Marlowe, apparently not buying into his psychological cues, sat back and reached into her pocket. “Explain this then, Mr. Evans.”
She slid the burner phone across the table to him.
He didn’t touch the hideous thing, just sat back himself, once more mirroring his interrogator. “Looks like a cheap, tacky piece of shit to me.”
“It’s registered to Shelby Bryant.”
“Huh.” Well, shit. Didn’t expect that tidbit of new information. He scrambled to come up with a credible lie. “It’s not hers. It’s mine.”
“Yours, huh? Interesting.” Marlowe reached over and grabbed the sparkly fuchsia nightmare and clicked it on, then thumbed through several screens. “You always list your own cell number as ‘My Boo’?”
“Sure.” He narrowed his gaze and gave a half smile. “As Whitney has always said, learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all, right?”
“I see.” Marlowe’s tone suggested that what she saw was straight through his horseshit.
Chase pushed to his feet and slid his chair back under the table. “Well, if there’s nothing else you need from me, Detective, I should really get home before my boss worries.”
“Sit down, Mr. Evans.” The steel in her voice brooked no argument. “Leave now and I’ll book you on the trespassing charge so fast your damn fool head will spin right off.”
He sat.
“Let’s see.” Marlowe flipped open the file and pulled out several sheets of paper which she passed to him. “Have a look at those. Care to explain?”
Sharp pain pounded against his temples as he stared at the papers. “I’ve never seen these before.”
“Really? Seems to me a guy like you would remember a pretty girl like Shelby sending you e-mails in prison.”
“What? No.” He scrunched his nose and thrust the sheets back at her. “Believe me, I would’ve known if someone like Shelby Bryant tried to contact me.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think too.” She gathered the e-mails and placed them back in the file. “So, tell me, Mr. Evans. Is this when you guys hatched your plan to murder Warren Bryant?”
“Shit.” Chase pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes. “I told you I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t kill Warren Bryant, nor did I make any plans with anyone to do him harm.”
“Hmm.” Marlowe steepled her fingers and tapped them against her full lips. “These correspondences suggest otherwise. Perhaps your girlfriend Shelby was frustrated over her money troubles and her daddy refused to help.”
Damn. He'd never gotten any emails in prison and he was positive Shelby never sent him any. She didn't even know him then and she wouldn't send shit like this—she couldn’t care less about money. But who then? Katherine? Maybe. She'd set them up in the condo, the emails were probably just one more layer of her evil plan.
One thing was certain. Marlowe wouldn’t buy into his theory without proof, which he didn’t have. Not yet anyway. And continuing on this path would only dig his hole deeper, so he switched tactics. Always keep the opposition on their toes. Something else he learned in law school. He sat forward and clasped his hands atop the table. “Tell me, Detective. Did I ever answer any of these e-mails?”
Marlowe didn’t answer, but her red-painted lips thinned slightly.
Bingo.
Chase resisted the urge to gloat over his small victory and instead charged forward while his momentum was good. “That’s what I thought. So, if Shelby sent them, then I guess I must’ve missed them. All what?” He squinted at the folder. “Twenty of them?”
Seemingly undeterred, Marlowe pushed on. “I’m supposed to believe it’s a coincidence you two are friends now?”
“Not a coincidence at all. In fact, you can thank my boss Blake Rockford for introducing us. He’s the one who gave me the Lucky Ace assignment, though I never got a chance to meet Warren Bryant, much less kill him.”
Marlowe took a deep breath, a hard glint in her midnight dark eyes. “Wow. Interesting you’d start a new job, but never meet with your client?”
“Nope. Never got the chance.”
“Listen, I appreciate your inventiveness, Mr. Evans, but let’s cut through the bullshit, okay? We have proof you were in there, in Bryant’s office. If you confess now and tell us all about Katherine, we’ll go easy. Promise.”
Proof I was in Bryant’s office? No way. She had to be bluffing. Fishing just like she had been with those emails. He’d been careful. Both times. Still, he needed to find out what they did have if he had any hopes of figuring a way out of this mess. “Did Katherine take something else of mine while she was trying to seduce me?”
Marlowe smiled, all cool confidence and pure menace. “I don’t think so. Not this, anyway.”
“What?”
“I can’t reveal that, Mr. Evans.”
She wanted to play things that way, huh? Fine. He could play hardball too, when necessary. “It doesn’t matter, Detective. Everything you’ve got right now is purely circumstantial. It’ll take more than that for a conviction, especially murder. And whatever it is you think you found most likely could’ve been put there by anyone. I was never in Warren Bryant’s office on the day of the murder. Check your video surveillance feeds. I’m sure you’ll see I left the hotel before he was killed and didn’t return.”
Marlowe stared him down across the expanse of the table. Her once stoic expression now looked decidedly annoyed, but Chase refused to say another word. If they brought him in again, he’d get an attorney and really fuck up their plans.
After several tense seconds, Detective Marlowe grabbed the file and left as abruptly as she’d come.
Alone, finally, Chase exhaled and slumped into his seat. Goddamn. He’d been through this shit before but even so, this had been a tough session. He couldn’t imagine how poor Shelby was faring down the hall. The bastards probably had her in hysterics by now. And he didn’t believe the detective’s story for one second. Shelby wouldn’t turn on him, no matter what Marlowe insinuated. His Shelby was tougher than she looked.
He frowned.
My Shelby? Where the fuck did that come from?
The door behind him opened once more and Chase’s whole body went whipcord tight. For Christ’s sake, he couldn’t seem to catch a break today. Round One with Marlowe had been bad enough. Round Two without some time to recover might damn near make his head explode.
Except when he looked up, it wasn’t the detective’s face he saw.
“Get up,” Blake said, looking every inch the ex-cop he was. “We’re going home.”
“Uh, okay.” He stood. “They’re not arresting me for trespassing or violating parole?”
Didn’t think he’d beat those charges, no matter what he’d told Marlowe. Still, he wasn’t about to question his freedom at this point.
“No, they’re not.” Blake shoved him toward the door and out into the bustling hall beyond. “Because you weren’t violating parole. Or trespassing. You were on assignment for Rockford Securities at the Lucky Ace, understand? We had to call in additional people to cover the Jan Winters event. Part of that assignment is making sure the whole building is secure, including the condo.” Blake took Chase’s arm and dragged him through the station, his icy gaze locked on the entrance ahead and his expression granite tough. “Now get your ass moving. I had to call in a lot of favors to make this work.”
They reached the exit in record time and walked out into the brisk night air. Chase took a deep breath and rubbed his sore bicep once Blake let him go. “Thanks, man.”
“Thank me at home.” He continued on to his car, but Chase didn’t move.
“Wait. What about Shelby? She’s still in there and—”
“And nothing.” Blake punched the button on his key fob and the car’s lights blinked on and off as the doors clicked open. “There’s nothing we can do for her tonight. She’s still in an interrogation room.”
“But I—”
“But nothing.” Blake opened th
e driver’s side door then leaned his forearms atop the roof of the navy sedan, watching Chase with his lethal blue stare. “I think the two of you have gotten into enough trouble together this evening, don’t you? Now please stop being a pain in my ass and get in the car. Shelby will be fine. The detective questioning her is a friend and he’ll go easy on her. Besides, she’s tougher than she looks.”
Resigned, Chase climbed into the passenger seat and secured his seat belt. Blake was right, about Shelby and about all the trouble they’d caused. Still, as they pulled out of the parking lot and headed home to Summerlin, Chase couldn’t help running through his conversation with Marlowe. Clearly those e-mails were fake, but it didn’t fit. Why would Katherine imply a prior relationship between him and Shelby? There’s no way she could’ve known Blake planned to offer him that job once he got out. Hell, he hadn’t even known. And why the fuck would the police believe Shelby would randomly e-mail him in jail then be stupid enough to talk openly about killing her father?
Cursing, he rested his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. Man, he was so damned tired of fighting every single day to prove his innocence, to prove he deserved a second chance, to prove worthy of his freedom. He couldn’t do this anymore tonight.
Tomorrow. He’d pick up his weapons and shield and charge into that battle again tomorrow.
For now, though, all he wanted to do was forget and sleep.
* * *
Shelby fiddled with the hem of her sweater for the umpteenth time and glanced at the two people sitting across the square conference table. The man, Detective Troy Atkins, she remembered from that day with Katherine in the condo. He still seemed nice enough—offering her coffee, allowing her time to collect her thoughts, asking her if she was all right. The woman though, Marlowe—a pretty African American woman with attitude to spare—looked like she’d just as soon lock Shelby up and throw away the key as talk to her. She’d been there that day at the condo too.
Of course, the dark shadows lurking in the corners of the room and stale air that smelled of floor wax and bad decisions didn’t help either. Ever since she’d discovered her dad’s extracurricular activities at the Lucky Ace as a teenager, Shelby had nightmares about just this kind of scenario. Being dragged into an interrogation room and questioned with no hope of escape, even though she was innocent.
Guilt by association.
Her chest constricted and her stomach cramped and she took a deep breath to keep from tossing her cookies.
“Tell me about these.” Detective Marlowe slid a manila folder across the table to her.
Shelby frowned and opened the file, staring down at the printed e-mails stuffed inside. “Um, I didn’t write these, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Marlowe sat forward while Detective Atkins remained motionless, silent. “They were sent to Chase Evans’ e-mail account. Each one is time and date stamped.”
“Y-yes.” Shelby blinked down at the papers in front of her, her legs trembling. “I see that.”
“And they’re from your e-mail address.”
“I didn’t send these. I swear.” She met Detective Marlowe’s gaze. “I never even met Chase Evans until after my dad died.”
“Right.” Marlowe nodded. “And where did you say you met him again?”
“At my dad’s casino, the Lucky Ace.”
“So you just met him, and you decided it was a good idea to become romantically involved with the man who may have killed your father?”
“What? No!” She raised a trembling hand and pushed her long blond curls behind her ear. “It isn’t like that.”
“What is it like then, Miss Bryant?” Marlowe sat back and crossed her arms. “Please, enlighten me.”
Shelby glanced at Atkins, but his gaze remained steadfast on his coffee cup, frowning. She desperately wanted to bite her fingernails, a habit she’d broken way back in tenth grade, but she also didn’t want this Detective Marlowe to know how upset she was. Showing her emotions wouldn’t do her any favors in this situation. She cleared her throat. “First off, I don’t believe that Chase Evans killed my dad.”
“Really? And how do you know that?”
“I just know. I think he’s being set up.”
“Set up?” Atkins sat up a little straighter. “By who?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“I see.” Marlowe snorted. “This is a gut feeling of yours then, huh? What about the sex between him and your stepmother? That’s a set up too?”
Shelby didn’t answer. Did the cops really think Chase and Katherine had had sex? They had seen the same video Shelby had and it was pretty clear nothing happened. Were they just trying to get her upset? Probably. She wasn't going to bite, though. She was afraid that no matter what she said they'd twist it and use it against her ... or Chase. Not to mention that she didn't want to admit—especially to herself— how much she really liked Chase and how she was starting to possibly see a future for them. If they found the real killer.
Marlowe toyed with the folder and smiled. “It was smart of you, you know. Brilliant, really. To use his urge for revenge to get what you want.”
Exhausted, Shelby did her best to follow the detective’s line of thought and failed. “I’m sorry?”
“Then you didn’t tell Chase that it was your dad who tipped off the police about the drugs stashed in his apartment? Interesting. I mean the force always suspected someone operated a trafficking ring out of the casino, then your father was helpful enough to hand us the right address on a silver platter. Vegas has him to thank for one of the biggest drug busts in Nevada history. Nice work.”
Bile stung Shelby’s throat and she swallowed hard. She’d known Chase’s conviction was drug related, but not that her dad had been involved. Chase must’ve known though, wouldn't he? Wouldn't it have come out as part of his trial? Yet he’d never said a word. She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. Okay, so maybe he did have additional motive to kill her dad.
And maybe she didn’t know him at all. Not really.
“Hey.” Marlowe looked at Atkins then back at Shelby. “I think we’ll just give you some time to consider all this.” She stood and walked to the door, the heels of her black pumps clacking loud against the linoleum floor. “I’ll be back soon.”
Shelby held it together until the door slammed behind Detective Marlowe, then tears formed against her will. Atkins reached across the table and patted her hand. “You want some more coffee?”
She stared at the untouched, now cold, cup in front of her. Throat clogged, she shrugged in response.
“Okay, great. I’ll be right back with fresh brew.” He picked up her cup and left the room.
Alone with her thoughts, Shelby swiped the back of her hand under her eyes. She wanted to find Chase and demand he tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Then again, how could she possibly believe him now when he’d apparently been dishonest with her from the start. She sat forward and rested her forearms on the table, dropping her head down on top of them. God things were such a fucking mess.
Detective Atkins returned a few moments later. “Sorry that took so long. Had to wait on a fresh pot.” She raised her head and looked at the cup of steaming liquid he set in front of her. He smiled at her, not the icy affair Marlowe flashed, but one that seemed genuine and kind. “I put cream and sugar in it too, like you requested before. Not that it makes it great or anything, but the caffeine will help you stay awake.”
She wrapped her cold fingers around the warm cup and sighed. “Thanks, Detective Atkins.”
“You’re welcome. And please, call me Troy.” He sat across from her again and took a long swig of coffee. “So, I’m puzzled. What does a pretty, smart, sweet girl like you see in a guy like Evans?”
Heat prickled her cheeks and she looked away. Detective Troy Atkins was quite a catch—handsome, great job, funny, nice. All awesome things in her book. Except for one problem. She’d met Chase Evans first and now the guy seemed t
o consume her every waking thought, especially since they’d teamed up to find her dad’s real murderer. Besides, it was getting involved with good looking men who were nice to her that got her into this interrogation room in the first place.
Nope. Time to cut her losses for the day.
When she remained silent, Troy continued. “Hey, I understand if you made a mistake. We all do sometimes when it comes to love.”
Yep. A mistake. That was a perfect description of her choice to make out with Chase in her step-monster’s closet. Biggest, dumbest mistake ever.
“You let your emotions carry you away,” he said. “You don’t mean for it to happen.”
Got that right, buddy.
“Listen, Shelby. All we’re trying to do here is catch the bad guy, whoever that may be. Honestly, I don’t think that’s you. But if you do know who it is, then you have to tell us, even if Chase Evans is your partner in crime.”
No, Chase wasn’t her partner. Not in crime anyway.
“Like I said, Chase and I aren’t working together.”
Disappointment crossed Troy’s face before he hid it. “You were mad at your dad, Shelby. It happens. And we all do stupid things when we’re mad. Don’t let one stupid mistake ruin the rest of your life. Please. We can cut you a deal.”
“I wasn’t mad at my dad. I loved him.” The mention of her father had her vision blurring with tears again.
“Then why did you send him these, Shelby?”
He pulled some new papers out of the folder and passed them to her. She sniffled and squinted at the handwritten notes, petty things threatening her dad if he didn’t buy her what she wanted or pay more attention to her. She shook her head. She would never, ever say things like that to her dad. Ever. But damn if the handwriting didn’t look eerily similar to hers.
Treacherous Seduction (The Rockford Security Series Book 3) Page 11