?”
“Well, no.”
“Where is it?”
“In my locker.”
“Is your locker locked?”
Her expression looked uncertain. “Well, no. But it’s in the back off of the kitchen. Only staff can go in and out.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Positive. Someone in the kitchen would have noticed.” But she didn’t look convinced. “I mean, nothing has ever been stolen out of there before.”
“Just because nothing has been stolen that we know of doesn’t mean someone couldn’t get into the room undetected,” I said darkly.
“But, why?”
“To get to your phone,” I said. “To text me. To set me up.”
She looked at her phone. “But my phone is password protected.”
“You don’t think someone who is tech savvy could break a phone password?”
“I ... ah.” She let her hands flutter helplessly. “I guess I never thought about it before.”
“Once they texted me, they erased the messages,” I said. “They followed me to the bar and drugged me, so I spent the night sleeping in the car in the parking lot. Now, I don’t have an alibi.”
“How did they drug you?” Mia asked. “Did you leave your wine unattended? Go to the bathroom or something?”
“No, nothing like that,” I frowned. “Someone plowed into me at one point, though.”
“Plowed into you? Like, what, they were driving a car in the bar or something?”
“Not exactly. I’m not sure what he did. He was behind me, but it sure felt like he plowed into me. Knocked my wine all over the table.” I held my shirt up, showing the stain. “That’s how this happened.”
Mia peered at it. “So you left to go clean up?”
I shook my head. “No, I stayed where I was. Another woman came up and got the bartender to bring me club soda and she helped me clean it. I got another glass of wine, but I never left the table.”
“Who brought the wine to the table?”
“The bartender, I think.” I screwed up my face. “Axe.”
“There was an axe in the bar?”
“No, Axe was the name of the guy who ran into me. He seemed pretty wasted.”
“Do you think he planned it? Did you see him do anything to the wine?”
“No, nothing. I think he was too drunk.” Or was he? Could he have been acting?
“Could anyone else have?”
“The woman,” I said. “The one who helped me clean my shirt. But she didn’t touch my wine. She was focused on helping me with my shirt and making sure Axe didn’t do any further damage.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be.” I slumped over the table, putting my head in my hands. “On the other hand, someone must have put something in my wine. I only drank maybe half the glass before I left, and I started getting dizzy in the parking lot. I just don’t know who it could have been.”
An image of the bearded man with the neck tattoo flashed though my head, but I disregarded it. He was already gone when the new glass of wine appeared.
Or was he?
No, it couldn’t have been him, I told myself firmly. I would have known if he had been hovering around my table. I was sure of it.
“Well, regardless of what happened, you better get your story straight,” Mia said as she glanced at her phone. “You may want to change as well. Maybe a shower. And breakfast. I don’t know when the cops are going to appear, but you probably want to pull yourself together as much as you can before they do.”
“I’ll start with a shower,” I said, taking one last sip of coffee before getting up. My stomach felt too unsteady for food yet, but I knew I should probably try and force something down my throat, so I could also take some ibuprofen for my head.
It wasn’t until the hot water was running down my head and back that the full meaning of what Mia said sunk in.
Why would she say, “Regardless of what happened, you better get your story straight”?
Did she not believe me?
Chapter 22
I pushed open the doors and stepped outside into the heat and humidity. After the freezing cold of the police station, the sun felt so good. Even the baking asphalt and car exhaust were welcome after inhaling the scents of burnt coffee, old shoes, and despair permeating the police station.
I closed my eyes and tipped my face up to the sun, trying to calm the panicked voices in my head that were screaming about how I was about to be tossed in jail.
The interview, or interrogation, had not gone well.
I had done my best to prepare. After my shower, I forced myself to eat some toast and peanut butter along with more coffee and a couple ibuprofens. The food and medicine helped, but I still felt groggy and hung over.
I dressed carefully. Jeans, an oversized green tee shirt, tennis shoes. No makeup. I pulled my wet hair back into a ponytail. I
wanted to look clean, earnest, and honest.
And sane.
God, I needed to look like I had my act together.
I knew my story was crazy. But if I came across credible and believable, then my story would as well.
Detective Timmons was not impressed.
“So, you’re saying someone managed to drug you, without your knowledge, and left you sleeping in your car?” His tone clearly conveyed his grave reservations about my story.
“You can test my system for drugs,” I said. If he didn’t, I was already planning to order an online drug test and do it myself.
“We’ll get to that,” he said. “You’re also saying you were lured to this bar by texts from Mia, but there is no record of these texts on either of your phones.”
“But doesn’t that make my story more believable?” I asked. “Why would I make something like that up, if there were no texts to back up my story? Can’t you check with the phone company? Even if they have no record of my texts, they should be able to show there were texts going back and forth between our phones, right? “
Detective Timmons looked even less convinced. “You do realize what you’re saying seems pretty far-fetched.”
“But it’s the truth.”
He paused and tapped his pen on his notebook. “Did anyone see you?”
“How should I know?” I asked. “I was unconscious. Remember?”
He tapped his pen some more. “Do you think you drove yourself anywhere during the time when things were ‘fuzzy’?”
“When I woke up this morning, I was parked in the same place,” I said. “I would think if I were to drive anywhere, I would have driven myself home.”
“Do you think you drove yourself to Gwyn’s apartment?”
“I don’t even know where Gwyn lives,” I said, exasperated.
Detective Timmons leaned back. “Then how do you explain your car parked outside of Gwyn’s apartment last night?”
I stared at him. “That’s impossible.”
“But it’s not.”
“I was in no shape to drive anywhere,” I said. “Much less to Gwyn’s apartment, the location of which I still don’t know.”
Detective Timmons shrugged. “Your car managed to make it there.”
“It must have been a car that looked like mine,” I said. “Because my car was in the parking lot of The Jack Saloon, and I was inside it passed out, because someone drugged me.”
“So you say.”
I leaned forward. “I’m being set up, detective. That’s the only explanation for all of this.”
“Why would someone set you up? What reason would they have to do such a thing?”
“I have no idea, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Detective Timmons paused again, tapping his pen on his notebook. “Do you want to know what makes sense to me?”
I eyed him, but didn’t respond. I had the feeling I didn’t want to hear the answer.
It didn’t seem to matter, because he kept talking. “I think you were jealous of Gwyn. Maybe you were afraid your boyfriend was going to go back to her. So, you started stalking her. Maybe you were hoping to scare her. Maybe it was just a joke. But then it escalated.” He leaned closer to me, his dark eyes intent. “I don’t think you went over to her apartment last night to hurt her. I think you were just trying to work things out. But then, things got out of control, and one thing led to another and ...” his voice trailed off.
I was having trouble breathing. “That doesn’t explain Ellen,” I said through numb lips.
“You knew Ellen and Gwyn were friends. Plus, there seemed to be some bad blood in the past between you and her. Maybe you kidnapped her just to scare Gwyn, but that ended up going wrong, too.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A police detective actually thought I was capable of killing not one but TWO people.
Daniel was right. I was in deep trouble.
“I’m done talking,” I said. “I want to leave now.”
Detective Timmons’ face fell. “If you tell us the truth now, I can put a good word in for you with the DA. Let them know you cooperated. That would go a long way in helping your case.”
I stood up. My knees were shaking, and I cursed. I didn’t want him to see my weaknesses. “I have to go,” I said, moving toward the door. “I know my rights. I don’t have to stay here if I don’t want to.”
Both he and the other detective watched me leave. “Don’t wait too long to come clean,” he said. “The longer you wait, the worse it will be for you.”
It seemed to take forever to cross that tiny interrogation room, but finally, I was at the door.
All I wanted was to get out of there.
When I was finally outside in the hot parking lot, I could feel my chest start to loosen.
I still had no idea what I was going to do, but at least in this moment, I could breathe.
“Have you hired a lawyer yet?”
I opened my eyes to see Daniel leaning against his car, arms crossed. He was wearing jeans and a grey Milwaukee Brewer’s tee shirt.
I took a few steps toward him, but something in the way his body shifted caused me to pause. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“I’m taking a few days off,” he said.
“Because of me?”
“It seemed prudent,” he said. “All things considered.”
That was one way to word it. His former fiancé murdered and the new woman he’s dating suspected of killing her. God. Not only was my own life turning into a train wreck, but this mess was starting to bleed over into other people’s lives. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It is what it is.”
I shifted from one foot to another. “Did you know I was going to be here?”
“I figured you’d be here eventually. And Mia told me.”
“Did Mia also tell you what had happened to me last night? How I’m being framed?”
He didn’t quite meet my eyes. “She mentioned something.”
“What do you mean ‘she mentioned something’?”
He took off his sunglasses and raked his fingers through his hair. “Becca, now is not the time. You didn’t answer me.”
“Answer you about what?”
“Did you hire a lawyer?”
Oh. That. “Not yet,” I said.
“You should get on it. As soon as possible.”
I knew he was right. But where on earth was I going to find the money, let alone a lawyer I trusted? After marrying two lawyers and being screwed over by both of them, I wasn’t too excited about hiring another one.
“Call Jim Johnson,” Daniel said, as if reading my mind. “He’s a good guy. I asked around.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll do that.”
Daniel looked like he was going to say something more, but he changed his mind. He pushed off against his car to stand upright before opening the driver’s door and adjusting his sunglasses. “Be careful, Becca,” he said.
“I will,” I said, quickly turning away so he didn’t see the shine of tears that welled up in my eyes. The way he said it, it sounded so ... final. Like a goodbye.
Well, what did I expect, I asked myself as I headed to my own car. I had been nothing but trouble for him since the moment I moved into Aunt Charlie’s house. Did I really expect him to stick around?
I opened my door, trying to ignore the blast of hot air that hit me, and slid into the seat. I inserted my keys into the ignition, but I didn’t turn the car on. Instead, I sat there in the sweltering heat, feeling all the pieces of everything that had been happening colliding inside me.
Someone was framing me, yet no one, even Daniel, even Mia, seemed to believe me.
Speaking of Mia, had her phone just been an easy target, sitting in an unlocked locker at the
diner?
Or ... was there something else going on?
I thought about how exhausted and sick she looked lately. How she wasn’t sleeping.
How she had access to every room in the house.
Oh God. Was I really going there? Could I actually suspect one of my best friends of trying to frame me for murder?
What possible reason would she have to do that?
Suddenly, I realized I desperately needed to talk all of this through with someone.
I reached for my phone to text Daphne.
Chapter 23
“I’m glad you called,” Daphne said as I handed her a glass of wine.
We were sitting in my backyard, surrounded by a messy, dazzling, riotous sea of colors and the scents of blooming flowers. It should have been a delightful, relaxing oasis, but it wasn’t. All I could think about was how long I had left to enjoy it.
At first, I was hesitant to meet Daphne here at the house, as I didn’t want Mia or Chrissy walking in on us. But when I texted Chrissy, she informed me they were both working late. I also took the additional step of repositioning our chairs so I would be able to see them, should they come home early.
“I’m glad I called, too,” I said, realizing how much I had missed having time alone with my friend. Since Mia had moved in, it was always the three of us hanging out, which of course was nice … but it was also nice to just be alone with Daphne.
“So, what’s going on?” she asked.
“How much do you know?” I asked glumly.
She sighed, reaching over to squeeze my hand. “Why don’t you just start from the beginning? Just talk, and then we can sort it out together.”
So I did. I told her everything—from the first emails to Mia’s strange behavior to the bizarre chain of events from the night before.
She listened quietly, occasionally sipping her wine. She didn’t interrupt me with questions—she just let me talk.
When I was done, I slumped over, as exhausted as if I had just run a marathon. My muscles even ached.
“Wow,” Daphne said. “I’m not sure where to even start.”
“How about here—do you believe me?” I kept my head down, staring at my wine. If I heard even a hint of hesitation in her voice, I wasn’t sure what I would do.
The Evil That Was Done (Secrets of Redemption Book 3) Page 19
