Chapter Three
WITH HIS LEG pressed against hers, Rayne felt Grant’s leg muscles tighten. Under the table, she laid her hand on top of his fist and smiled at the short detective. “How about an introduction first? I’d like to know who will interrogate me.”
Tall detective scowled. “Who said anything about an interrogation?”
“Oh, come on, Detective. You know Grant and I used to be on the job. You might call this an interview, but we know the score. We want to know your names.” Especially when they talked to the lawyer Fortress sent to help them out of this jam.
Tall detective said, “I’m Peter Sanders. This is my partner, Nathan Conner.”
“Rayne Weatherly. This is Grant Bowen.” She tightened her hold on Grant’s fist. “Since we’ve been properly introduced now, how can we help with your case?”
“Answer our questions,” Conner snapped.
“Let’s hear them.”
“That’s not how this works.” Sanders glanced at his partner. “Take Ms. Weatherly next door. I’ll take Mr. Bowen.”
“No,” Grant said flatly. “We stay together.”
“Hiding behind your girlfriend, Bowen?” Conner sneered.
“Insulting us won’t reap the results you want.”
Sanders held up his hand to hold off his partner’s response. “Look, we all want the same thing. Answers. You used to be a cop. You know procedure says we interview suspects separately.”
“Not this time unless you want to wait for our lawyer to arrive.”
The detectives scowled. They looked at each other, then came to a silent agreement. “All right,” Sanders said. “We’ll play it your way for now. However, if either of you interferes with the other’s answers, we do it the old-fashioned way.”
“Fair enough. Ask your questions,” Rayne said. “We’ll answer what we can.” Definitely not as much as the detectives would like. She knew only what she’d pieced together. She and Grant hadn’t been able to talk, a deliberate action by law enforcement.
“How well did you know Selena Baker?” Sanders asked Grant.
“We dated for a while.”
“How long exactly?”
“Four months.”
“You were close.”
“I thought we were.” His lips curled. “Turns out I was wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Selena was sleeping with my former best friend.”
“How do you know that?” Conner demanded.
“I walked in on them in bed together.”
“That must have ticked you off.”
“I was angry,” Grant admitted. “Wouldn’t you be mad if your woman was sleeping around on you?”
“This isn’t about me. You said you caught them together. How did you react when you found them?”
“Left the house and waited for them on the porch.”
Another exchanged glance between the detectives. “Why didn’t you confront them immediately?”
“And interrupt the moment? No, thanks. It was hard enough knowing the truth without sticking around for the show.”
“What happened when they came out?”
“I told Selena we were finished.”
The detectives waited. When he said nothing more, Sanders frowned. “That’s it?”
“What did you expect?”
“I thought you were a hotshot black ops soldier and expected at least a bloody nose and shouting. I can’t believe you let that slide.”
Rayne scowled. “Did you serve in the military, Detective Sanders?”
His face reddened. “No.”
“I did,” Conner said. “Why do you ask?”
“Were you Special Forces?”
He sneered. “I was just a regular Army grunt. No special accolades or treatment for me.”
“I don’t know what you learned in training, Detective Conner, but the Special Forces soldiers I work with practice discipline and self-control because they’re trained to disable or kill to protect.
They’re held to a higher standard, and any trouble they land in is magnified because of their training. ”
Grant opened his hand, turned it over, and threaded his fingers through hers. “She’s right.”
“So you left the house to protect them. That’s what you’re trying to sell us?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s the truth.”
“Your control was shaky?” Sanders asked.
“No.”
“You just admitted to leaving the house to protect Ms. Baker and her lover.”
“My control wasn’t the problem.”
“Then what was?”
“My temper.”
A knock sounded on the wooden door, and a young officer stepped into the room. “Sorry to interrupt, but their lawyer is here.”
Sanders tossed his pen and notepad onto the table. “Fantastic,” he muttered, glaring at Rayne and Grant. “Send him in.”
“Yes, sir.” Less than a minute later, the cop returned with a middle-aged man dressed in a pin-striped three-piece suit.
Rayne’s eyebrows soared. Who went to a police station dressed in a three-piece suit at five in the morning?
Grant smiled at the newcomer. “Good to see you, Vince.” The two men shook hands. “How’s the family?”
“Great. Thanks for asking.” The lawyer sobered and turned to the detectives. He held out his hand to each man. “Vince Hargrove. I’d like a few minutes to confer with my clients. Turn off the camera when you leave.”
Sanders scooped up his pad and pen. “Sure. We have nothing better to do than wait around to interview your clients.”
“Who needs to catch a killer?” Conner muttered as he headed for the door.
The men left the interrogation room, slamming the door behind them.
Vince chuckled. “I know how to clear a room.” He held out his hand to Rayne. “I’m Vince. You must be Rayne.”
“It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
“No need to be polite at this time of morning.” He laid a yellow legal pad on the table and pulled out a pen. “Zane said the two of you landed in a bit of trouble. Tell me what’s going on.”
For the next few minutes, Grant laid out the morning’s disaster in as few words as possible.
Vince frowned. “How serious was the relationship between you and Ms. Baker?”
Grant flinched. “Enough to raise the detectives’ suspicions.”
“Wait. Is this the woman you were telling me about, the one who threw you over for your best friend while you were working undercover?”
A slight nod. “You see my problem.”
Vince rubbed his jaw. “When was the last time you saw either of them, Grant?”
“Ten months ago.”
Rayne froze. Ten months? She and Grant had met two months ago. Was he on the rebound?
“Did you speak to them?”
“Of course not. What would I have said to them? ‘Hey, I didn’t receive an invitation to your wedding. Must have been lost in the mail.’”
The lawyer pointed at him. “Lose the attitude. That will cause the detectives to look at you with even more suspicion. You know they’ll look at you hard for this, my friend.”
“I didn’t kill her. I didn’t know Selena was in the area, much less that close to my house. If she had contacted me, I wouldn’t have met with her because I had no interest in rekindling a relationship with her.”
“Would your answer change if you knew she regretted betraying you and wanted to get back together?”
“No. Never. I’ve moved on. Selena had no place in my life.”
“What about you, Rayne? Did you have any contact with Selena?”
Grant squeezed her hand gently as she shook her head. “I never met her and did not know she was part of Grant’s past.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I should have told you about Selena, but she was gone from my life when I met you.” A genuine regret that he hadn’t divulged the truth to her filled his eyes.
Why should he apologize? She and Grant weren’t really a couple, despite the detectives’ assumption. Not that she wasn’t interested. Something about Grant Bowen fascinated her on every level. “You have a right to your privacy.”
Just as she did to hers. Would he lose interest in her if he knew about her past?
“One thing we can expect is the detectives assuming you might have gotten rid of a rival for Grant’s affections,” Vince said.
Rayne blinked. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yes. It’s a simple solution to the murder. Not only are you convenient, Rayne, you’re a highly trained black ops soldier. You, my dear, have some lethal skills. Killing another person would be child’s play for you.”
She stared at the lawyer. He couldn’t know about her past. Could he?
“Rayne?”
She tore her gaze from Vince and focused on Grant.
“You okay?”
“Peachy.” Just another early morning at a police station, accused of murder. Again.
Grant looked skeptical, but he didn’t call her out on it. Thank goodness. Telling Grant would be hard enough when they were alone. Even her teammates didn’t know about her past, a deliberate choice. She didn’t want to be judged by her teenage years but by the choices she’d made in adulthood.
Too bad her former colleagues had ferreted out her secret and made her life on the job as miserable as possible. Brent Maddox’s offer to join Fortress Security had arrived just in time.
“We’re running out of time.” Vince flipped to a clean page of his yellow legal pad. “The detectives’ patience will be near an end. Are you sure you’re ready for their questions, Rayne?”
“As much as I can be. I never met Selena Baker or Dante.”
He shifted his attention to Grant. “You know what’s coming, my friend. Can you handle the interview without attitude? They’ll look hard at Rayne. You must be prepared for it and respond appropriately. If you can’t, I need to know now.”
Grant’s fingers tightened around Rayne’s. “I’ll do whatever is necessary to protect her.”
The lawyer sighed. “I guess that will have to be good enough. If the interview goes sideways, I’ll intervene.” Vince rose and opened the door to the hall. “Come in, gentlemen. We’re ready for you.”
The detectives returned with Conner carrying an extra chair for Vince. After they sat at the table, Sanders opened his notepad again. “Let’s begin.”
For the next two hours, the detectives grilled Grant about his whereabouts for the past week, seeking every scrap of information to help them piece together a timeline. Unfortunately for them, Grant had little to offer in terms of current information.
“Look,” Grant snapped. “I already told you I haven’t talked to Selena or Dante in the past ten months.”
“You’ve also given us alibis for only half of the past week.” Conner leaned closer. “How can we verify your whereabouts when you won’t tell us where you were the first part of this week?”