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EVELYN
My stomach protestedfor the millionth time as I sat in one of our offices, waiting for the police officer to come in and ask his questions. I was hungry, tired, and it’d been more than three hours since the police arrived, taking over the hotel, plastering yellow tape in front of the door of that suite.
The weather forecast today should’ve been “Sunny with the occasional murder” because if I had known this would’ve happened, I would’ve stayed at home, faking a stomach bug for fuck’s sake.
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the steaming cup of coffee in my hands—the third one in a matter of hours—and it did nothing but elevate my anxiety. Look, I knew it did nothing good for me, my colleagues knew, hell, my ancestors were probably frowning watching me drink this crap, but it was either coffee or pacing around the room, and if I started pacing, I would never stop. Craning my neck, trying to relieve the tension coiled deep within my bones, my eyes zeroed in on my expression in the mirror on my right, and what a sight I was.
I was surprised they didn’t call an ambulance for me, because the way my skin looked I was about to blend in with the fucking wall.
I wasn’t sure if the lack of color in my cheeks was because of the shock or the lack of nutrients in my body, but whatever it was I hoped it would disappear, because I couldn’t continue looking like a ghost.
The door creaked open, revealing the female officer who'd swooped in earlier, taking charge of everything and everyone. She'd ushered Pablo and me out into the hallway, barking at us as if the two of us were the ones who'd shot the man. The guests started coming out into the hallway as what felt like an entire SWAT team rushed into the building and onto the floor, yelling and issuing orders, looking at us as if we were nothing more than a bunch of idiots who had no idea what they were doing.
As if it was our fault that a man got killed in our hotel.
“Ms. Laurier,” she announced with authority in her voice, butchering my last name as most people always did. “My name is Officer Jackson, and I would just like to ask you a few questions about what happened tonight. Of course, you will need to come down to the station to give an official statement, but until then, I hope you’ll be able to help me piece together the puzzle surrounding this murder.”
There was no softness in her voice as her dark, beady eyes ran over my body, as if that would help her to uncover all the dirty secrets I hid. Joke was on her—I didn’t have secrets. I was an open book, too open it would seem, and if she thought she could scare me with these tactics, she had another thing coming.
“Of course, Officer,” I answered, keeping my tone even, pushing all my strength into the words spilling over my tongue. “I just don’t know what there is to say.”
“We will get to that in a second,” she said, sitting down on a chair opposite of me, where our Director of Loss Prevention always sat. I had no doubt that the Loss Prevention Team gave the police their offices to speed up the process, which I kind of appreciated. But I didn’t appreciate the smug look on this woman’s face, already judging us without even talking to us.
I fucking hated police officers. Hated them from the bottom of my soul, and not because they were trying to do their job, but because they always thought they were better than everyone else, trying to trick us into admitting to something we didn’t do.
“It says here you’re from Croyford Bay?” she asked, looking down at the file in her hands, her brows furrowing as her eyes traveled over the words there. “You’re also divorced,” she scoffed. “Detective Johnson.” She looked up at me. “You were married to one of our own.”
“Unfortunately.” I smirked. “The worst decision of my life.”
The smirk she wore immediately dissipated, the judgment in her eyes flaring to life.
“And why’s that?”
“I had no idea they taught detectives how to attack their spouses when they went through training,” I stated, looking her straight in the eye. Was it the best fucking idea to mouth of at the officer who was already looking at me as if I was a stain on the sole of her shoe? No, probably not. But I was too tired to care.
Instead of keeping me here for the last three hours, we could’ve done this when they first arrived, but no. They had to piss me off even further.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied honestly, but I didn’t need her pity to know that what I went through should never have happened. Especially at the hands of someone who was considered a protector.
“It’s okay.” I shrugged. “I survived him and that’s all that matters. I survived his buddies from the police force who mocked me and laughed at me when he broke my nose, and I survived his captain when he told me that no one would believe me if I tried to report him. So you can imagine why I’m a little bit wary sitting here with you, when it’s quite obvious that you think we are somehow at fault.”
“Ms. Laurier—”
“My name is Evelyn,” I seethed. Fuck this shit. Fuck them all. I needed to go home, pack my shit and get the fuck out of this city, not sit around, waiting for the officer to find it in herself to actually ask me a set of questions. “And if you look in that file, you’ll see that I’m twenty-nine years old, single—divorced five years ago, after he beat me so badly that I had to have surgery on my spine. You will also see that I’ve been living in Velvet City for the last three years, in a one bedroom apartment down in the Farlow District.”
“Ms. Evelyn—” She tried being sterner, but I had no intention of stopping.
“You will also see that I am a Front Office Manager here in the hotel, promoted into the role a year ago, and have been regretting it ever since.”
“Ms. Evelyn.” She frowned. “Please.”
“Oh, yes, but this is the interesting part. This is what you probably want to hear,” I chuckled, ignoring her. “We got a noise complaint from one of the rooms on the fiftieth floor, and I went up to check what was happening, when I saw a man, clad in black, exiting one of the suites—suite 5007. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t know every single guest because I’m not here twenty four hours, but this man… There was something off about him, I just didn’t know what, and instead of going toward the elevators, he was heading toward the stairs.”
“Did you see what he looked like?”
“Tall, much much taller than me, you can see it on the cameras as well.”
“The camera footage was deleted, Ms. Evelyn,” she added, and my blood froze. Fuck, fuck, fuck, that meant that they already knew. They already fucking knew. “Do you know anything about it?”
