Chapter 16 Eddie
Eddie
I know this room.
I’ve been on the other side of this table dozens of times—the interrogator’s side, where you control the temperature, the lighting, the length of silences. Where you watch for tells like shifting eyes, clasped hands, anything that separates the innocent from the guilty.
Now I’m the one being watched.
The chair I sit in is bolted to the floor. The two-way mirror reflects my own haggard face back at me—unshaven, eyes red-rimmed, the particular exhaustion that comes from knowing you’re fucked and calculating exactly how fucked.
Even though the Internal Affairs meeting was supposed to begin at eight this morning—in a standard meeting room, not an interrogation room—I’ve been here for nearly two hours with no water and no bathroom break. Classic intimidation tactics I’ve deployed myself more times than I can count.
The wait is deliberate. Let me stew, let anxiety do half the work. I know this because I wrote half the playbook.
How many people have I done this to? The thought circles like a vulture. How many guilty men sat exactly where I’m sitting and told themselves they could talk their way out?
Most of them couldn’t.
The door opens.
Vincent enters carrying two thick manila folders, moving with unhurried confidence.
“Where’s Internal Affairs?” I rasp, my throat too dry. “Why aren’t we in a meeting room?”
He just stands there, looking at me with something that may pass for disappointment if I didn’t know what lived behind it.
“I wanted to believe in you, Crowe,” he says. “I really did.”
He sits and sets the folders down carefully, aligned with the table’s edge. He opens the first one and slides crime scene photos across the table’s surface toward me. They’re of Michael Devlin’s house with the severed hand in a toolbox, a receipt for a bar, and a bloody shirt.
“Tell me what you see,” Vincent says, like this is a training exercise.
I keep my voice level. “A staged crime scene. Professional work.”
“Your work.”
I don’t respond because every denial sounds like guilt in this room.
Vincent opens the second folder, which contain more photos and documentation. He lays it out piece by methodical piece:
The adhesive analysis report highlighting the polymer match to my old case work.
Security footage stills of my car, unmistakably my license plate, time-stamped two blocks from Devlin’s house during the break-in window.
A witness statement from a neighbor who saw a man matching my description heading toward Devlin’s house.
It’s perfect. Too perfect. Each piece of evidence is real but wrong because I wasn’t there, but someone made damn sure it looks like I was.
I searched my car for any evidence that would prove someone else had been inside of it, but I found nothing. I asked James if he’d seen anything with his cameras, but because I didn’t park near Sera’s house that night, he had nothing.
“You thought you were serving justice,” Vincent continues. “Taking down an abuser the system failed to protect his victim from. I almost admire it, Eddie. The dedication. The moral clarity.”
The trap closes tighter with every word.
“But what I don’t understand is what you were doing with Farley’s hand in the first place. What could he have possibly done to you, this church-going man with a wife and a family who’s served this department right along with you and has been my friend for decades.”
I seal my mouth shut against the words that want to spew out.
That Farley lied under oath at Vincent’s trial, where he stood trial for raping Sera.
That Farley likely knew exactly what Vincent did to Sera.
That I didn’t fault James at all for taking Farley’s hand and gifting it to Sera as an offering.
“Where were you the night of the break-in?” Vincent asks.
The answer will damn me.
My mind races through the truth. I was fucking Sera on her porch. Surrendering to her in ways that would obliterate any defense I could mount. Becoming exactly the kind of compromised, dirty cop you’re accusing me of being, just not for the reasons you think.
Obviously I can’t say that. Can’t even hint at it without exposing her to Vincent’s scrutiny. Without giving him a reason to look harder at Sera Vale, the woman he already destroyed once.
I go with the weakest possible answer. The one guilty men always use.
“Home. Alone.”
Vincent’s smile says everything, and the weight of it crushes down. Every true alibi I have involves Sera or James. Every exculpatory detail leads straight back to the people I’m trying to protect. I’m caught in a net made of my own choices, and pulling at any thread just tightens it.
Vincent leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers. “Here’s what I think happened. You knew Michael Devlin’s girlfriend was suffering, and you decided the law wasn’t enough, especially since she never filed a report.”
He pauses and lets it sink in.
“So you took matters into your own hands. You broke in and left evidence. Planted Farley’s severed hand, which you just happened to have, to make sure Devlin would go down for something, even if we couldn’t get him for the domestic abuse.
“It’s vigilante justice, Eddie. And I get it. I do. These cases… They eat at you, make you question whether the system works, whether all our rules and procedures actually protect anyone.
“So help me understand,” Vincent says, leaning forward. “Help me help you. Just tell me the truth, and we can work something out. Reduced charges against you. A recommendation for leniency. You’ve got years of great service, and that counts for something.”
I calculate my options in the silence, but there’s no good choice.
There’s only the choice that keeps Sera breathing and out of Vincent’s crosshairs.
“You’re right about one thing,” I say slowly, choosing each word like I’m defusing a bomb. “The system failed that woman, whether she reported Devlin or not.”
Vincent hikes up an eyebrow.
“But I didn’t break into Devlin’s house.” I hold his gaze. “I didn’t plant Farley’s hand. I didn’t take Farley’s hand.”
His expression doesn’t change, but something flickers behind his eyes.
“You want to know what I think?” I continue.
“Tell me.”
“I think someone’s playing us both. Someone who wants me off the board. Someone who benefits from the department tearing itself apart.”
Vincent’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
I press the advantage. “The framing of me is too clean. Too perfect. Like someone who knows exactly how an investigation works. If it were me who planted the evidence, do you honestly think I’d park on the same street while I did it?
Make sure I parked my car so that nearby cameras can catch my license plate?
Sheriff, you know me, and I’m not that dumb even on a bad day. ”
Vincent sits back. “Red Hands, you mean. So your defense is ‘a serial killer did it’?” His voice is flat now, cold. “That’s weak, Crowe. Makes you seem desperate.”
“It’s not a defense. It’s a possibility you should investigate rather than immediately dismiss your best detective.”
“I am investigating. And right now, all the evidence points to you.” He taps the folders. “Red Hands has a pattern, a signature, and this doesn’t match. Serial killers don’t steal cars and frame detectives. They kill. That’s what they do.”
Silence stretches between us, long and heavy. We both know that we all have different facets to our personalities and traits. Including Red hands. Including Vincent. Including me.
Vincent stands and gathers his files while he eyes me closely. “Could it be, Detective, that you’re protecting someone?”
“I don’t protect criminals,” I say automatically.
The door pops open suddenly, and an officer barges in and whispers in Vincent’s ear.
“What the fuck?“ Vincent grinds his teeth together when the officer slips out again, and then without another word to me, he leaves.
The door closes. The lock clicks.
I sit alone in the silence, my mind racing.
I really only have one option: endure.
Let the system play out. Hope that my years of service, my record, and my reputation count for something.
But mostly, trust that Sera is smart enough to stay hidden even if I burn.
I’ll take the fall if I have to, I think, staring at my reflection in the two-way mirror. But I won’t give you to Vincent.
The door opens again, and it’s a uniformed officer I don’t recognize.
“You’re free to go,” he says. “For now.”
I stand, my joints stiff from hours in the bolted-down chair. As I’m escorted through the station, past colleagues who won’t meet my eyes, I see the Red Hands whiteboard.
Seven confirmed kills. Dozens of missing women in the area. No suspects. No arrests.
And somewhere out there, he’s still hunting.
Still circling Sera.
And I can’t protect her from behind bars.
Which means I’d better not end up there.