by Lola Gabriel
“I just did what I thought was right,” Tyler replied.
“Fair enough,” Lexi said. “How did you get into Lisa’s house?”
“I knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. I went around the back, and I saw the door was open. I shouted her name, but again, there was no answer. That’s when I noticed the door had been forced, so I went in to see if Lisa needed help. She was on the ground, bleeding heavily, her eyes closed. I was too late to save her. She’d been stabbed, and there was a knife beside her.”
“Did you touch anything?” Lexi asked.
“I touched Lisa. I felt her neck to see if she had a pulse.”
“And did she?”
“No.”
“Yet you didn’t call for an ambulance. Why not?”
“I heard the sirens in the street, and I knew the police had arrived. I thought they would know better than I do what to do, so I ran out into the street to call to them. The police took over at that point.”
“The timing of this is all very convenient, isn’t it? And the way you are so clear on exactly what happened, even though you say you were acting on an adrenaline rush. Does that seem odd to you, Tyler? That you remember everything in perfect chronological order?”
“Enough!” Tyler’s lawyer shouted. “I would hardly call your client murdering someone convenient.”
“So much for innocent until proven guilty,” Mitchell muttered.
“What was that?” the lawyer asked, turning his focus to him.
Mitchell could feel Lexi glaring at him, and he blushed slightly. He shook his head. “Nothing. I just cleared my throat.”
“A likely story,” the lawyer retorted. He turned back to Lexi. “It seems your client here is as liberal with the truth as you are. I guess a snake always defends another snake.”
“Don’t you dare talk to her like that,” Mitchell snarled. His voice was low and dangerous. He was painfully close to losing his temper. He could deal with the insults the man threw in his direction, but he had felt strangely protective when he started on Lexi. His dragon was getting unsettled, trying to convince Mitchell once more that Lexi was a lot more to him than just a lawyer. His animal instincts made him want to protect her, made him want to tear the lawyer into tiny pieces for calling her a snake.
“Mitchell,” Lexi said through gritted teeth. “Please stop.”
The opposing lawyer smiled. Tyler seemed a lot more relaxed now the focus was off him. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying the show.
“It’s a shame you didn’t have so much honor about the treatment of women while you were stabbing Lisa Malone to death, isn’t it?” the lawyer said with a smile.
Mitchell knew he was doing exactly what Lexi had told him he would do. He was goading him, trying to get a reaction. He should bite his tongue, but the lawyer had hit a nerve, and instead, he jumped to his feet.
“What did you say to me?” he demanded. “How dare you sit there and accuse me of something like that? You are…”
Mitchell trailed off as he felt Lexi’s hand on his arm. Her touch was strangely calming. Somehow, it soothed the beast in him, and he found himself able to rein his temper in. He could feel his skin tingling where she touched. Even in this super charged situation, his body was responding to hers, like she was meant to be his mate. But that couldn’t be the case. It couldn’t. It was too… messy.
“Mitchell. Sit down. Now,” Lexi ordered him.
Mitchell did as he was told, ashamed of himself again. Not only had he broken his promise to Lexi, but he had shown everyone in the room that he had a short fuse. He didn’t need Lexi to tell him how that would look to a jury.
“This deposition is over,” Lexi said to the other lawyer. “I trust you and Mr. Bowes can find your own way out?”
“Of course,” the lawyer said. He was smirking. He knew he had gotten more out of this than the small victory Lexi had achieved by making Tyler look nervous. “I guess I’ll see you in court, Ms. Lord.” He stood up and gestured to Tyler to follow him.
Lexi waited until they were out of the room, and then she stood up, turned the camera off, and swirled to face Mitchell. Mitchell could feel the anger coming off her, and he was barely able to meet her eye.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “But what he said about you… and then me. I just lost it.”
“It doesn’t matter what he says about me,” Lexi said, pacing back and forth. “It’s just what guys like him do to try and get under our skin. I told you he would try it, and you told me you could handle it. And you played right into his hands.”
“I’m sorry,” Mitchell repeated.
“Yeah, well, being sorry doesn’t undo what you’ve done. Your attitude isn’t helping here, Mitchell. From now on, I do these things alone, and that’s final.”
“But—”
“No. No buts. I said it’s final.”
“How would you feel if you had been accused of something so terrible, and everyone thought you had done it?” Mitchell asked, the anger draining out of him.
Lexi sighed. She moved back to the table and took her seat beside him. She touched his arm again, gently this time, and even now, when he was so all over the place, he felt warmth spreading through him.
“I get it, Mitchell. I’d be pissed, too, but you have to rise above the anger. You have to play these guys at their own game and not walk into their clumsy traps.”
She took her hand away, and Mitchell felt a sudden urge to grab it and put it back. He resisted, ignoring his dragon stirring inside him, telling him that Lexi should be his.
Mitchell nodded. She was right. He had gone into the deposition fully intending to follow her instructions and keep his cool and not bite. Maybe she was right about the rest, too. Maybe he should just sit these things out and let her do her job.
“How will it look if I don’t even show up for these things, though, Lexi? It will make it look like I have something to hide.”
“No,” Lexi said softly, shaking her head. “It will look like you actually trust me to do my job and you’re following my advice and not trying to micromanage me. And if it was me, I’d trust the one person who believes me.” She smiled hesitantly at the last part, and Mitchell found himself smiling back at her.
“For what it’s worth, I do trust you,” he said quietly.
“Then you should know that I do believe you didn’t do this,” Lexi added. “My instincts tell me you’re telling me the truth, but if this thing gets to court, it’s not me you have to convince, it’s a jury. And those jury members aren’t allowed to follow their instincts. They have to examine the evidence presented to them and make their decision based on that. You don’t need me to tell you that the evidence is stacked against you.”
“No, I don’t,” Mitchell agreed. “What made you see past it? I know you said it’s a gut instinct, but there has to be more to it than that to risk this going to court.”
Lexi sighed. “I find it strange that you left only one fingerprint and only one strand of DNA in the house, both in incriminating places. But until I can prove that someone else put them there, that means less than nothing.”
“What do we do if you can’t prove it?”
“I need your alibi,” Lexi said firmly.
Mitchell saw himself in his mind’s eye, facing off against Joshua. The most annoying part of it all was that if it came to it, Jake and Tilly would be only too happy to back up his story; it was the truth, after all, and after Mitchell had risked his life and his pack’s safety to save Tilly, it was the least they could do for him. But no matter how many people confirmed his story, no one, not even Lexi, would believe him. He could turn in front of her; that might just do it, but he wasn’t about to reveal his true identity. Even if he did, it might keep him out of court, but he was almost certainly signing his own death warrant.
He wrestled with his conscience for a minute. He hated to lie to Lexi, especially when she believed he was innocent, but what choice did he have? If he kept refusing to g
ive her his alibi, he would go to prison for murder. It was really that simple. And she would eventually give up on him. He knew from experience that you could only try to help someone for so long if they continually refused to help themselves.
“I was with Samuel. He’s one of my best friends,” Mitchell said after a pause that went on a second too long.
“See. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Lexi said with a slight smile. “Why did you hold this back from me for so long?”
Mitchell shifted uncomfortably in his seat, seeing immediately the consequences of his lie. One lie led to more lies. He had to have a reasonable explanation for not telling her his alibi sooner, and saying it was because he was with a good friend so he didn’t expect anyone to believe him was hardly something he would have chosen to hide from his own lawyer.
“I didn’t want to drag Samuel into my mess. He’s a good guy, but he has a… a bit of a past,” Mitchell said.
“Nothing will happen to him, Mitchell, as long as he tells the truth about where you two were and what you were doing at the time of the murder. What exactly were you two doing?”
“Nothing illegal,” Mitchell told her quickly. “We were just hanging out. Look, I’ve put my cards on the table with you, but there’s a chance Samuel won’t want to get involved in this. I need to talk to him and make sure he’s willing to testify before this becomes an official statement.”
Lexi frowned and shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter whether Samuel wants to help or not. I can subpoena him, which means he’ll have to testify, even if he doesn’t want to,” she explained. Mitchell was already shaking his head firmly before she even finished the sentence.
“No,” he insisted. “I told you this because I wanted you to know I trust you. But Samuel trusts me. And I won’t do that to him. Either he comes and talks to you willingly, or we find another way to prove my innocence without my alibi.”
“Mitchell,” Lexi started.
Mitchell cut her off with a raised hand. “Please. He’s one of my best friends, and I’m sure he’ll help, but not like this. Just let me talk to him.”
“Fine. But once you have, I’ll need to talk to him, too.”
Mitchell felt relief flood through him. He knew Samuel would have his back, but they needed to work on a believable story before he talked to Lexi. Mitchell could tell by the reluctance in her voice that this wasn’t the way these things were normally done. She was bending the rules for him, moving into the grey area between following protocol and going rogue. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was just her usual style, or if she was doing it because she felt the same draw to him that he felt to her.
“Thank you, Lexi. You won’t regret this,” Mitchell said. He stood up quickly and headed for the conference room door before she could change her mind.
“You have twenty-four hours to make this happen before I step in,” Lexi called after him.
He gave her a wave of acknowledgement. He wouldn’t even need that long.
He left the building and got into his car, heading straight for Samuel’s place. He felt bad for lying to Lexi, but he told himself he was making her job easier. It had to be easier to work with an alibi witness than try to prove he was being set up. And it wasn’t like he was lying to cover a crime. He was only lying to protect himself. And to protect Lexi, because knowing about the supernatural world was damned dangerous, and he wouldn’t risk her like that. Not when she was the only person outside of his pack who actually believed he hadn’t killed Lisa.
He arrived at Samuel’s house and parked his car. He rang the bell, and Samuel pulled the door open quickly, looking surprised to see Mitchell on his doorstep. He moved away to let Mitchell inside.
“What is it?” Samuel asked the second the door closed behind Mitchell.
“I have a huge favor to ask you, Samuel. One you are well within your rights to refuse,” Mitchell said. “It’s way bigger than the last one, and you could end up in real trouble if you agree to do this.”
But I could end up in even bigger trouble if you don’t, he thought to himself but refrained from saying. Once Samuel heard what he was asking, he would put two and two together and work that much out for himself.
“Go on,” Samuel said, nodding at Mitchell.
“I fucked up today. I got pissed in a deposition, and it doesn’t exactly paint me in a good light. Lexi was really angry with me, and she insisted the only way forward was for me to give her my alibi. I told her I was with you, and that I held it back from her because you have a bit of a questionable past. Are you willing to say we were together at the time of the murder?”
“Of course,” Samuel said without hesitation.
“You are?” Mitchell asked, a little surprised at how easily Samuel had agreed to this.
For all he had been confident his friend would say yes when he was in the conference room, once he was back out into the street, he had started to wonder if he wasn’t being overly optimistic. It was a lot to ask for. Samuel was not only risking prison for perjury if it got that far and it was later proved he had lied in court about the alibi, he was also risking putting himself on the radar of whoever had set him up.
“Well, sure.” Samuel laughed softly. “Don’t look so surprised. We’re family, Mitchell. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Where did you tell her we were?”
“I didn’t tell her anything. I said I wasn’t sure if you’d be willing to help me, and I had to talk to you first,” Mitchell said. Samuel nodded thoughtfully.
“Good. Then we can work out a convincing story.” He started moving towards the lounge, and Mitchell followed him. They sat down, and Samuel thought for a moment. “We need to say we were somewhere public. Me sitting in your apartment with you isn’t enough. The DA will just make the jury believe I’m covering your ass.”
“But where can we say we were? It doesn’t matter if there was supposed to be two hundred people there, none of them will remember seeing me.”
“We should say we were at Dave’s. The bar is always heaving, and there’s no way anyone would expect the bartender to remember every single person who was in the bar on a specific day. But we’re regular enough that Dave or any of the bartenders will know who we are, and they’re likely to think we were there.”
“Okay.” Mitchell nodded his head, suddenly feeling a little bit of hope that this could actually work. “So we met up after lunch and went to Dave’s. We got there just after one, and we were there until six?”
“Works for me,” Samuel said. He reached down the side of the couch and picked up his laptop. Mitchell frowned at him, and Samuel grinned.
“I’m seeing if there was any sport on that day. If there was, then we can say that’s why we were there. To watch the game.”
Mitchell nodded again. Samuel was good at this. He was starting to wish he’d just said he was with Samuel straight away, but at the time, he had thought the whole thing was just a misunderstanding, and lying had seemed like a good way to get himself into more trouble rather than less.
Samuel found what they were looking for: a baseball game. They watched the game online, and within a couple of hours, they had their full story straight, down to how the game played out and what they had drank.
“Oh, before I forget, I’ve been doing some digging like you asked me to into Joshua and his associates,” Samuel said.
“And?” Mitchell prompted him.
“And they’re clean. Well, at least in this. They don’t involve the police in their business any more than we do.”
“So, it’s a dead end then,” Mitchell said, feeling deflated.
“Yes, but I did manage to find something else. Something I found very interesting.” He paused and grinned, and Mitchell fought the urge to get annoyed at him for dragging this out. “The lead detective on your case is Detective Luke Burns, right?”
“Yeah.” Mitchell was paying more attention now. Samuel’s eyes danced with glee. He had found something big.
“
I think he might be the one setting you up,” Samuel said.
“What? Why? I had never even heard of him before all of this mess started,” Mitchell said.
“I don’t have all of the details yet, but I’m working on it. Word is that Detective Burns used to be a hunter.” Mitchell’s head flew up, his eyes open wide. Samuel nodded and grinned again. “That can’t be a coincidence, can it? A hunter pinning a crime on an immortal. When you think about it, it’s a good way for a hunter to get immortals off the streets without having to risk being killed themselves.”
Mitchell shook his head slowly, his mind spinning with possibilities. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t really help me with my case.”
“Why not?” Samuel asked with a frown.
“Well, it’s the same as my real alibi, isn’t it? Who the hell is going to believe that the detective on the case is a hunter, and I’m an immortal, and that’s why he’s doing this?”
“They don’t have to know why he’s doing it, only that he is. All we have to prove is that he got your fingerprint and DNA illegally from your records and used them to frame you for a crime you didn’t commit. Like I said, I’m still looking into it, but if he’s doing this to you, then I’d be willing to bet he’s done this before. If we can prove he’s dirty and has set other people up, then that’s all we need to get your case thrown out. And in the meantime, you now have an alibi, so it’s not like you have to mention this to Lexi or anyone before we have the proof we need.”
“Nice work,” Mitchell said with a grin, allowing himself, for the first time, to believe he might actually still be able to walk away from this the easy way.
6
Lexi was ready and waiting when her secretary came into her office and told her that Samuel was here. She had managed to convince Mitchell to sit this one out. He had argued with her, obviously. It was his default setting to argue with everything she told him.
He had tried to reason with her, telling her that his emotions weren’t going to get in the way on this one. Samuel wasn’t going to start making accusations against him or saying bad things about Lexi. In the end, she’d used his own logic against him, telling him he was right; Samuel was on his side, so this would be an easy one to sit out so he could start realizing he had to let her do things her way. She had been elated when she’d actually won.