AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You drink too much Tuesday night?” Jack asked.
“No,” Kevin answered. “Hardly anything. Told her I wasn’t feeling that great. Thea mentioned maybe I’d caught whatever it was Cami had. Cami had stayed home from work that morning.” Kevin cleared his throat and looked down. “That was one of our scheduled days. Cami stayed home from work and pretended to be sick and I had a bunch of research to do that day, so everyone thought I was holed away somewhere. I just brought all my work home and she and I spent the day together. It was nice.”
He was lost in his own thoughts for a couple of minutes and then took another sip of coffee.
“Thea got home from the library around four,” he said. “She had to be at work at six, so it was easy for me to leave the house before she got home and then come home again like I’d been at the courthouse all day. I changed clothes and drove her to work. I told her I had some work to catch up on, which I did because I hardly got anything done all day, so I walked across the street to the all-day-breakfast place. I came back about nine o’clock. It wasn’t super busy, so I sat at my usual place at the end of the bar and watched the baseball game and ESPN after that until it was time for her to close.
“I’d texted Cami to let her know I was on the way home,” Kevin said. “That’s why she was in the kitchen getting the wine. She knew I was on the way. It was like Thea said. She was wearing that dumb fluffy robe she loves and holding up a bottle of two-hundred-dollar wine. Thea asked if I wanted her to stay the night with me, but I told her I really wasn’t feeling well and just wanted to go to sleep. Told her I thought I’d caught a stomach bug or something. She seemed fine with that and went to her room. If you stand at the right spot on the third-floor landing, you can see down to our floor. So Cami texted me about twenty minutes later and said the coast was clear.”
“We never found her phone,” Jack said.
“She never went anywhere without it,” Kevin said. “None of us do. Our lifelines are tied to those judges. On call twenty-four seven.” He finished off the coffee and crushed the cup in his hand. “When I went upstairs she had all these candles lit. Wine and glasses. Very romantic. And she wasn’t wearing the ugly robe anymore.”
He cleared his throat.
“We decided that we couldn’t keep sneaking around anymore,” he said. “We were all adults and none of us were married. There was no point keeping on with stolen moments and secret messages. We knew Thea would probably be hurt, and who knows what John is ever really feeling, but I already had plans to move out and into the city anyway, so this just sped up the timeline a little. I didn’t figure everyone would still be fine living together. You can only pass each other around so much before things just get weird.
“I mean, John’s slept with Cami, Thea, and Toby, but he’s never been able to keep it in his pants. Got busted for paying a prostitute and having a fake ID when he was in high school, but his dad got all that fixed. I’ve slept with Thea and Cami. Will has slept with Thea and Toby. I’m too old for all that crap now. Life is already complicated enough.”
“Did you go back down to your apartment?” Jack asked.
Kevin shook his head. “No. I stayed the night. I had to be up for work at six. After we, uh, finished, you know, I fell asleep. Cami kind of woke me up and said she was going to clean up and take a shower. I’m not sure what she did after that because I just grunted and went back to sleep.
“I had my alarm set, and when I woke up she was gone. I figured she got up early or maybe never went to sleep to get caught up on work. So I went back to my place, showered and got ready for work. And then I took Thea and Toby to work that morning. Will rode with John. Toby said she hadn’t seen Cami, but then she told us about how she’d had to go in late last night to pick up some files, so we all figured she took a rideshare and went in early.”
“It didn’t worry you when you didn’t hear from her?” Jack asked.
“Oh, it did,” he said. “But I figured maybe she’d changed her mind or got scared off about moving in together and telling everyone about us. And then the longer she was gone the more pissed I became. So then I just started getting drunk again. I’d mostly stopped drinking when Cami and I were together. I knew she didn’t like it, and I didn’t like not being in control when I was with her. She made me want to be better.”
Jack stood up straight and moved away from the bars, signaling for the deputy to let him know we were wrapping up.
“Who’s got access to your car?” Jack asked him.
Kevin looked surprised at the question. “Everyone I guess if they wanted to. There’s a table downstairs right when you walk in. That’s where keys and mail go.”
“I hope you’re playing everything straight with me, Kevin,” Jack said. We left the cell and the bars closed behind us.
“I am,” he said.
We were a few steps down the corridor when Kevin asked, “Did you mean it about rehab?”
“Every word,” Jack said. “I’ll start making some calls.”
Chapter Sixteen
“I want to go look at the body again,” I told Jack once we were back in his office. “We need something concrete to pin on one of these guys.”
“They’re bringing Will in on the cocaine charges, so I’m going to stay and talk to him,” Jack said. “I’ve not heard back from Joe Able. If we get this wrapped up early enough maybe we can stop by there and close both of these cases tonight.”
“Even better if we could do it before dinner,” I said.
“It’s after four. We’ll make a judgment call. I know your candy bar is starting to wear off.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m going to get another one on the way out.”
“Eat something green when you get to the funeral home,” he said as I waved goodbye. It was nice to have someone who worried and took care of me.
My fingers tapped impatiently on the steering wheel. I was anxious to get back to the funeral home.
