Chapter Thirteen — A Perfect Alibi #2
“Sexual.”
Ronan's jaw tightened again hearing it confirmed.
Vance continued. “Do you know who was depicted?” “Some.” “Names?” “I don't want to give them without permission.” “You're calling a homicide detective.” “I know.” “Then names matter.” Elliot closed his eyes briefly.
He gave two. Not the freshman connected to Mason.
Different people. Enough to verify the pattern.
Vance wrote or typed something on her end.
“How did you learn about these videos?” “One of the people told me.” “Which one?” Elliot gave the first name.
“Did Lucas send the videos?” “Yes.” “Did Mason?” “I don't know.” “Did you confront Lucas?” “Yes.” “How?” “In person.” “Where?” “Outside Bellweather Tap.” “When?” “September eighteenth.” The date had never left him.
Vance went quiet. “That's specific.” “I remember dates.” Ronan looked at him.
Elliot ignored that too. “What did you say?” “I told him to delete the videos and stop sharing them.” “Anything else?” “I said I'd expose him if he didn't.” Ronan watched.
Vance asked, “Expose how?” “Tell the university. Police if necessary. Whoever.” “Did you threaten him physically?” “No.” “Did he threaten you?” “No.” “Was he afraid?” Elliot paused.
“Maybe.”
Ronan's eyes sharpened. Vance caught it through silence alone.
“Why maybe?”
“Because he laughed.”
“That doesn't answer.”
“I think he was pretending not to care.”
“Did he contact you afterward?”
“Yes.”
“Method?”
“Text.”
“You still have it?”
“Yes.”
That was safe. The exchange contained nothing dangerous. Vance said, “I'd like screenshots.”
“I can send them.”
“Tonight.”
“Okay.”
Another pause.
“Why didn't you tell me this earlier?”
There it was. Elliot had prepared.
“Because I didn't connect it.”
“You study behavior and have spent weeks reading about these cases.”
Ronan's eyes moved toward him. Vance continued.
“You noticed the similarities between Mason and Lucas before most people did.”
Elliot's pulse shifted.
“How do you know that?”
“People talk.”
His own phrase. Interesting.
“Still,” Vance said, “you didn't think a prior conflict with one victim mattered?”
“I thought it made me look suspicious.”
Silence. Ronan stared. That answer hadn't been planned. It was simply true enough to sound right. Vance's voice changed. Barely.
“So you deliberately withheld it.”
“Yes.”
“Why tell me now?”
Elliot looked at Ronan.
“Someone else found out.”
Ronan's expression changed. Not happy. Not angry. Something in between. Vance asked, “Who?”
“Dylan.”
“Price?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Lucas told him I scared him.”
Another pause. Long.
“Did Lucas tell Mr. Price why?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you speak to Mr. Price tonight?”
“No.”
Ronan pointed at himself. Elliot nodded.
“Ronan did.”
Vance went quiet again. Elliot hated silence when he wasn't controlling it. Finally:
“I want you at the station tomorrow morning.”
Ronan closed his eyes. Elliot sighed.
“What time?”
“Nine.”
“Okay.”
“And Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes?”
“Bring your phone.”
The line disconnected. Elliot stared at the screen. Ronan leaned back.
“Great.”
Elliot looked at him.
“You happy?”
“No.”
“You wanted me to tell her.”
“I didn't say I'd enjoy it.”
“She wants my phone.”
“I heard.”
Elliot picked it up. The device suddenly felt heavier.
Not because there was anything obvious. There wasn't. He was careful.
Messages deleted when necessary. Search history clean.
Photographs ordinary. No evidence stored digitally.
Still. Phones contained lives. Locations.
Metadata. Patterns. Information people forgot existed. Elliot knew that. Vance knew it better.
“Bell,” Ronan said.
Elliot looked up.
“Call him now.”
“It is almost midnight.”
“He bills Dad. He'll survive.”
Elliot smiled faintly.
“That's the first useful thing you've said tonight.”
Ronan gave him the finger. Normal. Tiny.
Needed. Elliot called. Gregory Bell refused to let Elliot surrender his phone voluntarily.
That was the short version. The longer version involved eleven minutes of legal explanation, repeated use of phrases like scope of consent, digital privacy, and probable cause, and Ronan pacing around the kitchen as though personally preparing to sue the Bellweather Police Department.
Elliot mostly listened. Bell eventually said, “If Detective Vance wants the device, she can specify what she seeks or obtain judicial authorization.” Ronan mouthed, See? Elliot rolled his eyes.
“Understood.”
“Do not delete anything tonight.”
Elliot's fingers went still. Bell continued.
“Anything. Messages, photos, apps, browser history. Deletion after a request can be characterized badly regardless of intent.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“Good.”
That part was technically true. Everything requiring deletion had already been deleted long ago.
“Meet me outside the station at eight forty-five,” Bell said.
“Okay.”
The line ended. Ronan looked at Elliot.
“Feel better?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because maybe you'll finally react like a normal person.”
Elliot stared. Ronan's face changed immediately.
“Fuck. Sorry.”
Elliot laughed. This time genuinely.
“You really cannot stop doing that.”
“I know.”
“It's becoming impressive.”
Ronan smiled. The tension eased. Elliot looked at his phone again. Then at the time. 11:49.
“I'm going upstairs.”
Ronan watched him stand.
“Your room?”
Elliot looked back.
“Is this another location check?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Ronan hesitated. Elliot recognized the answer before he said it.
“Stay with me.”
The words were quiet. Not command. Request. That mattered. Elliot stared. All the anger he'd been carefully holding shifted. Not gone. Rearranged.
“Okay.”
Ronan's shoulders relaxed. They went upstairs.
Ronan fell asleep first. Elliot didn't. He lay on his side facing the window while Ronan's arm rested heavily across his waist. The room was dark except for moonlight breaking through thin clouds outside.
It painted pale rectangles across the floor and caught on the edges of architecture sketches pinned above the desk.
Elliot listened to Ronan breathe. He should have felt trapped.
Ronan had forced the disclosure. Questioned him.
Threatened to go to Vance. Doubted him. Instead Elliot felt safer with Ronan's arm around him than he had all week.
That contradiction irritated him. He looked toward the nightstand.
His phone rested beside Ronan's. Tomorrow, Vance would ask for it.
Bell would object. Police might get a warrant. Then they would pull records.
Location. Messages. Maybe cloud data. Elliot wasn't stupid enough to believe privacy settings made anything disappear completely.
He thought through Tuesday. Lucas. Midnight.
Ronan had seen him before midnight. The car.
That was the problem. Vance had surveillance of a dark sedan near the river.
Not plate. Not clear model. Enough to ask.
Elliot's car had already been searched. Nothing.
Good. But location records? His phone had remained home.
That was why he'd left it. A perfect alibi sitting on a nightstand.
Elliot stared into the darkness. Tuesday at 12:44 A.M., his phone had been inside the carriage house.
Ronan had been downstairs working. If police pulled network records, the device would appear connected to their Wi-Fi. Home.
Exactly where Elliot claimed to be. He had planned that.
What he hadn't planned was Ronan. Ronan could not confirm seeing him after midnight.
But digital evidence might do it for him.
Elliot felt his pulse slow. There. A solution.
Not complete. Enough. Then another thought arrived.
His car. He hadn't taken it Tuesday. Also planned.
The sedan on surveillance wasn't his. Vance would discover that eventually.
Elliot almost smiled. Nothing to worry about.
He shifted carefully beneath Ronan's arm.
Ronan made a low sound and tightened his hold instinctively.
Elliot froze. Then relaxed. Mine. The word came automatically.
He closed his eyes. Tomorrow, police would look at his phone.
They would find it exactly where it should have been the night Lucas disappeared.
They would find no incriminating messages.
No suspicious photographs. No hidden confession.
No location trail placing Elliot anywhere near the river.
And if Detective Mara Vance wanted an alibi, Elliot was going to give her one so clean she'd have no choice but to look somewhere else.
The problem was that somewhere else increasingly looked like Ronan.
Elliot opened his eyes again. No. That part needed fixing.
At 8:51 Monday morning, Gregory Bell stood beside Elliot outside Bellweather Police headquarters.
Ronan stood on Elliot's other side. Vance emerged through the doors.
Her gaze moved immediately to Elliot's phone. Bell spoke first.
“My client is willing to provide screenshots of the conversation with Lucas Harper and allow verification of those messages ondevice. He is not consenting to a full forensic search.”
Vance looked at Elliot.
“Why?”
Bell answered.
“Because that's an extraordinarily invasive request unsupported by the stated purpose.”
“I asked him.”
Elliot smiled faintly.
“My lawyer's answer is better.”
Vance did not smile.
“Do you have something to hide?”
Ronan stiffened. Bell remained calm. Elliot looked directly at her.
“Yes.”
Everyone stopped. Ronan turned. Bell's expression tightened. Vance's eyes sharpened. Elliot continued.
“A private sexual relationship that has nothing to do with your investigation and messages involving people who never consented to police reading them.”
Ronan stared. Then realization. Vance looked between them. Good. Let her. Elliot's pulse remained steady.
“I'll show you Lucas's messages,” he said. “Anything beyond that requires a warrant.”