Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
EDEN
Lincoln’s entire demeanor had changed, and the moment he hit the room, the air around us went heavy and charged. He barely looked at me as he bent to retrieve my bra and dress from the floor.
“Linc?” I slowly lifted to sitting, pulling a pillow around me to cover my breasts. “What’s wrong?”
“Need you to get dressed, baby.”
“What?”
He tossed my clothes onto the bed and let out a sharp whistle for Rocky. “There’s no time to explain, but I need you to get up and dressed right now. I gotta take Rock home, but I’ll be right back.”
Anxiety started slashing at my chest, making me grip the pillow tighter. “Why are you taking Rocky home?”
Bending at the waist, Lincoln wrapped his hands around the sides of my neck, tangling his fingers in my hair. “You trust me, Edie?”
“I… y-yes. You know I do.”
The pads of his fingers pressed deeper. “Then I need you to trust me now. I swear I’ll explain it all to you when I can, but for now I need you to put on some clothes. Please. I’ll be right back, and we’ll get this all worked out. I swear.”
Fear formed a ball that sat heavy and painful in the pit of my stomach, but I didn’t know what else to do except follow Lincoln’s orders. “O-okay.”
“Quick, baby. I’ll be right back.”
Then he was gone.
I scooted from the bed and moved as fast as I could, donning my bra and slipping my maxi dress back into place. I’d just finished getting myself back to rights when my front door opened and slammed closed, and I nearly jumped out of my skin before Lincoln appeared in my bedroom doorway.
“Shoes and a jacket, darlin’.”
“What? Why?” My worry had risen to a painful height. “Linc, what’s going on? You’re starting to scare me.”
At the loud, hammering pound on my front door, our heads jerked in the direction of the living room.
“Fuckin’ shit,” he hissed, drawing my attention back his way. His jaw ticked wildly, which only frightened me more.
“Lincoln?”
Whoever was at the front door started banging again. I moved down the hall fast before the person could draw the attention of the neighbors. When I hit the living room, the first thing I noticed was the flood of blue-and-red lights coming through the big windows.
My mouth went dry and a knot formed in my throat, making it hard to breathe and impossible to speak. I knew those lights all too well, and from my experience, seeing them was never good.
I threw the door open to find the man I’d seen at The Tap Room standing at the threshold with a guy I didn’t recognize, both of them in plain clothes. Behind them stood two officers in uniform.
“Eden Brenner?” the man I didn’t recognize asked.
“Uh, y-yeah. That’s me.”
“I’m Detective Wanderly, and this is my partner, Detective Walker. Sorry for the disturbance, ma’am, but we’re gonna need you to come with us down to the station.”
My skin went cold and my hands started to tremble. “Is everything all right?”
Detective Walker offered me a polite yet sympathetic smile. I thought I remembered his name being Hayes, but at the moment, I couldn’t recall much of anything. “It’ll be okay, but we need to ask you a few questions.”
“You can’t just ask me here?”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and I knew that, in spite of their gentle tones, I wasn’t going to have a choice.
“Edie.” At Lincoln’s voice, I turned to look over my shoulder and reached back, grabbing his hand and holding on tightly for support. “It’ll be all right.”
“Can you go with me?” I asked in a barely-there whisper.
“I’m afraid not,” Detective Wanderly answered.
Lincoln’s head jerked around and his eyes flashed murder. “The fuck I’m not,” he growled.
“Brother,” the other detective said before Lincoln could rip Wanderly’s head off. “We gotta do this by the book.”
His top lip curled threateningly. “And you can do that with me in the car beside her.”
“Linc, man, you know it doesn’t work that way. You can meet her down there.”
“Hey,” I interrupted the standoff, spinning around to place a calming hand on his chest. “It’s okay. I’ll go with them. You meet me down there, all right?” His jaw ticked, and a vein at his temple throbbed. “All right?” I repeated, needing to hear an answer before I could go.
His shoulders finally dropped, and a bit of the tension eased out of him. “Yeah.” His hands came up to grasp my cheeks. “But I’ll be waiting for you as soon as you’re done to bring you home.”
Well at least there was that.
Now I understood why Lincoln demanded I put on shoes and a jacket. The room was freezing.
I was slowly and thoroughly losing my shit. The longer I sat in that cold metal chair in the empty interrogation room, the more I stressed until my skin grew so tight and uncomfortable I thought it might split.
Neither of the detectives had said a word to me as they put me in the back of the cruiser and followed us to the station in their unmarked car.
They might not have placed me in cuffs, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like a criminal as all the people who lived on Rosewood Lane stood on their porches and watched the police haul me off.
That feeling got even worse as I was led through the bullpen in the police station and into interrogation. Every cop in that room had their eyes pinned to me as I took my walk of shame, and the tension in my belly grew thicker and heavier.
The detectives escorted me here and then left, saying they’d be back in shortly.
That had been twenty minutes ago.
I only knew what I’d seen on cop shows, but I hadn’t been informed that I was under arrest or read my rights, so I was pretty certain I wasn’t locked down in the room.
I was just about to get up and storm out to demand answers when the door suddenly opened and Detectives Walker and Wanderly came in.
“Sorry for the delay,” Walker apologized.
Wringing my hands in my lap, I pulled my bottom lip from between my teeth. “That’s fine. Now could you please tell me what’s happening? I’m a little freaked.”
Detective Walker took the chair across from me while Wanderly leaned his back against the two-way mirror and crossed his arms over his chest. I could tell by the kindness in his eyes that he wasn’t meaning the stance to come off as intimidating, but it still very much was.
“What can you tell us about Shepley Brenner?” Detective Walker asked, flipping open a folder and scanning through the first few sheets.
My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. “My brother?” I asked incredulously. “That’s why I’m here? Because of my brother?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he returned. “So what can you tell us about him?”
I lifted my heavy hair off the back of my neck before letting it drop again while silently cursing my asshole brother to Hell and back for pulling me into whatever bullshit he’d gotten into this time.
“Not much, really,” I replied, unable to hide the bitterness in my voice. “I mean, other than he’s a son of a bitch, I don’t have much else to offer. We haven’t talked in years.”
Detective Walker’s face went funny, and not in a good way. He watched me like a person would a specimen under a microscope as his partner pushed off the wall and moved to the table.
“You sure about that?” Wanderly asked. “’Cause we got a surveillance photo of him not too far from here.”
Taking the folder, he pulled a photograph from inside and slid it across the table. I had to slap my hand onto the picture to stop it from falling to the floor. Sure enough, it was a grainy image of my older brother filling up a car that most likely wasn’t his.
“That right there’s proof your brother was at least around Hope Valley at the time the break-ins started.”
“Wait.” I leaned forward. “You think Shep has something to do with the robberies that have been happening around town?”
“That’s what we’re tryin’ to find out, ma’am,” Detective Walker stated.
His partner jumped in then, his tone and expression both having grown harder. “And that’s why you’re in here. So you sure you wanna stick with your original answer that you haven’t talked to him in years?”
My whole body jerked back at the aggitation radiating off him, and my voice went weak as I asked, “Do you… think I had something to do with those break-ins?”
“Again, that’s what we’re tryin’ to find out.”
Lifting my hands, I gave my head a hard shake, hoping the craziness of everything happening right now might piece itself together because nothing was making a bit of sense. “I’m sorry, but are you kidding me?”
“Ma’am,” Detective Walker started, “if you’d just—”
“Please, for the love of god, stop calling me ma’am.
My name’s Eden. And I’m not a part of anything that has to do with my brother.
” I pressed my fingertips into my forehead to try and stave off my growing headache.
“My brother came by last week looking for a handout, but I sent him packing within five minutes. I didn’t even know he was in town.
I got home and he was just there, sitting in my living room. ”
Wanderly’s brows dipped into a V. “He broke in?”
I gave him a look and snorted and pointed to the thick folder on the table.
“You’ve seen his sheet. Not exactly a surprise.
Anyway, he told me he’d gotten himself in trouble and needed my help, but I kicked him out before he could say any more.
I have no idea about any crimes he has or could have committed, I swear. ”
“You have any idea where he might be?”
“None. Honestly, until you started asking me these questions, I thought he’d bailed again.” I looked between the two men. “Has something happened? Was there another break-in?”
Detective Walker hesitated for several seconds. “There was, earlier tonight. And the owner was murdered.”
If I hadn’t been sitting I would have collapsed to the ground. As it was, I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. “That… that can’t be right.”
“What can’t be right?” Walker asked.
“Look, my brother’s a jackass, I’ll be the first to admit that, but he isn’t a killer.”