Chapter 44 Grayden
FORTY-FOUR
Grayden
The door to the interrogation room opened, and Chief Nichols stepped in again.
“Mr. O’Neal. I brought you some more water. Can I get you anything else to eat?” She set a water bottle on the table.
“Not hungry,” I grunted. The sandwich they’d brought me earlier sat on the far side of the table, barely touched. “I’d like my phone.”
It had been hours since I’d texted Piper. She had to be worried. I also had no idea if Danny was alive. Nichols had refused so far to tell me. I had no idea what Piper was going through right now. She was probably at the hospital.
I needed to be with her.
Nichols pulled out the chair across from me and sat. “Speaking of your phone. Would you unlock your screen for us to take a look? That could help speed this along. We’re just trying to get to the bottom of what happened.”
“No. I will not. As I said before when you asked. If you want access to my phone, get a warrant.”
Like I wanted the police reading my texts with Piper and my brother and sister. Those were personal.
Chief Nichols shrugged sadly, as if this was out of her hands. As if she wasn’t in complete control here.
“Maybe in a while then. First, though, I have some more questions. Let’s go over the events of this morning. Starting with when you woke up.”
“It’s the same as I said before. I’ve told you all of this.” My voice shook with simmering fury.
I was trying so damn hard to stay calm, but my anger was rising. That old siren’s call in my head. I breathed through it.
“One more time,” Nichols said. “We have to be sure to get it right.”
Beneath the table, my hand squeezed into a fist against my thigh. “Fine.”
I started with waking up on Piper’s couch. Making pancakes with Ollie. Sitting and eating with him and Piper.
The beautiful morning we’d spent, which had morphed into this.
I’d been here for ages. I wasn’t sure exactly how long.
The police had arrived on the heels of the ambulance earlier. I’d been covered in Danny’s blood, and the cop had taken one look at me and asked me to come to the station for routine questioning. They had to get my statement.
My clothes were now in an evidence bag somewhere. They’d given me sweats and a long-sleeved tee to change into. Both were too tight on me.
Before we’d started talking, Chief Nichols had read me my rights. Theoretically, that meant I could be a suspect. But it seemed absurd.
Danny had nearly run me over earlier. He’d already been bleeding out. Looked like he’d been stabbed. I’d tried to stop the bleeding and got medical help.
In fact, I was pretty sure I’d saved him. Assuming he survived.
This room brought back too many memories, all of them awful. I wasn’t necessarily claustrophobic from my years of imprisonment, but I hated being stuck behind a locked door without it being my choice.
The police could keep me here for a while to carry out their investigation, but this was getting ridiculous.
“I waved goodbye to Piper and Ollie as they drove off,” I recounted. “Started walking down the sidewalk.”
“Because you were going to walk to your brother’s house.”
“Yes. As I’ve said. Then Danny’s car suddenly drove down the street and nearly hit me. I jumped out of the way. He hit a truck belonging to Piper’s neighbor, and the neighbor came outside to see what happened. I told him to call 911.”
“But you had the door to Danny’s car open already, correct? Before the neighbor came outside.”
“Yeah, because I thought Danny had just tried to run me over. He was slumped forward. I opened the door and saw the blood.”
“He was already bleeding? You’re sure.”
“Of course I’m sure,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You didn’t injure him? Maybe by accident?”
“No, I did not. I didn’t do a damn thing to Danny Carmichael.”
“But you and Danny have had confrontations before, haven’t you? That’s what Piper told me a few days ago. After the incident with the fake drugs? The anonymous tip claiming you were dealing? Piper thought Danny was behind it.”
I leaned back in my chair. Right. Piper had spoken to Chief Nichols about that. “Danny and I don’t get along. That’s true. He’s no fan of mine.”
“According to Piper, you helped her when Danny was getting aggressive with her.”
“Yes,” I bit out.
“You wanted to protect Piper and Ollie from Danny, right? That’s understandable. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to stop him from hurting Piper again. Or his son.”
Shit, I knew what she was trying to do.
Maybe it was time to invoke my right to an attorney. But I knew how that would look.
I didn’t respond to Nichols’s question.
She opened a file folder she’d brought with her. Glanced over the contents. “I have a witness statement that you met with Danny at a bar last Thursday evening. Things got heated. You argued.”
My stomach churned. I said nothing, and Nichols went on.
“You and Danny were speaking, and you got angry. Slammed your fist on the table. You said something about crushing him under your boot.”
Hell, the old timers at the bar that night had been listening to every word, huh? I wondered how Nichols had heard about the incident.
But it didn’t matter. I didn’t bother to correct her about misquoting me. I hadn’t directly threatened Danny that night at the bar.
I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time earlier. I had no idea why Danny had been driving down Piper’s street, bleeding from a wound in his side.
But from the minute the local cop had seen me there, recognized my name, I apparently became the number one suspect.
They couldn’t pin this on me. There was just no way.
“We took fingerprints from the scene,” Nichols said. “I’d like to bring in someone to get copies of your prints now. Your prints are in the national database, obviously, given your criminal record. But this will be quicker and easier for our techs.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“It’ll be easier if you just agree. The more you work with us, the quicker we can rule you out as a suspect. If you didn’t do this.”
My mouth was stone dry, but I didn’t reach for the water. “Fine. Go ahead and take my prints.” What difference did it make, anyway? My prints and DNA were forever on public record.
Nichols called another officer in for the printing. I stared at the dark ink as it smudged my fingers.
Usually ink on my hands meant I was working on a sketch. Ink represented my artwork. The very thing that had saved my soul during my darkest days.
But this ink was a stain. An accusation of guilt.
Bands of anxiety were tightening around me. Dread increasing by the second, sinking down to my bones.
Piper wouldn’t believe I’d done this to Danny. Right?
But she’d seen me lose my temper with her ex. The day I found Danny with his hand on her throat, I’d done the same to him. Slammed him against a wall and nearly cut off his air supply. She’d had to tell me to stop.
I’d told her about my anger problems before my prison sentence. The incident at Leavenworth when I’d punched a guard. Piper had said she understood. She didn’t judge me for those mistakes.
But she’d had that moment of doubt when she saw the package of so-called drugs at my place.
If she believed me capable of stabbing her ex, like I was some kind of violent thug, it would destroy me.
I sat there, listless, as the tech finished the fingerprinting. Nichols had sat silent across from me the entire time.
When we were alone again, the chief said, “Was Piper afraid of Danny? She sounded pretty angry at him the other night, when I spoke to her on the phone.”
Can you blame her? I wanted to say, but managed to keep quiet.
“Did she tell you she was afraid? Did she ask you to keep Danny away from her and Ollie? Maybe for you to get rid of him for her?”
“No,” I blurted, fury heating my skin like a furnace.
Fucking hell. Over the last hour or so, I’d come to terms with how bad this looked for me. But now Nichols was dragging Piper into it? Trying to pin guilt on her because of me?
I knew Chief Nichols was manipulating me. But that didn’t make it any less effective.
Because I would do anything to protect Piper. Do anything to keep from hurting her.
Even something monumentally stupid.