Chapter 7
The next morning Eden had everything packed and ready to go. Just as she carried her bag to her car, a vehicle drove up. She instinctively knew it would be Eric, and, sure enough, he stepped out and walked toward her. “Now what?” she muttered.
“I don’t want you going alone.”
“That’s nice,” she muttered, trying hard to suppress her annoyance, “but I’ll figure out what happened to my friend.”
He nodded. “That’s what I presumed you were doing.”
“Look. She went off to this wonderful retreat,” she began, “and became a very different person. Not only a different person but someone I barely recognized at all.”
“And that may well be true,” he conceded, “but going off on your own isn’t exactly the answer.”
“It might not be the answer, but it’s the only course of action I have right now,” she stated, “so don’t try to stop me.”
He smiled and nodded. “I won’t stop you.”
“What?” She did a double take, sensing a but was coming.
“I’m coming with you.”
She stopped and stared. “What?”
He nodded. “I checked out the place, and your single room is now a suite booked for two.”
“What do you … no, no, no,” she snapped, staring at him. “You can’t do that. You don’t have the right to do that.”
“Yet I can do that,” he declared. “Either that or you’re staying here.”
She blinked several times at the audacity and the heavy-handedness, but she couldn’t even figure out what to say.
“So, my vehicle or yours?” Eric asked.
“What?” she cried out.
“I am already over the barrage of questions, so please, let it go. Which vehicle are we driving? Mine or yours? Those are the only options you have,” he explained. “By the way, the captain did agree.”
“Why would the captain agree, and how did you know I wasn’t leaving until this morning?”
“I know it may sound stupid that we would listen to anything that came from a psychic, but this one in particular has a long history of working with detectives. I have some limited experience with him myself. As for you leaving today? I knew you were lying about something, and, after I checked that the retreat began midmorning today, I decided to come and see if you had left. If you did, I would have found you at the retreat.”
She sat down on her front steps, her bags in hand. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. So, I am coming no matter what you say. Since this Monday is a holiday, the retreat this weekend is a four-day event.” She just stared at him, and he repeated, “So your choice. My car or yours?”
She blinked, looking at his car, which was in decent condition as opposed to hers.
“Good, my car then. I prefer to drive anyway.”
Giving her no time to protest at all, he grabbed a bag out of her lifeless hands and carried it to his car. As soon as he had it stowed, he looked back at her and added, “Now you need to lock up.”
She blinked at him several times, not at all sure.
“Hey, Earth to Eden.”
She shook her head. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“No, it’s not, but we’re not at all sure exactly what you were planning. Therefore, we want to confirm that whatever you’re planning doesn’t end up causing another death.”
She didn’t know what to say about that. He was right, since it was a possibility.
“Come on. Lock up. Have you heard from Debbie’s landlord at all?”
“No,” she replied, staring up at him but still not moving. “I suspect he’ll just clean out the place and not bother me. I don’t have time for that, but I was able to arrange for cremation. Plus, I was trying to get her body released.”
“Good. You arranged for cremation,” he noted. “Beyond that, you don’t have to do anything right now.”
She raised her hands in frustration. “Right, just because you say so?”
“No, not because I say so but because you need to be operating with your head in the game, not just hell-bent on trying to solve this,” he declared, his tone stern, his eyes squinting. “Do you really think I didn’t have a clue what you were planning?”
“Yeah, I really did think you didn’t have a clue,” she snapped, glaring at him. “I don’t even know how you figured it out.”
“You did tell me that you were headed to the retreat again.”
“Yeah, true,” she muttered. “I regretted that as soon as I got off the phone.”
He smirked. “It doesn’t matter at this point because, at the end of the day, you’re not going alone.”
“So, you think the brothers in charge are dangerous?”
“I don’t know that at all,” he clarified, “and we can’t go in there with that expectation.” She considered that, and he nodded. “I get it. You want them to be guilty of some heinous crime and for me to arrest them and to put them in jail for twenty years, where they can suffer horribly.”
She winced as she listened to that. For all intents and purposes, he was right.
He nodded. “You’re not the first person to have somebody die who they cared about.
You’re not the first person to have somebody die under somewhat suspicious circumstances,” he added.
“I get it, and I am sorry, but just because Debbie died under strange circumstances doesn’t mean a crime has been committed. ”
“And yet here you are.”
“Yes, here I am to confirm you don’t die by some odd circumstance either.” He grinned. “And I want to see the brothers in action.”
“But they’ll know who you are because you talked to them. Did you not?”
“I did, but by phone. So who knows. Things are never what they seem to be. So, maybe nothing will happen,” he cheerfully suggested. “Still, you’re not going alone, so you’re either staying here or you’ll go with me.”
“What do you mean, with me?” she asked suspiciously.
He sighed. “Meaning that we go as a couple, or you don’t go at all.”
“You can’t stop me,” she declared.
He turned to face her, and the look he shot her was hard and implacable.
He snorted. “I can make your life very, very difficult. I can cancel your reservation. I can contact them and say that you’re really struggling with your medications after the loss of your friend and that you’re likely coming to cause trouble, and they would never let you in. ”
She closed her eyes, absolutely stunned at this turn of events.
“Or you can come with me.” The smile he gave her was wicked. “Then we’ll just see if anything is suspicious about it all.”
“And yet you don’t think there is.”
“I don’t know that there is or that there isn’t,” he clarified, “but what I do know is that I can’t let you go off half-cocked into this and either get yourself into trouble or get into a situation that you cannot handle and end up in the same boat as Debbie.”
She turned and glared at him, but he never looked away.
“Yes, I mean dead.”
Without another word, she got up, handed him the last of her bags, and walked back to her front door, locked up, then turned to look one last time around her small place.
Finally she headed to his car with him. As soon as she got inside, she pointed out, “I don’t even know why I’m agreeing to this.
I just know—and I get that this sounds very strange.
I know that I must go, whether I want to or not. ”
“Doesn’t sound strange at all,” he replied, a knowing smile on his face.
“I also have the feeling that I must go too. So, let’s just both decide that we’re following our instincts and that whatever is going on is something we need to get to the bottom of.
Yet you also need to realize that it could be very dangerous, and, in this instance, I am in charge.
” He remained in the driver’s seat, staring at her.
“And I’m not turning on this vehicle until you agree. ”
She stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “What made you think that this was getting serious?”
He pondered it for a long moment and then shared, “Partly Stefan, partly you and the commitment you had to making sure that I understand how bad this was. And then partly my own instincts.”
She raised her eyebrows at that.
“I know something’s going on. I just don’t know what, and, as much as I love puzzles,” he said, “I hate it when I can’t get answers.”
With a bark of laughter, she put on her seat belt and nodded. “Let’s go.”