Chapter Six
Her phone died sometime between arriving at the sheriff’s department and being told to wait in Darius’s office. It was unfortunate timing. And annoying.
Darius had left the small box of a room what felt like hours ago, but Eve logically knew it was probably closer to twenty minutes she sat there alone.
Unlike the boy she had once spent all her time with, this adult version called Detective Williams seemed to be more fond of debilitating silences instead of idle chatter.
Once he made it clear that he wasn’t going to give her a crumb of information about Mitchell or Gary’s death, he had gone quiet in the truck.
It had forced Eve to play around in her own head while she waited to arrive at their destination.
That play hadn’t lasted long.
She kept bumping up against two problems, and neither one of them had an easy solution.
Gary had been shot and moved to the wedding ceremony, right? That meant something. But what? And who would do it?
The other problem was Eve’s whole reason for the wedding in the first place. She had thought stopping the ceremony would give her what she needed to finally, finally take the almighty White Knight down.
Now?
Now she was sitting in the sheriff’s department, her only partner in crime holed up somewhere else within the building, most likely a nervous wreck.
Not for the first time since Darius told her to stay in his office, Eve glanced at the door.
Maybe if she slipped out and went looking for Mitchell herself, no one would notice: she wasn’t wearing her wedding dress anymore. It wasn’t like she was anyone of consequence when it came to the guests she had been standing in front of a few hours ago.
Eve chewed on her lip, this time really contemplating the move, when the doorknob turned under her gaze.
Darius had a folder in one hand. He used the other to point to her mouth.
“Whatever bad idea you and that poor lip you always chew on have, go ahead and park it here,” he said. “Let me remind you you’re at a sheriff’s department and not some movie theater you can go sneaking around in.”
Eve blew out her own exasperation. She decided rolling her eyes was too much, but she knew her tone let him know it was missing.
“I’m not some kid anymore. I don’t need you telling me what I should or shouldn’t do.”
Darius snorted. He took his seat opposite her.
The framed picture she had already studied at length that sat between them showed Darius in the middle of a group of people at what looked like a mechanic’s shop.
Some of those faces Eve recognized as the law, others seemed to be their partners and children.
Darius was sandwiched between an extremely tall man and a teenaged girl with pretty blond hair.
She didn’t think the girl was his daughter, and several glances at his ring finger made her believe that Darius was single.
Or, at least, not married.
She wouldn’t put it past him to leave the rest of his sentimental pictures at home. He had never been a big sharer, after all.
But, shared past or not, the present was more important than figuring out his current relationship status.
She needed to talk to Mitchell.
So she made sure he heard that need one more time.
“Can I see Mitchell now?”
Darius leaned back in his chair a little. The folder didn’t leave his hand.
“Which is what your fiancé keeps saying too. Minus the seeing part. Instead, he keeps saying talk. ‘I need to talk to Evelyn.’”
She felt a fake smile trying to hurry and hide her rising anxiousness. Darius had always been good at seeing through the few times she had put on a fake smile as kids.
Now wasn’t the time to see if that skill still worked.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see or talk to me after something like this happened,” she pointed out.
Darius was quick, but his words felt like they were lounging.
“No, not strange at all, but what has a few of us scratching our heads is who he won’t let us talk to.”
Eve felt her eyebrow rise.
“Who? Scott?” She shook her head a little. “You know Mitchell is his own man and doesn’t constantly need his brother for everything.” Eve didn’t like how Darius looked so comfortable all of a sudden. To push her own point home, she contrasted his stance. She crossed her arms over her chest.
Darius’s expression was impassive.
“Men with money and backing like the Keys typically call for a lawyer first.”
“Gary Whittaker is the Keyses’ family lawyer. You can see why he wouldn’t be asking for him.”
Even to her own ears Eve heard her voice go sharp.
Darius didn’t budge.
“And, again, men with money and backing like the Keys can surely find themselves another lawyer when needed.”
In hindsight, Eve would realize she had glossed over how the last word changed the entire situation. Mitchell needed a lawyer, not wanted one.
He needed one.
But Eve didn’t hear the meaning in the moment. Instead, she simply doubled down.
“Maybe he needs me more. Now, can I see him or not?”
Darius was quiet a moment. Then he rapped the desktop with his knuckle twice.
“Yeah, you can, but under one condition.”
“And what’s that, Detective?”
Darius didn’t skip a beat with his answer.
“I have to be with you.”
A heaviness settled against Eve’s chest. That would make talking impossible. Or maybe not. She looked into those dark eyes and wondered how much she could get past them.
Sure, they had once been inseparable, but then they had indeed gone their own ways.
Darius might have known her then. That didn’t mean he knew her now.
“Only you?” she clarified.
Darius nodded.
Eve’s anxiety spiked. She would also realize later that, in that moment, she also was skimming over one very obvious fact.
She also wasn’t being given a choice.
Eve let out a small breath. Then she agreed.
“Let’s go.”
THE ROOM HAD a whiteboard against the wall on one side, a long table with chairs tucked underneath it in the middle, and Mitchell Keys in a tux against the back wall.
During Darius’s career he had seen all kinds of people waiting in the big room.
Victims, loved ones, witnesses, colleagues and suspects he didn’t want to spook with an actual interrogation room.
He had walked alongside them, let them lead or sat in his usual chair, waiting for them to be brought in.
He had seen reactions from every angle.
Sadness. Anger. Happiness. Apathy. Confusion. Exhaustion.
It all blended in a carousel of memory.
So he shouldn’t have been surprised at the reaction the ill-fated, almost-married couple gave when Eve walked into the room ahead of him.
And yet, Darius couldn’t help but pause in the doorway.
Mitchell Keys might not have been the same as his brother, but so far he had been holding himself with a rigidness that was nearly contagious.
Anxiety and a twitch beneath the skin just itching to get out.
Darius had expected that anxiety to lessen at the sight of Eve because that was what he believed to be a normal reaction.
To see the woman you were supposed to marry after a tragedy kept it from happening?
After you clearly hadn’t been able to talk anything out with each other?
Never mind being the number one suspect in a homicide investigation.
However, the second Mitchell laid eyes on Eve, there was only one emotion that was so palpable that Darius nearly felt it too.
Relief.
Undeniable and absolute relief.
So much so that the man who had once had a decent height to him, lost an inch or so as he sagged into an exhale. In one moment he was taut, a rubber band ready to snap, in the next he was melted ice cream, pooling on the old carpet floor.
And Eve’s reaction to his reaction was just as surprising.
She didn’t mirror the relief. Not one bit.
In fact, when the couple met each other in the middle of the room, the tension that had fallen from Mitchell seemed to be freezing up into Eve. Like he had passed the buck through simple eye contact. Her shoulders were straight as a board by the time she reached him.
For the third time in the span of seconds, Darius was surprised.
Instead of some kind of intimate embrace or kiss, Eve simply reached her hands out and grabbed his.
Then she patted them.
It reminded Darius of a grandparent trying to assure a child who had just been scolded by a parent. Protective and loving.
She’s not in love with him.
The thought flashed into Darius’s mind in the steps between the doorway to his usual chair at the table. By the time he was settled into it, he decided the unprompted suspicion was, in fact, true.
Even if Eve hadn’t asked him to stop the wedding, he would have drawn the same conclusion.
However, adding in the wedding itself: the social, easy-to-talk-to Eve had had no friends standing at her side; the bridesmaids were associates and hand-me-downs from Scott Keys; her family also wasn’t in the audience.
No Drake Myers, a father she had loved dearly when they were kids. No aunt. No cousins. No one.
Just a room filled with fancy outfits and concern at the interruption.
But not concern for Eve.
Even now, her fiancé wasn’t the one offering reassurance.
It was Eve who was comforting him.
Darius didn’t know what it could possibly be, but he knew then that Eve was up to something. Given her genuine shock at Gary Whittaker’s death, he didn’t think a homicide was a part of whatever she was doing.
The jury on Mitchell Keys, however, was still out for Darius. It was why he and the sheriff had made sure that at least one of them would be in the room when the two reunited. Something that Mitchell didn’t seem to mind at all. His gaze was glued to Eve’s.
“How are you holding up?” she asked the groom. “My phone died, or else I would have already called.”
Mitchell shook his head. While the sheriff had spent most of his time talking to the man, Darius had introduced himself at the library. He hadn’t been verbose or charming then. Just simple.
Now there was a softness to his words. There was affection, but again, it wasn’t what Darius had expected from a future husband.
“Scott was holding my phone for the ceremony, and I didn’t get a chance to grab it back before he went off with the sheriff,” he explained to her. “When I tried to call from one of the phones here, they wouldn’t let me.”
Darius switched his gaze to Eve at that.
Her shoulders stayed tight.
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be fine.
” Eve gave one more hand pat. Instead of pulling away after, she kept her hand right on top of Mitchell’s.
From her profile, Darius could see her open her mouth a little and then close it.
She waited a beat, then finally chose the words she seemed to want to say.
“Everything we were going to do? We’re still going to get it done.
This only pauses our plans, not ends them, okay? ”
Darius felt his eyebrow rise.
Mitchell nodded.
His Okay was just as soft as before.
Darius would have expected more talk between them, but Eve turned to face him, dropping Mitchell’s hands in the process. Her voice changed yet again. This time, it was a tone he recognized.
Determination.
Pure and true.
“We have things to do,” she said. “So what do we need to give you before we can leave? A written statement?”
Like Darius knew that Eve wasn’t in love with Mitchell Keys, he knew right then and there that Eve truly hadn’t put together one and one yet. That he hadn’t taken her to the department to be reunited with her fiancé or simply do paperwork.
He wasn’t her childhood friend right now.
He was Detective Williams.
A part of him didn’t like the feeling.
The other part domed his fingers on top of the table.
He met Eve’s stare head on.
“The only way he’s leaving is if he has an alibi.”
Eve’s eyebrows slammed together in complete confusion.
“An alibi?” she repeated. “For what?”
Darius felt the weight of his badge against his chest. His answer was as clear as could be.
“For the murder of Gary Whittaker.”