Chapter 24
Greer and Hack left, and the three of them sat there for a moment in silence with Cash studying the images that Greer had drawn. One of the man with the body. One of Vextar. Sort of. She could tell from Monroe’s reaction that it didn’t really look like him.
Ralen and Dotty walked in. Dotty glanced around. “Is there any coffee? I need coffee or my brain is going to wither away.”
Addie jumped up to make her one, knowing the way her sister liked it.
“I’d like to speak to Monroe next.”
Addie turned from the coffee pot as the man she guessed was the police detective stepped into the room. He was a good-looking guy with dark hair and a five o’clock shadow.
Addie looked over at Monroe, who appeared rather worried as she stared at him.
Cash nodded at the police detective and she noticed he’d turned the image that Greer had drawn of the man with the body over. “Jackson. Been downgraded to burglary, have you?”
“Cash Savage and Ralen Garcia. I didn’t know the two of you were here. What are you up to nowadays?”
“Nothing we’d tell you about,” Ralen told him with a wide grin and a wink. “You’ll just have to hope you find out one day.”
Cash snorted and moved over to where she was leaning against the counter. He leaned against it next to her, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You okay, Stowaway?”
She nodded.
“Stowaway?” the police detective asked, not really missing a beat. “Oh, because she hid in the back of your pickup after getting scared during a bar brawl.”
They’d decided not to mention Addie seeing the man with the dead body. She wasn’t entirely sure why. Part of her wondered if people still thought she’d made it up, and they were trying to protect her.
Though Ink had told her it was because he didn’t want the cops interrogating her about what she’d seen, that it might put her in danger. But even though they had no proof it had happened, they also didn’t have proof that it hadn’t happened.
“I’ll interview you after Monroe,” the detective said to Addie.
What?
They wanted to interview her? Why? She knew nothing. She understood why they’d want to talk to Monroe, but why did they need to talk to her?
“Why do you want to talk to Addie?” Dotty asked.
“It’s best if I talk to everyone,” the detective said.
Dotty narrowed her gaze and started tapping her foot. Uh-oh, things weren’t going to go well now.
Butch stepped into the room and moved across it to grab some coffee for himself. He eyed Dotty, then the detective. “Everything okay?”
“I’m just trying to do my job,” Detective Jackson said. “You don’t need to all look at me like I’ve committed some crime.”
“Addie doesn’t know anything more than I do,” Dotty said. “You already interviewed me. You can ask Monroe about her husband.”
“Soon to be ex-husband,” Monroe said, as she played around on her phone, seemingly not paying that much attention to what they were talking about. “What the heck are all my social media passwords?”
“And we don’t have anything more to add,” Ralen told him. “So no need to talk to us either.”
“I would like to know why this didn’t get reported until hours after you’d been to the hotel,” the detective said.
Cash shrugged. “We were busy.”
“Busy doing what?” the detective asked as Ink walked into the room.
“Trying to find us,” Dotty said with a smile. “Only we’d been arrested by some of your fellow police officers and stuck in jail like we’re common criminals, right, Monroe?”
“I was so stressed that I bit off two of my fingernails,” Monroe said, holding two fingers up. Both of them were her middle fingers. Her naughty fingers. Addie wasn’t sure if she actually meant to do that, or if it was just a coincidence that those were the fingernails she’d chewed.
Addie had to choke down a surprised giggle, and she noticed that Cash seemed to be biting back a smile. Even Butch snorted. Which was a big show of amusement from him.
The police detective sighed. Unfortunately, Ink’s contact at the police station was out of town, so they’d ended up with this guy, who seemed a bit arrogant.
“Well, Addie won’t talk to you,” Dotty told him. “So you can just leave her off your list. She was with Ralen and Cash at the time anyway, so they saw everything she did.”
“What do you mean she won’t talk to me?” he asked.
“Addie doesn’t talk to people who scare her,” Dotty told him. “You’re scaring her.”
The police detective actually looked shocked at that and turned to Addie. His face seemed to soften a little bit, and he sighed. “Can she write stuff down?”
“You can talk to her,” Cash told him. “Just because she might not reply verbally, doesn’t mean she doesn’t comprehend what you’re saying. She’s not stupid.” There was anger in Cash’s voice, and she turned to look up at him in surprise.
She couldn’t remember the last time someone had defended her like that. Well, except for her sisters.
“Right, sure,” the detective said. She was starting to feel a bit sorry for him, if she was honest. “Addie, can you write down your answers for me?”
Addie nodded.
“Good. Right. Monroe, you’re next.”
Monroe got to her feet and started towards the door. She walked as though she was moving towards her execution.
It had been a really long twenty-four hours. In fact, everything had started to go wrong well before that. But these past twenty-four hours have been the worst.
And Monroe was no closer to figuring out where Vextar had gone, not that they really wanted to find him now. It certainly seemed like he didn’t want them to either.
Dotty followed after Monroe.
“It’s not necessary for you to come as well,” the detective told her.
“Yes, it is. As well as being Monroe’s sister, I’m also her lawyer.”
“She’s not under arrest. I’m just taking a statement from her.”
“She still wants me with her, don’t you, Monroe?” Dotty said.
“Yep,” Monroe said.
The three of them had an unspoken rule that even if they didn’t agree with the other sister publicly, they’d never let on. They always stuck together.
Not that she thought Monroe wouldn’t want Dotty sitting in. There was no one better to have on your side than Dotty. That’s how she’d become such a successful lawyer. Because she fought for her clients like they were family.
Butch got up and followed them out as well. The detective gave him a long-suffering look. “Why are you coming?”
“Bodyguard.”
The detective gave him a look of surprise. “Bodyguard? You really think she needs that?”
Butch didn’t deign to answer. He just stomped out after Monroe and Dotty.
The detective followed them.
Ink grimaced. “Sorry. He’s not the person I was hoping we would be dealing with. Reeves is currently busy with something else, so we were given Jackson. He’s not a terrible detective, he’s honest and generally fair. Sometimes he’s just a bit of a dick.”
Addie nearly smiled at that honest assessment.
“A bit of a dick?” Cash repeated. “He seems like a supreme dick.”
“The king of dicks,” Ralen added.
“The dickiest of the dickheads,” Addie said.
They all looked at her, and this time she did grin.
Ralen let out a hoot. “That’s it, Trouble! He’s the dickiest of the dickheads.”
Ink just shook his head and left.
Monroe’s interview seemed to take a while, and Addie started to get restless. Standing up, she paced up and down the room.
When Monroe returned she was pale-looking, and Addie moved over to her. “Are you okay?”
By this time, her throat had nearly completely shut down on her, and she coughed after speaking.
Dotty, who’d entered soon after Monroe, walked over to her with a sharp look. “What’s going on with your voice? Are you losing it?”
Addie nodded. Her throat felt like it was on fire. But it was so irritating to stop and try to find something that she could communicate on.
“Stop talking, okay?” Dotty ordered.
She was aware that her cheeks were growing red, but she nodded again. Dotty was only trying to be helpful.
“Addie, are you okay to talk to the detective for a moment? We’ll find that same tablet you used before. Cash and Ralen will go with you?” Ink asked. “I’ll be there too.”
She nodded again and followed them all out. At the door, Cash took her hand in his, squeezing it and giving her a wink.
Ralen stuck to her other side, so they were flanking her like bodyguards.
It made her feel special, and that was a heady feeling, she had to admit. They entered Ink’s office, sitting on the sofa and chairs.
She’d snuck her squishy into her pocket and reached in to squeeze it as she felt her anxiety getting higher and higher.
Now, she really wished that she’d bought that hoodie with the squishes in the cuffs.
It would have been far more discreet than what she was doing right now.
The detective’s gaze went to her hand immediately, and his eyes narrowed. Uh-oh. Did he think she had something in there, like a weapon?
“It’s a stress ball,” Cash told him.
“What?” The police detective asked. Why couldn’t she remember his name? Oh, Jackson. That was it.
“A stress ball,” Cash repeated.
“Ah, right. Some of my colleagues have those on their desks.”
They did? Okay, she didn’t feel like such an idiot then, and she pulled the stress cube out of her pocket.
“Right. Just tell me about what you saw when you walked into the hotel room,” the detective said tiredly with a yawn.
“We keeping you from something you’d rather do?” Cash asked sharply.
The detective glared at him. “I’m here doing my job. I’ve just been up all night.”
“So have we,” Ralen told him with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Everyone’s temper is . . . frayed, I guess you could say. So let’s get on with things.”
The detective nodded. Cash told them everything, with Ralen adding a few things.
“And Addie, do you have anything else to add?” the detective asked, not unkindly.
She shook her head.
“No? Any thoughts on who could have threatened you guys? On who the threat might be aimed at?”
Addie shook her head again.
Her best guess was Vextar, like everybody else, but she knew her sisters would’ve said that.
There wasn’t really anything she could add to all of this. She wasn’t even certain why she was being interviewed.
“Are there any other things you’ve left out that you need to tell me?” There was a shrewd look in the detective’s eyes, almost as though he knew something else was going on, something that they were keeping from him.
But Addie just shook her head again.
The detective sighed and nodded. “Right. Well, we’ll try to get footage from the hotel security without going to a judge, but we’ll see how that goes.
Then we might be able to spot who it was that broke into the hotel room.
Well, not broke in, since they had a card.
I’ve told your sister to be more careful about that.
I might be tired, but I can assure you that I’m taking this threat seriously.
Even if you are leaving, you should still be vigilant when you’re back home.
And I’ll alert someone at the Las Vegas Police Department about all of this. ”
Right. She was sure that the Las Vegas Police Department had a lot of manpower to dedicate to some threat left on a mirror in a hotel room in Billings, Montana, but she simply nodded.
After he left, Cash turned to her, “You did a good job, Addie.”
Sure she had. She hadn’t done anything at all.
Useless as always.