Chapter 4
JULIET
The fluorescent lights overhead buzz like angry wasps, casting their sterile glare across the chipped metal table I’m shackled to—figuratively, of course, not literally. Yet.
Abel Frazier—my lawyer, as the guys had eventually explained—sits at my side typing away on his cell phone. I cast him a glance. He’s handsome, though a good ten or fifteen years older than me, and dressed in an impeccable suit that’s understated, but highlights his natural lithe muscular form.
“Are you allowed to have that in here?” I ask. Not that I care—I really don’t, but I am curious.
“You’re not under arrest,” he says absently, eyes still glued to the screen of his phone. “You’re just here to give your statement and answer a few of their questions.”
A moment of silence passes before I realize that his comment was his answer—a nonanswer if I’ve ever heard one. If the cops didn’t give him a pat down before he came back, I guess it doesn’t matter. I return my attention to the rest of the room.
It’s little more than a square. Four cement walls interrupted only by the metal door on one side and the plate of a two-way mirror across from the table and where we sit.
My nose crinkles at the scent that burns into my nostrils—old coffee and moldy desperation.
Sitting here makes me feel more like a corpse left to rot in a forgotten hallway.
There’s a camera in the corner, but the red light isn’t on, so it’s not recording. Not yet, anyway.
After this meeting, I expect Detective Lann—the man in charge of the investigation of Morpheus’ murder—will pore over the footage and try to find some way to pin the blame on me.
Whether it’s something I say or don’t say, the twitch of an eyelash, or shifting in my seat because it hurts my ass.
He’ll try to find some reason to have me back here on actual charges.
We’re still in Silverwood, after all, where they care less about the truth and more about pointing fingers at people they hate.
“Another witch hunt…” I murmur absently, staring at that camera.
“What was that?” Abel asks, finally setting his phone down on the tabletop.
I open my mouth to respond when the door swings open, crashing loudly against concrete as it hits the wall too hard.
Detective Lann bustles inside, uncaring.
He’s an older man with a thick mustache and gray creeping up his temples and into the dark brown head of hair he’s managed to keep over the years.
He moves like he’s in his middle age, not slowly, but definitely not with speed.
The metal chair with its back to the mirror shrieks across the floor as he pulls it out.
I grimace at the sound, but Abel remains quiet and unfazed.
I look at him curiously. From what I know of the Frazier family in Eastpoint, they’re in the top one percent of America’s wealth.
Practically richer than royalty. The kind of family that would be on equal footing with the Troyans.
Yet, here he is, in a dungeon-chic interrogation room hours from his city, representing me… pro bono.
He’s got a damn good poker face too.
“Thanks for coming in,” Detective Lann huffs, not sounding all that appreciative as he takes his seat. Metal creaks.
I tilt my head and offer him a smile that I know doesn’t even look genuine. “Wouldn’t be my first time here,” I say. Because I ended up in a room just like this—months ago on that fateful night.
I’d sat in a chair just like this one through the night as I was grilled about what I or my mother knew of my father’s activities.
If we knew he’d been embezzling from the town.
If we understood what was going to happen to the people who lost everything.
It wasn’t Detective Lann, but it might as well have been—no one at the SPD had given a shit about the fact that we’d just lost everything.
Lann slaps a folder onto the table, drawing my attention and allowing me to shake off that ugly memory. A name is printed across the tab in bold, black ink: Morpheus Calloway.
I stare at it like it’s someone else’s life tucked in there. Someone else—not him. Because I’m scared to hope. Scared that the door is going to one day open up to reveal him standing there with a smile on his face asking if I fucking missed him.
Not. Goddamn. Likely.
Lann flips the folder open but doesn’t look down at the blank page sitting at the top. No, his cold little eyes stay locked on mine. “So. Let’s talk about Morpheus Calloway.”
I fold my hands in my lap, curling my fingers into fists and pressing them down against my thighs. My gaze, when it meets his, is calm. I won't give them the satisfaction of seeing me crack. Never again.
Out of the corner of my eye, a red light on the camera starts blinking. Someone’s turned it on. My lips twitch, but I repress the urge to smile. Oh, how I want to look directly in the lens and ask if they’re getting off on having me here again.
“Can you tell me where you were Friday night at eleven p.m.?”
My gaze swings back to him, and I lean forward.
“Is that when he died?” Other than telling me about setting up a meeting to give my statement and answer questions, Nolan hadn’t been able to explain much before I’d had to hurriedly get dressed to come into town.
This is the first time I’m actually getting any information on Morpheus’ death.
Lann tugs a pen from his suit pocket, clicking it to release the end. “Just answer the question, Miss Donovan,” he snaps.
“There’s no need to be rude, Detective,” Abel says. He lifts one leg up to cross an ankle over his knee. “My client was simply asking for clarification on if the time you’re referring to is the time of death.”
A vein in Lann’s forehead pulses as he glares from me to Abel. “She’s here to answer questions, Mr. Frazier,” he states. “Not ask them.”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly. I don’t give a shit how Detective Lann talks to me. He’s not the first and he won’t be the last. “Eleven p.m., right? I was probably upstairs in a suite around that time. We didn’t come down until after he was dead.”
Detective Lann moves his gaze back to me and then scribbles something on the blank page. I try to read it, but he speaks again before I can.
“Is there anyone who can corroborate your story?”
“My story?” I reply, jerking my gaze up. “It’s the truth, and yes—I was with Giovanni Vargas, Alexio Medicci, and Nolan Pierce.”
Lann’s lips twist into a scowl. “Now, Miss Donovan, you wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?
” Condescension drips from his tone. The false courteousness makes my irritation skyrocket.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t stop there. “I understand that you have a… special relationship, but were you to perjure your statement here today—”
“Lann,” Abel snaps the other man’s name, cutting him off as he drops both feet to the floor and sits forward. “My client is answering your questions to the best of her ability. There’s no need for you to behave with inconsideration. I would expect better of a detective.”
Lann’s scowl slowly morphs into one of smug satisfaction as if he’s pleased by Abel’s obvious annoyance. He arches one bushy brow laced with a gray hair or two. “I’m simply reminding Miss Donovan that lying in an official statement is a crime, Mr. Frazier.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not fucking lying,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I’m sure there were cameras in the hotel.
If you get those tapes then it’ll prove what I said to be true.
Places like that usually have a lot of security—it would probably record the time I went upstairs and the time we left. ”
At that comment, Lann’s smile falls. “Yes, that would normally be the case.”
“Normally?” Abel repeats the word with emphasis. I glance his way to find him staring hard at Detective Lann, waiting for the other man to speak again.
“We’re currently looking into all possibilities and still gathering evidence from the scene of the crime,” Lann states. “Let’s continue. Miss Donovan, please tell me…”
Detective Lann’s words trail off as I contemplate what he’d said—or rather, what he hadn’t said.
A million and one questions circle my head.
Are the camera recordings not available?
If they won’t believe witnesses like Gio, Lex, and Nolan, then I’ll have to rely on physical evidence to prove my innocence.
Minutes pass and the ticking of the clock above the mirror grows louder as one hour becomes two. Detective Lann has me tell him my perspective of events. When I arrived, where I was, when I left.
Though I don’t expect him to believe me, I tell him everything from that night.
Well, almost everything. A large part of what had taken up the time before this meeting had been the guys and I discussing—along with Abel and Viks—what our story is.
No one knows about Morpheus’ blackmail and it’s better that they don’t.
It would definitely paint me as a likely suspect more so than I already am.
So, I leave out large parts—including my less-than-loving relationship with Morpheus and asking Paris to help facilitate meeting the guys at the party.
Eventually, Lann picks up his line of questioning again. As soon as he does, they turn particularly… leading.
“You and Mr. Calloway had a close relationship, right? Did the two of you have an argument that led to you leaving him and the party behind?”
I glare at the detective. “I. Did. Not. Kill. Him.” Each word is ripped from my throat, hard and cold.
I didn’t kill him. No matter how much I wanted to. No matter how many times I’d dreamed of it when the memories of what he’d done had started to return. No matter how disgusting he made me feel or how trapped and betrayed.
“That’s not what I asked, Miss Donovan.”
“But it’s what you’re thinking,” I tell him and by the flat expression on his face, I know I’m right. I scoff and shake my head. “This is fucking ridiculous. I came to you,” I remind him. “Would a guilty person have come in so easily? If I killed him, wouldn’t I have run?”
“Guilty parties sometimes feel confident that they got away with their crimes,” Lann replies easily. “Sometimes, they even want to be involved in the investigation.” His eyes glimmer with hostility. “They get off on it.”
Ice infuses my veins. Fucking pointless. It doesn’t matter what I say. They’ve already made up their minds. Even if I were to admit the awful things that Morpheus did—the rape, the blackmail, the threats—I doubt they would even believe me.
“I’m done.” I stand and glance at Abel. He nods, the squeak of his metal chair scraping over the concrete floor as he follows. He reaches into his suit coat and pulls out a second business card.
“Any further communication with my client will go through me, Detective Lann.” He places the card in the center of the table. “Until next time.”
I doubt there will be a next time, though. If I want to know the truth about anything—about my father and the embezzlement, my mother’s disappearance, or Morpheus’ murder—I’m going to have to find it out for myself.