"And we're not entirely certain that he didn't have something to do with Sylvia Bridge's death. His alibi isn't completely solid regardless of what I may have told you."
What had he told her about Kevin's alibi? She racked her brain trying to remember. Hadn't he said that the alibi checked out? How was it less than solid then? Her need to ask questions strangled her voice. The officer was back from the bathroom and it was clear they were all supposed to be preparing to leave.
"Please don't hurt him."
"As long as he doesn't resist, he'll be fine," Placard assured her. It was a cold assurance considering how combative Kevin could be.
He was considerate enough to close the door when they left Marie alone in the house with the specter of her dead friend and her betrayed husband. The tears she had started to shed the night before returned with a vengeance. It struck with the speed of a whirlwind and overwhelmed her onto the couch. She collapsed there with her arms around her knees. It was impossible. Kevin was gone. Rebecca was gone.
Sniffling, she forced herself to get up and go back into the bedroom. There she lay down and picked up her phone. It was still early, but she called Naomie anyway. It was Saturday, there was no reason for her friend to answer at that time in the morning, but she needed someone anyone to tell her things were going to be okay.
Naomie picked up during the first ring.
"Are you okay?"
"No."
"What happened?"
"Kevin's been arrested."
"What?"
"Kevin's been arrested."
"I heard you the first time. For what?"
"I think murder."
There was silence on the other end of the line.
"Have you called a lawyer?"
"No."
"Then don't bother. I'll take the case myself."
"Naomie, you don't have to."
"Yes, I do. I'm not leaving my best friend's husband behind bars for something he didn't do."
The ferocity set Marie back. Naomie sounded so sure and she waffled between being sure and being sure he'd done it.
"I need to get dressed and go down to see him preferable before they get too far into the interview process. I don't want my client signing a confession to a crime he didn't commit."
Marie could hear Naomie moving. On the other end of the phone, a shower turned on.
"Ray, get out of bed. I need you to go sit with Marie while I see about Kevin."
"He really doesn't have to do that. I'm just going to try and get some writing done."
"You're not going to be able to get anything done and I don't want you doing anything drastic while this whole thing is being sorted out. So take his help."
Naomie's entire demeanor said she was not in the mood to be naysayed. Marie nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. Maybe company would be a good thing.
"Do you hear me, Marie?"
"I hear you, I'm sorry. I just don't know what to do now."
"Just sit tight. Help is on the way. I'll try and see if I can get Kevin released on his own recognizance. If I can't, you may have to visit him in jail, but at least I'll keep him from admitting to anything that might get him some serious jail time."
On the other end of the line, Naomie shuffled something.
"Ray's on his way over."
"Thank you, Mimi."
"No problem. I've got to go see my client. Be good today."
"I'll try."
The phone call ending left an emptiness as Marie stared down at the screen. Ray would arrive soon. Wiping blurry eyes, she got up from her seat and went into the kitchen. Half a dozen eggs sat in the fridge with leftover vegetables. She could make omelets while she waited. Ray might appreciate it after being rousted out of bed this early. She set about cracking several eggs into a bowl. Then she could put a pan on. It gave her something to do.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It took everything in Marie not to run to the door when Ray knocked. She anticipated his arrival just twenty minutes since she had gotten off the phone with Naomie. When she opened the door, he looked as if he had been forcibly thrown out of bed. His black hair badly needed brushing. Though he covered it with his hand, he yawned upon seeing her.
"I made breakfast," she offered.
"Thanks."
Ray followed her to the kitchen and numbly accepted a plate placed in his hands. His eyes were lidded and sleepy.
"I'm really sorry to wake you up so early."
"It's okay. If it were a normal day, I'd be at work by now." He scratched his head. "Is there any coffee?"
"I just started the pot. I figured you'd prefer it be hot."
"Yeah."
They moved back into the living room and sat down with their plates. Ray set to eating with a workman-like shoveling. Marie more picked at her food, pushing it from place to place on her plate. Her stomach cramped and knotted despite the offer of food. Kevin consumed her thoughts. How was he? Did he have everything he needed? Was he guilty? It hurt to think she had made the wrong decision. However it was too late to take it back.
"Ray, do you think Kevin will be alright?"
If the question surprised him, he covered it well. Ray pounded on his chest as if that would help the food go down.
"I think he'll be fine. Kevin is tougher than some think."
"I'm worried about him."
"And you should be. He's your husband."
Hearing it from Ray, her status as a wife seemed more like an indictment. Hadn't she chosen to betray her husband by calling the police? Her stomach shifted even lower. She swallowed the admittance. Ray was Kevin's best friend. How would he feel if he knew what she'd done?
Ray had gone back to eating with gusto and even managed to look a little sad when there was nothing left on his plate. "Are you going to eat that?"
"No, I suddenly don't feel all that hungry."
"Worry got your tummy in knots?"
"Yeah." She passed the plate over and he stacked it on top of his empty one. The coffee pot went ding from the kitchen. Marie got up to see about it. "You like your coffee with cream and sugar?"
"Just cream."
"Right."
Ray had been a guest enough time that she should have known how he took his coffee, but this morning everything seemed a little harder than usual.
Two steaming mugs in hand, Marie came back into the living room. He had already finished what was on her plate. Setting a cup down in front of him, she sat down again and sipped her own coffee. One hand caressed the sofa where she sat. Ray sat back in his seat after trading his plates for the mug on the table.
"Thank you for the coffee."
"You really don't have to thank me. It's the least I could do."
"Marie, I'm surprised you're not somewhere curled up bawling your eyes out, so I thank you for thinking of me at all. Kevin's got himself a tough one."
The compliment rang hollow against her fears.
She almost asked again if Kevin would be alright, but they had already had that bit of conversation. The words died on her lips. Bringing her mug to her lips, she blew across it lightly watching the tiny curl of steam writhe away before once more curling toward the ceiling. She crossed then recrossed her legs before pulling them up on the couch with her. In the other chair, Ray sat still as a statue aside from the occasional movement to bring the mug to his lips. Everything about him had the air of someone working. Even in coming to the aid of his friend's wife, he was the consummate workman.
"What do you think Naomie can do for Kevin?"
"Well, if I understand things correctly, he'll be held for the weekend because he can't be arraigned until Monday. So what she'll do is make sure the police don't harangue him into admitting to anything. She'll start setting up his defense, which is really what he needs. If she can, she'll try to get someone to help verify his alibi. Anything to help him."
"Right." Marie knew what Naomie did and that she excelled at it, but the nuts and bolts of it were lost to her. There was p
erhaps a reason she wrote teenagers because she only had to know as much as them in order to keep the story going forward. "So there's nothing we can do until Monday?"
"Not really. I don't know if they have visiting hours at the jail on Sunday. No way you'll get to see him today."
Ray must have been drinking his coffee in gulps because when he put the cup down, it sat empty.
"Can I have another cup?" he asked.
"Sure." Marie moved to get him another cup of coffee, placing her mug on the coffee table in the meantime.
"Oh, Marie."
His exclamation brought her back into the room quickly.
"What?"
"I'll tell you in a minute. I just remembered something."
Shaking her head, she went back into the kitchen and fixed him another cup of coffee. Once she was back in the living room, she prompted him.
"What did you remember?"
"I had a dream about one of your books. It was amazing."
"That's the strangest compliment I think I've ever gotten," she said with a smile.
"It was so real. I dreamed I was outside of Rosewood Cemetery. Then I went inside. Once I was under the shadows of the tree, I started stepping on roses. The ground was littered with them. When I got to the tree, there were long gashes in it as if someone had tried to cut it down. I think it was dying. I don't remember that being a part of the books, so I wondered if maybe you could help me figure out what it means. Oh yeah, and I saw the Gravekeeper in the distance, just standing there."
Marie absorbed the words without saying anything. He had dreamed of her world in a way she hadn't written. The tree lived, even thrived, in the books even after Timothy and Keyana found the skull trapped among its roots. A niggling doubt crept up. Hadn't she written that? It was an alternative ending. It was there and flittered away. Then she leapt out of the chair.
"Ray, I'll be right back," she said as she pattered down the hallway. She hit the bedroom and started pulling out drawers. Where was it?
Ray came to stand in the doorway as she searched.
"What are you looking for?"
"Shhh," she hissed and threw open another drawer. Papers scattered across the floor like lost birds. Then she came up with a paper clipped bundle. "Here it is."
She flipped to the back page and there it truly was. Before her eyes in black and white was the original ending of "Grave Silence," the ending in which the Gravekeeper killed Keyana during their battle in the graveyard so that even though Timothy gathered the skull, he wasn't strong enough to keep the tree alive. In it, she described the three large gashes in the trunk of the oak and how the roses dropped like rotten fruit around it. Her publisher, seeing the chances for sequels, demanded she change it so she had given the book a more optimistic ending and launched her career on the backs of the books.
"I did write that."
"Wrote what?"
"The ending you're talking about, but it wasn't the published one. How did you know about that?"
"Maybe you told me about it once over drinks."
Possible, but why would he suddenly dream about it now?
Marie tossed the bit of manuscript on top of the keyboard where it woke the computer and began to gather up the papers on the floor. She needed a moment to think. Her dream of Sylvia came to the forefront of her mind as another strange dream she had been party to recently. Yet that was impossible, wasn't it? Sylvia had been beaten to death by an unknown assailant. Nothing could change that. That raised the question of Naomie's dream of the Mad Princess's abode. Naomie refused to read the books because of the subject matter. She didn't like oogie-boogies having seen enough of the dark side of humanity without having to read about it in her spare time. Now Ray was dreaming of a lost ending to her first book?
"Something is going on," she said finally.
"Like what?"
"I don't know, but I think it's something bad."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Naomie pulled up to the Markston Police Station and marched up to the front desk. The desk officer looked at her and cracked a grin.
"It's Saturday. What are you doing here?"
"I'm here about Kevin Ellis?"
"Oh, the guy Detective Placard brought in. Word's up that he's a murderer."
"Murder suspect, officer." The correction came automatically. In Naomie's eyes, Kevin had yet to be proven guilty of anything and she would go to the mat to make sure he was treated fairly. "So what room is he in?"
"Interrogation 2."
To say Naomie knew her way around understated the case. She could navigate the station backwards and blindfolded on a good day. She made it to Interrogation 2 in record time. There she knocked on the door. When Detective Placard came out, she held her card out to him.
"Naomie Kirkwall, I'm Mr. Ellis's advocate."
"He hasn't asked for counsel," the detective said crossing his arms over his beefy chest.
"He is now. Aren't you, Kevin?" Naomie was all sweetness and light as she smiled before looking past the detective to pin Kevin down.
"I didn't do anything so I don't know why I need counsel." Kevin looked none the worse for wear, but he did appear a bit tired.
"That's precisely why you need to invoke your right to counsel now and save the rush," Naomie said. Then she stepped around Placard and came to sit in the room with them. "Not only is he invoking his right to counsel, this interview is over and I would like to talk to my client alone."
"Now, hold on. You can't just blow in here and take over, Kirkwall. He's been read his rights and was just about to give me a statement as to his whereabouts at the time of the incident."
"Which he will give you after I'm done talking to him, if I think it's in his best interest."
"Full disclosure is always in his best interest."
"You and I both know that's not true." Putting her case down on the table, she made a shooing gesture with her hand. "Go. I have business to attend to and I don't intend for it to take long."
The detective stepped out of the room and shut the door.
"Now Kevin, I need you to answer a few things for me so that we can get this ball rolling. Try to keep your answers short."
"Like what?" Kevin propped himself up on the table and looked at Naomie with lost eyes.
"Did you do what they're accusing you of?"
"I'm not entirely sure what I've been accused of, Naomie. I think it's a murder of Marie's friend, Rebecca, but I'm not sure."
Naomie stopped. Rebecca. The first memory to surface was of Rebecca, Naomie, and Marie all sitting around a table drinking margaritas. She had been full of life then. Now to hear she was dead. Naomie couldn't move and didn't want to speak. Kevin couldn't have done anything to someone so close to his wife, could he? That tiny doubt went to the back of Naomie's mind. It would stay there until she had more time to consider it. Right now, she had to come up with some kind of workable alibi for Kevin to keep him out of the slammer. County jail for the weekend was one thing. Actual prison population was another. Whether Kevin could survive among murderers, rapists, and the rest of the criminal element, Naomie wasn't quite sure.
"So when are they saying this happened?"
"Sometime last night."
"And where were you last night? I know you weren't home because Marie called me and Ray looking for you."
That shut down the obvious lie and Kevin sat back in his chair and rubbed his face. What he didn't do was speak. She waited. When he didn't come up with something quick, she said,
"You don't want to tell me, your advocate, where you were last night?"
"No," he said. "I just don't remember where I was last night. All I remember is a strange dream and waking up walking in my front door this morning."
The mention of the dream got Naomie's attention and she watched Kevin expectantly for a long moment. He didn't elaborate.
"Kevin, you're going to have to give me something in order to get the police off your scent. I don't know how they've tied you to this crime y
et, but I'm certain they have something more than just supposition." Well, maybe they didn't, but it wouldn't matter either way if Kevin didn't come up with an alibi.
"It was the strangest dream. I've had one like it, but this one was so real."
"Your dreams are not going to keep you out of prison."
"I know," he snapped. "I just don't have anything else. I guess I was sleepwalking the entire night. The whole thing is just a blur. Then I'm talking to Marie this morning before she tells me to get in the shower. That was before the cops show up and arrest me."
"Where did you sleep last night?"
"I don't know. The last thing I remember before the dream is going to the Trubeau to talk to Caitlyn about the new locks. After that, I have nothing."
"So she can verify that you were there and what time you left?"
"I guess so."
"That gives us something. And you remember absolutely nothing after that?"
"No, nothing."
"Well, we'll have to give them what we have. Hopefully Caitlyn's testimony will disrupt their timeline enough to make them have to reconsider arresting you."
"When can I go home?"
"You can't even be arraigned until Monday, so you're not going home for the next few days." Naomie tugged at one of her sleeves. The shirt was a little tight. She really needed to look into updating her wardrobe. Granted, she only remembered in moments like this when she needed a distraction from what she might be thinking. Like the fact that Kevin might be guilty.
She got up and went to the door. "Now we talk to the detective. I advise you to give him what you know and let him chase things down. If he knows you were at the Trubeau, he'll try to connect that to what happened after, which might cause him to find something that helps us out." Her hand touched the knob and Kevin asked,
"Do you think I did this?"
In that moment, she could have given him two answers. Yes and No. Unfortunately, she had no idea of the truth, not yet. So she went with the reassuring answer.
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