by A J Sherwood
“What’s she like?” Donovan prompted.
“Nice,” I answered, a little baffled. “Not like her sister at all. If I met this girl at a party, I would want to befriend her.”
“Huh.” Donovan twisted to look at her properly for a moment, eyes roving from her head to feet and back again. “So, nothing like her sister?”
“Not that I can tell at this moment.” I kept the sunglasses off, dangling from my right hand, as she greeted the captain and took the opposite chair.
“Thank you so much for digging into this,” Lisa told Olivia with a genuine smile. “I’m afraid it’s been blown out of proportion. Alice does that sometimes.”
“You consider your sister shooting a man to be ‘out of proportion?’” Olivia drawled, tone rather pointed.
“I do not claim Alice makes the best decisions sometimes,” Lisa answered with a wince. “I know she’s convinced Chen is behind all of this, but I wish she’d taken me with her instead of Chase. Chase never contradicts her, just does whatever she wants, and I feel like if I’d been there, I would have been able to talk her out of things.”
She might have been right. But I had a feeling that Alice had taken her brother instead of her sister for exactly that reason. She didn’t want to be stopped, she wanted more drama, and Chase wouldn’t argue with her about it.
“Let’s run through a few basics,” Olivia suggested, pulling the note free again to show her. “Do you recognize this?”
Unlike Alice, Lisa actually examined it for a moment. “Not per se, but judging from the amount, I would say this was one of the first notes that Alice got.”
“Do you know who sent it?” Olivia pressed.
“No, no idea,” Lisa answered firmly.
Donovan looked to me and I leaned into the walkie-talkie a little. “Truth.”
Hissing out a breath, Donovan stared at me in surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah,” I answered almost absently, focused on the women in the other room. That surprised me too; I would have sworn the sister was involved until this moment. My eyes traced her meridian lines again, seeking out any hint of falsehood, but came up empty.
“I find this very surprising, Ms. Thompson,” Olivia stated as she waved the note in the air illustratively, “because this note was printed on your dorm room printer.”
Lisa’s jaw dropped, croaking noises coming out of her open mouth. It took several seconds before she could manage a coherent noise, meridian lines sparking hot red with anger, aura briefly flaring as her emotions ran high. “I didn’t threaten my own sister!”
“Truth,” I informed Olivia again. Huh. Plot twist. “She’s totally innocent of this.”
“Fortunately for you, I believe you’re telling the truth.” Olivia sat back, the cheap plastic chair making a slight squeak of protest. “Ms. Thompson, something very strange is going on here. Your sister didn’t print the notes herself, I know that. You didn’t do it. Chen didn’t do it. Oh yes, don’t look so startled, we can prove very firmly that he had nothing to do with these notes. Your sister is guilty of shooting an innocent man. I wish her luck in standing trial for that. In fact, if I had been consulted on her bail hearing, she wouldn’t be out right now. But that’s not what I’m getting after at the moment. Someone used your printer to send these notes to your sister. Who has access to your dorm room?”
“Well, I mean, I have people coming in and out,” Lisa stuttered, still so stunned she nearly panted for breath, eyes roving about the room without fixing on any particular spot. “No one has a key to the place except me and maintenance that I know of.”
“Do you ever leave the room if you have a visitor?”
“Well, no, not really. I mean, it’s not that big of a room, we generally don’t hang out in the dorm rooms.”
“Is your printer on a wireless network?”
Lisa shook her head instantly, sure of this answer. “Wireless doesn’t work. There’s too many wireless signals in that building, I was never able to get a wireless connection to work on the printer. I have it connected via USB.”
“Theoretically, could someone else have connected to your printer without your knowledge?” Olivia continued questioning in a calm, rational manner.
Hesitating, Lisa thought that through before her shoulders lifted in an uncertain shrug. “Maybe? I mean, I never check the printer connection unless it’s giving me trouble for some reason. But even if they did, how do they get into my room and retrieve it? Like I said, there’s only two keys to the room that I know of.”
“It could be someone else on maintenance actually is using her printer, they’re just bringing a laptop or something with them to connect with,” Donovan proposed, head tilting in consideration. “But why go through the effort of setting up the sister?”
A good question—one I didn’t have an answer to.
“Ms. Thompson, I’d like to confiscate your printer and dust it for prints, get it properly examined,” Olivia informed her, retrieving the note to slip it back into the folder. “It will make our lives easier if you surrender it willingly instead of forcing me to get a warrant for it.”
“Please take it,” Lisa urged her, displaying both hands as if urging her to go now. “If it will help clear anything up, I’m happy for you to take it. It’s just a cheap printer anyway.”
“I’ll do that, thank you. One final question. Does Alice have any sort of mental illness?”
Lisa went very still, mouth tightening. “That’s….”
“I can and will request her medical records, Ms. Thompson,” Olivia assured her, sounding more and more like the police captain she was. “So just answer the question.”
“She’s got an anxiety disorder,” Alice grudgingly answered, “but she has medication for it. And she’s good about taking it.”
“Truth,” I answered, puzzled. “Or at least, the truth as she knows it.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
Donovan let the walkie-talkie fall to his side as Lisa Thompson walked out of the room. “I don’t think anxiety makes you shoot people.”
“I would damn well hope not,” I said with a brief shudder, “considering how many people have anxiety. Whatever is going on here, Lisa doesn’t know about it. Alright, so not Alice, not Lisa, maybe Chase? Although if little brother didn’t do it, I don’t know where else to look. The other maintenance guys?”
“They’d be my next best guess, as they had access to the building,” Donovan agreed. “Jon, you really can’t read anything that’ll help us here?”
“Eh, not so much,” I answered absently, still thinking hard on who else it could possibly be. Chen didn’t seem to think his coworkers had anything to do with it, though they would likely still be questioned. “The problem is I don’t always know the right questions to ask. I can’t always read a person’s lines well enough to guess at every little shady thing they’ve done.”
“You just get a feeling they’ve done something bad.” Donovan gave a slight hum as he thought, weight flexing back and forth on his feet. “Let’s see if little brother fits the bill.”
Chase Thompson possessed his sisters’ general coloring but, otherwise, didn’t look a thing like them. He ran more towards fat, his clothes ill-fitting, with a general hang-dog expression on his face that made him look more like a sullen teenager than a twenty-year-old. He slouched into the chair with a grunt. “I’m not in trouble, Alice said.”
Donovan quirked a brow at me, jerking a thumb at the kid in question.
I made a face. “You know that term ‘wishy-washy?’ You’re looking at the definition.”
Nodding, Donovan said blandly, “Got it.”
“Mr. Thompson,” Olivia folded her hands together on top of the table, leaning toward him slightly. “I’ll ask you a few straight questions; just answer them honestly and we’ll be done in no time. Did you send those notes to your sister Alice?”
Alarmed, Chase frantically shook his head. “Hell no.”
I signaled for t
he walkie-talkie. “Truth. In fact, the idea scares him.”
“Do you know who did?”
“It was that Chen guy, Alice said.”
“That wasn’t what I asked, Mr. Thompson. Do you know for a fact who did?”
“Well, no,” he begrudgingly answered. “But Alice is sure it’s him.”
“It really, really isn’t,” Olivia informed him flatly. “Your sister shot an innocent man. She’ll stand trial for that. Now, next question. Do you have access to Lisa’s dorm room?”
“Uh,” Chase didn’t understand the point of that question at all, his expression portrayed complete confusion, but he answered, “No. Why?”
“Truth.” I had the distinct feeling we were barking up the wrong tree. Even if Chase Thompson had the brains to go criminal—and I doubted that—he wouldn’t have the guts to go through with it.
“One final question, Mr. Thompson. Your sister Alice has a mental illness. What kind?”
“Uh, dunno about mental illness, but she’s got anxiety. Oh, but she’s got meds for it. Mom calls me once a day to make sure she takes it.”
Interesting. Chase also believed his sister had anxiety, no lie there, but Lisa said her sister was good about taking her medication. Now Chase claimed he was responsible for making sure she took it? Something didn’t quite jive there.
“Thank you, Mr. Thompson, we’ll be in touch with any further questions.”
“Sure.” Uneasy, Chase stood and quickly vacated the room, the metal door swinging shut with a clang behind him.
Olivia turned in her chair to face me through the mirror again. Donovan switched it so that she could actually see through. “What do you think, Jon?”
“Not our guy. Not any of the siblings.” A thought occurred and I asked, “Where does the mother live, anyway?”
“Memphis, according to her children. Bit far of a drive to be involved with this,” Olivia answered. “Believe me, I had the same thought, but it doesn’t look like the mother is involved.”
Sighing, I let the idea ago, as I had to agree. A three-hour drive would deter the mother—assuming she had somehow learned what was going on. None of her children had told her, at least, but parents had ways of finding things out. “I’d say the letters were just a bad prank if they hadn’t led Alice Thompson to shooting someone. They were honest about not knowing anything about the notes. I gathered the impression Chase really did just buy whatever line Alice fed him, hook, line and sinker. Not a deep thinker, Chase Thompson.”
“Years of living with a dominating, bossy sister likely has something to do with that,” Olivia agreed with a sigh. “Well, this was not as enlightening as I thought it would be. I’ll arrange interviews with the other maintenance workers and call you back in for their interviews, Jon.”
“Sure. Just let me know when you need me.”
Donovan clicked off the walkie-talkie, then moved around me in the narrow confines of the room to open the door.
Starting my campaign to subtly flirt with him, I gave him a teasing smile as I stepped through the door, deliberately moving a little too close so I brushed up against him. “Such a gentleman.”
His eyes crinkled up in the corners in a silent laugh, a happy spark zinging through his meridian line. “Anytime, handsome.”
Chuckling, I stepped free into the open hallway, then stopped dead as my eyes locked on Solomon. Detective Dick had not left as his captain had, but instead waited on us, his arms crossed defensively over his chest and a hard look on his face. Dark circles framed his cold brown eyes, his black hair looked almost greasy, and his clothes appeared rumpled. I had a feeling he hadn’t gone to bed last night or showered this morning. Dealing with people who’d pulled an all-nighter was never fun, but Solomon could be as pleasant as a grizzly bear with a toothache.
“So you take over my case, discredit me in front of the captain, and then flirt like everything’s fine and dandy?” Solomon demanded in his chain-smoker’s voice.
“You wouldn’t be caught with your pants down if you had just answered the damn phone,” I snapped back at him. “I tried to tell you that Chen was innocent, I even tried to submit evidence to show you when you wouldn’t do me the fucking professional courtesy of listening to a voice mail. You blocked me at every turn. So don’t take that tone with me. You made this bed all on your own.”
“Maybe I don’t appreciate having a delicate little princess like you walking all over my cases. What, you finally got someone else to open a door for you?” An odd look on his face, he stopped and turned his gaze to the man at my side. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Smile, you’re on camera,” Donovan informed him cheerfully.
“The hell?” Solomon’s comprehension took a moment to kick in, likely because of the sleep deprivation. “You’re recording this?”
“See, the thing is, it’s always been Jon’s word against yours,” Donovan explained patiently, keeping the phone’s camera trained on Solomon. “I’ve heard the war stories. But that ends today. I can handle electronics just fine, and every time you two talk, I’m going to make sure a camera is pointed in your direction. So keep talking, Detective Solomon. Let’s hear what you really think.”
Snarling out a foul curse that I personally wouldn’t want recorded, Solomon turned on his heel and stomped away from us, descending the stairs with alacrity.
Donovan calmly stopped the camera and pocketed it before giving me the most patently false, wide-eyed look of innocence to ever grace a person’s face.
I grinned up at him, congratulating myself all over again for demanding this man be hired. Best decision I’d ever made. “You’re my favorite.”
“Does that mean you’re buying me lunch?”
“For getting rid of Solomon, lunch seems like a small way to repay the favor, but sure. I’ll buy you lunch.”
12
For lunch we chose a place called Little Italy, appropriately named, as the Italian food melted in the mouth. The restaurant was nothing more than a hole in the wall but it offered an outdoor back patio shaded by trees, giving me a safe place to sit outside, away from all of the electronics in the restaurant.
After we put in our orders for food, Donovan sat back and gave an exaggerated look around the patio. “Do you know every restaurant in Nashville with outdoor seating?”
“I’m as bad as a dog owner,” I admitted frankly, a lopsided grin on my face. “I really do.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” he allowed. Uncertainty flashed through his meridian line then he looked away from me, pulling something out of the bottom pocket on his cargo pants. I’d known he had something in there, but Donovan routinely wore cargo pants and stuffed every conceivable thing into them, so I had no idea what he might have squirreled away. He was worse than a magpie.
The last thing I expected was a small box, like a watch or jewelry box, made of wood. He handed it to me with a small smile. “This is my way of saying thanks.”
I accepted the box a little gingerly, not sure how to accept a gift I wasn’t sure I deserved. “Thanks? Isn’t that my line?”
Shaking his head, his smile widened a notch, those incredible eyes of his warming like antique gold. “I’ve never felt more welcome anywhere in my life. It’s your doing. You made sure that people see me the way you see me. It’s a priceless gift, Jon. I don’t think this is enough to really express that, but it was the only thing I could think of.”
Well, sure, I wanted him to feel welcome. I didn’t want him to leave. But more than that, it grated that people made some very shallow assumptions and didn’t try to see the man beneath the scars. I wanted to argue that point but sensed it wouldn’t go over well. Besides, curiosity got the better of me. Just what had he bought?
The wooden casing had hinges, so I popped up the top and stared down in bemusement at the watch inside. It looked amazing, really, one of those sleek chrome and wood watches with a stylistic leather band. But…a watch. Watches and I did not have a favorable history together.
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No doubt reading the look on my face, he explained, “It’s a mechanical watch. No electricity, I promise, it’s safe for you.”
“Mechanical watch?” I parroted blankly. I’d never heard of such a thing.
“It uses the movement of your arm to coil the spring inside, which keeps the watch running,” he explained, reaching around me to pull the watch free of the box. “You have to wind it up a little in the morning, or so the instructions said, but then it’s good for twenty-four hours. After about a week of wear it will keep perfect time, as long as you wear it consistently throughout the day and wind it up occasionally when it needs an extra boost.”
Heat radiated through my chest, and for a moment I felt breathless. If he was like this as a friend, this thoughtful, this sweet, what would he be like as a lover? The question reverberated through my mind, echoing, and the craving I had for him intensified. I had to clear my throat to be able to speak, and even then it came out husky. “I had no idea these existed. It’s my first watch ever. Thank you.”
Taking my hand, he put the watch on himself, a grin blooming over his face, lifting his eyes. His aura glowed nearly blindingly in happiness, even with my glasses on, but I didn’t even think of looking away from him. “You like it?”
“I love it. I really can’t short it out?”
“All mechanical, I double checked,” he swore, hands lingering as he adjusted the watch to sit comfortably on my wrist. Feeling those warm, callused hands on my skin made my gut tighten. He was closer than usual, close enough to feel the heat of his skin radiating, close enough that I could smell his cologne. The impulse to touch him in turn rose sharply, nearly dizzyingly so. I wanted to kiss him so badly.
Stop it, me, don’t jump him. He’s lusting after someone else, you haven’t won him yet. Don’t make assumptions just because he gave you a very thoughtful gift.