AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Suspect,” he grits out. “The timing is convenient.”
“Yeah?” She glances back his way. “Suspect, how?”
“You both come from New York?” He looks over her shoulder again. “You just so happen to meet up on the first day you’re in Copeland. Mere months later, you’re married and going public with your relationship.”
“You think we knew each other before?” she guesses. “In New York. This was a setup from the start?”
“It’s the only assumption I can make. Then you become the youngest chief medical examiner in the city’s history? That tells me the position was bought with mafia money.”
“Hm. Interesting.” She loops her hands back, twining her fingers together so I expel ninety percent of my brain power watching them—on the off chance she chooses this moment to reveal her proficiency in sign language.
She doesn’t.
“So knowing what you know now, if I were to come to you, Mr. Jones. If I were to express my fears, my secrets. If I told you I was too deep in the Malone world and didn’t know how to get out alive…”
“I would help you,” he declares instantly. “My dislike of Malone doesn’t take away my need to protect those who need protection. I’m a cop,” he jeers, glaring at me over her shoulder, “it’s what I do.”
“Right.” Releasing her hands, she begins pacing again. “So we’ve established you’re a protector. You see a woman in need, and you can’t help but want to help.” She stops and turns to face him. “Right?”
“Yes. But no.” Two steps ahead of her, Jones looks at Fletch. “I didn’t kill Alves to save Adrianna. If that’s where you’re heading with this, then the answer is no. Fuck no. And fuck off.”
“You’ve been to Adrianna’s home.” I take a step forward and stop only when I stand beside Minka. “You took classwork to her home, uninvited, and got a firsthand show of her husband’s abuse.”
“I—” He stills and narrows his eyes. “What?”
“Word going around class is that Adrianna reamed you,” Fletch adds, coming up on Minka’s other side. “You went there to help and, in the end, were blasted for your troubles.”
“I was taking lecture notes to her,” he grits out. “Her husband showed his ass. The fact Adrianna had something to say about it later that week makes your assumption I would kill to protect her, faulty. Why protect an ungrateful woman who says she has things under control on her own?”
“Well…that does create quite the conundrum,” Minka inserts mischievously. “She was a damsel, and she was in distress. Her black eyes proved it.”
“But she refused your help,” I continue. “Loudly. And in front of every student inside your lecture hall.” Wrinkling my nose, I smile when his eyes narrow to slits. “We know you, Jones. Fletch and I do. And so, that means we know you’re a man whose self-worth is tightly wrapped up in your ego.”
He glances down when the fluffy dog runs up to sit beside his thigh.
“The fact she called you out in front of all those people would have upset you,” Minka says. “It would have bruised your fragile ego.”
“My fragile ego?” he explodes. “Are you hearing yourselves? You attempt to accuse me of murder, Detectives? But my motive is protection for the woman who bruised my ego? Seems marriage has made you stupid,” he shoots to me. Then he looks at Fletch. “Divorce has done the same to you.”
“Listen here, you small dicked fuckface?—”
“Hey!” I charge forward and place myself between them before hands are thrown and we’re back in front of the chief again. “Your ego is bruised now, Jones.” I shove him back when he tries to push forward. And all the while, his dog does nothing. He lays on the grass and sets his chin on his paws. “Just like it was bruised after Adrianna tore you to shreds with an audience.”
“You. Don’t. Make. Sense! I can’t want to protect her, and wring her neck, at the same time. A jury will laugh your case out of a courtroom.”
“But what about an assertion you could protect her and wring her neck at the same time?” Minka asks, oh so sweetly. Drawing Jones’ focus, she tilts her head to the side and smiles as he works to control his breathing. “You wanted Alves dead, and Adrianna saved from future beatings from the man twice her size. But you also wanted to punish Adrianna for her rudeness. So you stabbed him twenty-nine times. And you made her look like the guilty one.”
“What?” Stunned, and for the first time ever, he looks at me like I’m the one who’ll save him. “No, I?—”
“She needed to learn a lesson,” Minka pushes on. “Women don’t disrespect men like you, Jones, and walk away unscathed.”
“No—”
“Your career inside the shit squad equipped you with the ability to pick a lock,” I insert. “You’ve been sneaking around for a decade. You know how to enter a building in silence and walk away again without leaving a trace of yourself behind.”
“No!”
“You wanted to protect Adrianna,” Minka presses. “Because she was an innocent, sweet woman, and those are your favorite to go to battle for.”
