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I must’ve been crazy, or something, she thought, realizing that it could’ve gone entirely differently if he’d been a fraction of a second faster in his reactions.
She weighed her options. If she pulled the trigger, no one would ever doubt her call. She would be cleared in the shooting of a wanted fugitive and murder suspect who’d broken into her home without anyone giving it a moment’s thought. Only she’d know differently.
“Shoot me,” he said, his voice broken with tears and throaty from his earlier pained screams. “What the hell are you waiting for?”
She grinned. “You’ll do fine in jail, Richard, don’t worry. It will take you a year or twenty, but you’ll get the hang of it. They love quarterbacks in there.”
Taking a step closer, she pistol-whipped Richard hard. He fell unconscious in the puddle of bloodstained latex at her feet. “And that’s for spilling my paint, you son of a bitch.”
FIFTY
TRACE
Richard Gaskell wore a charcoal suit with a white shirt and a blue tie. His left foot was bandaged and elevated on a chair, immobilized in an air cast that caught his pant leg. His hair fell in disarray on his ridged forehead, while his thick eyebrows converged above his nose at an angle, reminding Kay of bird wings in flight drawn by a preschooler.
By his side was another man in a high-priced suit, this one older, shorter, and bulkier, with a menacing look in his beady eyes and an expensive leather briefcase laid out in front of him.
As usual, Kay studied the suspect’s demeanor before entering the interview room, preparing her strategy, trying to get a read on the suspect’s state of mind. There would be tension in that room. Hard feelings. She’d wounded him the night before, the cut to his Achilles tendon requiring surgery that had lasted well into the hours of the morning.
Yet they were there, most probably against medical advice, eager to answer whatever questions Kay had and make the “misunderstanding go away,” in Gaskell’s own words. Kay shook her head; another one of those misunderstandings that would be easy to clear, at least in the suspect’s opinion.
Not so fast.
She took a fresh cup of coffee from Elliot’s hand and thanked him. “Could you please follow up on the website money trail and those phone records, while I wrestle with them for a while?”
“You got it,” he replied, then disappeared. He’d been increasingly unreadable lately, quieter, his usual smile a rare sight. It wasn’t her fault if things got a little awkward between them after her visit to his place. She wasn’t the one hiding a relationship.
She grabbed the two case files she’d placed on the printer table and walked into the interview room with a spring in her step. The air, usually stale and stenchy, now reeked of expensive aftershave in an amalgam of smells that didn’t go well together. The lawyer’s forehead was covered in tiny beads of sweat. For a moment, she thought of lowering the temperature setting in there. On second thoughts, she just took a seat across from the two men and clasped her hands together on top of the two thick manila folders.
“Mr. Gaskell, thank you for coming in today.”
“Abraham Ackerman representing Mr. Gaskell,” the lawyer said, extending a chubby hand and half-standing from his seat. She pretended not to notice it, fearing it might’ve been just as sweaty as the rest of the defense attorney.
The attorney sat with a quick sigh. “My client wishes to clarify several things.”
“Does he wish to make a formal statement?”
One moment of hesitation. “Not at this time.”
“Then, why don’t you let me ask your client a few questions?”
Ackerman pressed his thin lips together for a moment, making them disappear. “Please proceed.”
“Mr. Gaskell, witnesses place you with Jenna Jerrell on the evening she was killed. Specifically, at the Alpine Subs restaurant.” She paused.
Gaskell looked straight at her, unperturbed.
“Is there a question you’d like to ask?” Ackerman touched the knot of his tie briefly, probably wishing he could loosen it a bit.
Kay swallowed an oath. Fourteen hours after breaking into her house, Gaskell was an entirely different person. Reassured, calm, empowered by the thousand-an-hour attorney by his side, probably the best legal defense Daddy’s money and relationships could buy.
“We found two condom wrappers bearing your fingerprints up on Wildfire Ridge. Your semen was found on the victim. Please provide an account of what happened last Tuesday, starting with when you called Jenna and asked her out.”
The attorney whispered something in Gaskell’s ear. The young man nodded, the frown on his forehead deepening. Then he crossed his arms at his chest and waited silently.
“My client is only willing to answer questions regarding the condom wrappers found on Wildfire Ridge.”
Kay nodded. “Please, answer this question, then. Were you up on Wildfire Ridge with Jenna Jerrell and Renaldo Cristobal?”
