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“What does my history have to do with this?”
“Let me answer that for him, Bauer,” the other detective said.
“Go for it, Crowley.”
Crowley grinned. “With pleasure. You see, even if you didn’t ever hold the knife yourself, it seems pretty clear that you have the means and connections to have hired somebody for this type of thing. Now, you may not have “smelled it”, but you damn sure saw it, and had yourself a good time when you did. We’ve got your phone records, emails, texts. You talked to Mrs. Stuart multiple times a week on the phone, and share an email or texts pretty much every day. All of that suddenly stopped yesterday. Why?”
“She got hacked.”
“Huh,” Bauer spoke up. “She got hacked. Andyouare a former CIA hacker, among other, more hands-on things. That’s a nice little coinky-dink.”
“And that’sallit is,” Demetria chimed in. “That’s all any of this is – coincidence, conjecture, and circumstantial evidence. Either you actuallychargemy client with something, or you let go home.”
Crowley sighed. “Your alibi checks out anyway, Mr. LaForte. You’re free to go. But you stick around town. I’m sure we’ll have some more questions for you.”
I shrugged. “Anything more you have to say to me, you can do it through my lawyer. You said I was free to go, right?”
Once I got the nod, I stood up, and Demetria followed me out to the hall. “I called Marcus,” she said. “He should be waiting up front, to give you a ride back to your car.”
“Thanks Dem.”
She nodded. “Of course. Five Star Family looks out for each other. I would give you a ride myself, but I need to get back to Monica. They’re holding her overnight. Can’t get traffic camera history until morning, so…”
“Yeah, well. I’ll see you later.”
“Really, Chad?” Demetria snapped at me, and I frowned.
“What?!”
She rolled her eyes. “She said the two of you have been friends forfiveyears. You’re seriously not even going to ask me how she is?”
“She hated ol’ boy. She’s probably celebrating.”
“Actually, she’s distraught,” Demetria corrected, folding her arms. “Regardless of how their relationship had changed, she still lost her husband, in a horrible manner, and now she’s being held for his murder.”
“None of which hasanythingto do with me.” The look on Demetria’s face had guilt tugging at my chest, but still… “I can’t be involved in shit like this. I don’t need my face on the news. How the fuck would I even begin to explain this to Kayla, huh? I wish Monica the absolute best – she’s a good woman, and I don’t want to see her life destroyed. But I can’t have something I don’t have anything to do with destroyingmylife either. I have too much to lose.”
“Who says you’re going to lose, Chad?” she asked, then shook her head. “But… whatever. I get it. And you’re not wrong. However, Monica could use all the friends she can get right now. She could use the support. But… I guess we won’t be counting you in that number.”
I raised my shoulders again. “Nah. You won’t.”
I left Demetria there in the hall and headed through the police station toward the front, where Marcus was waiting for me. My head was spinning as I moved, trying to make sense of what had seemed like an eternity of waiting, first for Demetria, and then to be released.
It had actually barely been two hours.
Two long ass hours.
Part of me did feel bad about abandoning Monica, if it could be considered that. I cared about her, cared about her wellbeing, but when it came to being accused of murder, I had to put a pause on that. If my friendship, relationship, whatever with her, was threatening my freedom or ran the risk of exposing the people I loved to unwanted or unwarranted attention… for me, the choice was easy.
