I draw in a breath, steadying myself. “Do you think Whitney and Phillip’s deaths are connected?”
His eyes shift back to me, something flickering there before it settles again into disinterest. “Who?”
“My best friend,” I say, sharper than I intend. “Phillip’s wife.”
“Oh.” He nods once, tapping his pen again. “Right. The wife.”
The dismissal stings more than it should.
“We’re looking into it,” he adds, though there’s no urgency in it, no weight behind the words.
I press my lips together, frustration building in the space where answers should be. “And Chrissy?”
That seems to land differently.
He pauses, his expression tightening slightly. “She’s the most likely suspect at the moment. But we haven’t been able to get much from her. She’s too distraught to give a coherent statement.”
A cold unease settles into my chest. I picture her again, kneeling in the grass, her hands slick with blood, her voice breaking under the weight of what she’d seen. Or what she’d done.
“She’s been through a lot,” I say quietly, though even to my own ears it sounds insufficient.
Bennett shifts beside me, then stands, his hand closing around mine as he pulls me gently to my feet. “Are we done here?”
The investigator glances down at his notebook, then closes it with a soft snap, tossing the pen on top. “Sure. You got somewhere to be?”
“Work,” Bennett replies, his tone clipped now, already done with the conversation. “I have work.”
The investigator’s attention sharpens for the first time, his focus shifting fully onto Bennett. “What line of work is that?”
Bennett doesn’t hesitate. “A variety of things. Venture capital, primarily. Citrus. Tourism. Tech. A little of everything.”
“Is that so?” The investigator smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Always been curious how that works.”
“What, specifically?” Bennett asks, already angling us toward the door.
“The venture side,” the investigator says, leaning forward slightly. “Seems like the kind of business where you’d accumulate enemies. How do you decide where the money goes? What happens when it doesn’t come back?”
The questions linger in the air, heavier than they should be.
Bennett doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t need to.
I can feel the shift in him, the subtle tightening, the quiet irritation that always surfaces when someone pushes too far into something he keeps carefully contained. It’s one of the few boundaries he doesn’t soften for anyone, not even me.
“Oh,” the investigator adds, almost as an afterthought, “before you go. You ever heard of Tigertail Enterprises? Delaware LLC. Operates mostly out of Miami.”
“I haven’t,” Bennett says, already opening the door, ending the conversation before it can take another turn.
We don’t stop walking until we’re outside, the doors of the station closing behind us with a final, hollow sound. The sunlight feels too bright after the dimness inside, the heat pressing down against my skin as if to remind me I’m still here, still grounded in something real.
And yet, something has shifted.
“Something on your mind, beautiful?” Bennett asks once we’re settled in the car, his tone softer now, familiar again.
I stare out through the windshield, my thoughts circling, tightening. “Do you think…” I start, then falter, the words catching before they can take shape.
“Do you thinkwhat?” he prompts, pulling out of the lot.
