Chapter Seven #2
Emma kept her hands steady on the wheel, her thoughts already jumping ahead to what Charlotte might say, or not say.
They pulled into the police station lot a few minutes later, the building already buzzing with early shift activity. Deputies moved in and out of the lobby, the air inside thick with the scent of coffee, conversation, and something like tension.
Jesse McCain met them just inside the squad room, a to-go cup in one hand and a dry look in his eyes. “She’s in Interview Room One.”
Emma nodded. “Thanks.”
Jesse took a sip of his coffee, then added, “Might want to put on flak jackets. She’s not in a good mood.”
Emma exchanged a glance with Ryker. “Perfect,” she muttered. “Let’s go make it worse.”
Emma pushed open the door to Interview Room One with Ryker just behind her.
Charlotte Ross sat at the table, arms crossed, a deep scowl carved into her face like it had taken root overnight. Her dark coat was draped over the back of the chair, and her eyes were sharp, bloodshot, maybe from lack of sleep, maybe from pure, concentrated fury.
What caught Emma off guard was what wasn’t there. No lawyer. No legal rep. Nothing but Charlotte and her temper.
Emma closed the door behind them. “No attorney?”
Charlotte’s glare didn’t waver. “Don’t need one. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Emma kept her expression neutral, but the surprise still prickled at her. She’d been sure Charlotte would walk in with backup, ready to throw up walls. The fact that she hadn’t… it either meant confidence or desperation. Maybe both.
Charlotte opened her mouth to snap something else, but Emma raised a hand.
“Hang on.”
She walked to the small table in the corner, pressed the button on the wall-mounted recorder, and began speaking in a clear, measured tone.
“This is Deputy Emma Bonetti with Deputy Ryker Caldwell. The time is 8:02 a.m. on March third. We’re conducting a voluntary interview with Charlotte Ross regarding the ongoing investigation, including the discovery of a deceased individual and related threats.
Interview taking place at the Outlaw Ridge Police Department, Interview Room One. ”
Emma turned, walked to the table, and sat. Ryker did the same.
Charlotte’s glare didn’t move an inch.
Emma slid a Miranda warning card from her folder and read the rights aloud, calm and practiced. Charlotte’s jaw tightened with every word, her stare burning hotter with each sentence.
When Emma finished, Charlotte leaned forward, voice clipped. “Are you trying to intimidate me? Because it’s not going to work.”
Emma folded the card and set it aside. “Good. Then let’s get started.”
Ryker reached into the folder on the table and pulled out a printed report. Without a word, he slid it across to Charlotte, the paper whispering against the table surface.
“That’s confirmation from the lab,” he said, his voice even. “Proof that your blood was used to write this.”
He pulled out another page, this one a black-and-white photocopy of the threat itself, and laid it beside the report.
Emma Bonetti is a killer. And she has to pay for what she’s done.
Emma watched Charlotte closely. Her expression faltered for a fraction of a second, eyes widening just slightly before she masked it again with a scoff.
“You think I wrote that?” Charlotte protested. “You’re serious?”
Ryker didn’t flinch. “It’s your blood. We’re asking why.”
Charlotte leaned forward, eyes flashing. “I didn’t write that threat. I don’t even know how my blood ended up anywhere near.” She caught herself, mouth tightening.
Emma tapped the DNA report with her index finger, slow and deliberate.
“It’s yours. No smudged print, no vague trace. A direct match. So, why write it?” And that was just the start of things that Emma wanted to know. Soon, very soon, she’d be moving on to Ruiz’s murder.
Charlotte’s eyes flashed with indignation as she shoved the report back across the table, her voice rising. “I’m being framed.”
Emma sighed and leaned back in her chair, her tone calm but firm. “We have no reason to frame you, Charlotte. You’re not that important to us.”
That stung, Emma could see it land, and maybe she meant for it to. Because this wasn’t a game. And whatever personal history lingered between them, none of it justified what was happening now.
Charlotte’s jaw worked. “Maybe you want me dead like Ethan,” she spat.
Emma didn’t react right away. She kept her voice level, her gaze steady. “Before that message showed up at a crime scene, I hadn’t thought about you in years.”
Ryker leaned forward, folding his arms on the table. “Then help us understand,” he said. “If you didn’t write that message, how did your blood end up being used as ink for a threat?”
Charlotte looked between them, her anger dimming into something more uncertain. She exhaled hard through her nose, then rubbed her arm like the memory still hurt.
“A week ago,” she said, voice lower now. “Something… happened. I got home from work and had a glass of my usual wine that I took from the fridge. Then, I, well, passed out. When I came to, there was a puncture mark on my arm.”
Emma and Ryker exchanged a look before she turned back to Ethan’s sister. “You’re saying someone drugged you and took your blood?”
Charlotte nodded slowly. “Yes.”
Ryker’s brows lifted, and he didn’t hide the disbelief on his face. “And you didn’t call the cops?”
Charlotte gave a bitter laugh. “And tell them what? That someone maybe stole my blood to frame me for a murder plot involving my missing brother and a woman I’ve hated for years?”
Emma tilted her head, her expression matching Ryker’s. Because if Charlotte was telling the truth, this had just gotten a whole lot more complicated. And if she wasn’t… if she was lying…
Then she should’ve come up with something a hell of a lot more believable.
Emma kept her gaze steady, fingers loosely laced on the table in front of her. Her voice was calm, even though Charlotte’s dramatics were starting to wear thin.
“Okay,” Emma said. “Then who would do something like that? Who would try to frame you?”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “Other than you?”
Emma didn’t flinch.
Charlotte huffed, waved the words off like they didn’t matter, but Emma knew they did.
“I don’t know,” Charlotte muttered, slumping slightly in the chair. “I really don’t.”
Ryker leaned forward. “Would Ethan do it?”
That lit the fire again.
“No,” Charlotte growled out, her voice sharp with hurt more than rage. “Ethan is dead. If he were alive, he wouldn’t do this to me. He wouldn’t let me grieve like this, alone. He would’ve reached out.”
Emma studied her, the emotion behind the words. She didn’t say what she was thinking, but the question pressed harder than ever.
Did Ethan really love Charlotte as much as she believed?
Because the Ethan Emma remembered was self-centered, volatile when cornered. Capable of love, maybe, but also capable of cruelty when it suited him.
Emma kept her tone even. “When was the last time you actually heard from him?” she asked.
Charlotte blinked, then reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her phone. She swiped through a few screens and then turned it so Emma and Ryker could see.
The message was dated four years ago. Sent late at night. Shortly after the blow-up at the wedding reception.
You really don’t get it, do you? You just stood there. You let Emma humiliate me in front of everyone. And you think I’m the one who needs help? I’m done. Don’t call. Don’t text. You chose a side, and it wasn’t mine. Watch your six, baby sis.
Charlotte’s voice was softer now, the fire flickering down to embers. “That’s how he ended everything. All his messages, texts, emails. It was kind of a thing between us.”
She flicked to another string of older messages, and sure enough, each one ended the same way. Watch your six, baby sis.
“That text wasn’t in the case file,” Ryker pointed out. “The police didn’t have this text.”
Charlotte’s eyes flashed, her whole body stiffening. “Because I didn’t give it to them.”
Emma watched her carefully, noting the flush that crept into Charlotte’s cheeks, not shame, but anger. Defensive and volatile.
“I didn’t want everyone knowing we argued,” Charlotte insisted. “That the last thing he ever said to me was… that.”
“You were worried it made you look bad,” Emma threw out there.
“Of course I was,” the woman snapped. “He was missing. People were already whispering that I must have known something. You think I wanted them seeing that message and assuming I drove him off? That I pushed him too far?”
Emma’s grip tightened on the edge of the table. “If you had shared it, the investigation might’ve taken a different direction. It might’ve helped us.”
Charlotte scoffed. “No, it would’ve helped you. You’d already poisoned people against me, Emma. They were looking at me sideways from the start. That message would’ve just confirmed whatever story they were already building in their heads.”
Emma exchanged a glance with Ryker, who didn’t hide the skepticism in his expression.
Whether Charlotte had hidden the message to protect herself, or to protect Ethan’s reputation, or because it played into whatever this twisted game had become, Emma couldn’t say.
But it was just one more secret in a long list of lies. And the truth, whatever it was, still hadn’t come fully into focus.
Emma watched as Ryker pulled another page from the folder, a printout of the photo from the wedding reception. The one that had frozen a moment in time and revealed far more than words ever could.
He slid it across the table toward Charlotte, tapping a finger on the faint reflection in the mirror.
“You didn’t just stand there,” Ryker said, voice low. “You enjoyed it.”
Charlotte barely glanced at the photo before scoffing. “So what?” she snapped. “I was glad they broke up. She was all wrong for him.” Her eyes flicked to Emma, sharp and unapologetic. “You weren’t what he needed.”
Emma’s jaw tensed, but she said nothing. She didn’t need to. Ryker wasn’t done.
“Funny,” he said, pointing to the words in the text. “Judging by what Ethan said here, he didn’t agree. He was pissed. Hurt. Doesn’t exactly read like a man grateful to be free.”
Charlotte’s expression cracked for just a second, just enough to show something underneath the anger. Then she rolled her eyes and sat back in the chair.
“He would have come around,” she said. “He always did. He would’ve realized it was for the best eventually.”
She paused, then aimed another full-force glare at Emma.
“Or he would have, if he hadn’t been murdered.”
Emma’s stomach twisted, but she didn’t let it show. The guilt. The anger. It all pulsed under her skin, but she locked it down.
Because right now, Charlotte might be lashing out.
But that didn’t mean she was innocent.
Ryker leaned forward again, his voice calm but pressing. “What did Ethan mean when he said, ‘you think I’m the one who needs help’?”
Charlotte hesitated.
Emma saw the flicker of indecision move across her face, like she wasn’t sure if she should keep dodging or finally lay something down on the table.
Charlotte sighed and folded her arms tighter across her chest. “I was trying to convince him to see someone else. Another therapist.”
Emma blinked. That, she hadn’t expected.
Charlotte continued, her voice sharp but quieter now. “I didn’t trust Dr. Colvin. I thought she was manipulating him. Controlling him, maybe even…” She trailed off, eyes narrowing as if she was still debating how much to say.
“Having an affair with him?” Ryker offered.
Charlotte didn’t deny it.
Emma didn’t either, not out loud. Because ever since she saw those photos, she’d been thinking the same damn thing. The look on Dr. Colvin’s face in that first image had been anything but professional.
Charlotte let out a breath. “Ethan hated that I brought it up. Said I didn’t understand their work, their dynamic. We had a fight about it. One of the worst ones we ever had.”
Emma said nothing, but her thoughts were already spinning. Is that why Ethan’s setting her up now? she wondered. If he’s alive, if he’s really behind all this, maybe it’s payback for questioning him. For threatening his grip on control.
Or maybe this was just another smokescreen.
Someone else could be orchestrating it, someone with access to Ethan’s history and patterns.
Or maybe, just maybe, Charlotte was lying through her teeth. Playing the victim.
Emma reached into the folder beside her and slid out the photo of Lionel Ruiz, the most recent one they had of him, taken just after his release. His expression was cautious, worn, but there’d been hope there too. He’d finally been free.
She set the photo in front of Charlotte, keeping her voice steady. “Tell me what you know about him. About his murder.”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed the second she saw it. “That’s the man you used to destroy Ethan’s reputation,” she snarled, her voice laced with venom. “That’s the face they splashed all over the news while dragging Ethan through the mud.”
Emma didn’t react, but Ryker leaned forward, cool and controlled. “Ethan did that on his own. Ruiz was wrongfully convicted. You don’t get to rewrite the facts just because they’re inconvenient.”
Charlotte’s temper flared visibly, her shoulders squared, her jaw locked tight. “I don’t know anything about Ruiz,” she snapped. “Didn’t care about him then, and I sure as hell don’t care now.”
Emma stared at her, the weight of Charlotte’s callousness settling heavily in the room.
Because whether Charlotte was involved or not, someone had cared enough to make Ruiz suffer. And now, he was dead. And Charlotte, guilty or not, was more invested in protecting Ethan’s legacy than mourning a man who’d been killed for it.
Charlotte’s glare was still sharp when the chime of a text broke the tension. She flinched, just slightly, startled by the sound. Her hand was still wrapped around her phone, and she lowered her gaze to the screen.
Emma watched the change happen in real time. Charlotte’s face went pale. Her breath caught. Her fingers went slack. The phone slipped from her hand and hit the table with a soft clatter.
Ryker was already leaning in. Emma reached for the phone, turning it just enough so they could both read the message that lit up the screen.
Watch your six, baby sis.
Emma’s heart thudded once, hard and low.
Charlotte stared at them, stunned. Her lips parted, and her voice came out barely above a whisper, raw and certain.
“He’s alive.” A beat. “It’s from Ethan. He’s alive.”
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