TJ woke up with Alexis curled into his side. He and Alexis had reached for each other once more during the night for another passionate round of love making. His feelings in tumult, he got out of bed and showered and dressed for the day. Alexis was still asleep when he tiptoed back through the bedroom and into the kitchen, where he got a pot of coffee started and turned once again to the information they’d collected so far on Mark’s case. He tried to stop the memories of making love with Alexis from consuming all his thoughts.
“TJ?”
He started at the sound of Alexis’s voice.
She wrapped her arms around him from behind and dropped a kiss on his neck that sent a shiver through him. “I called your name twice. What are you reading so intently?”
“Just thinking about our next steps.” He raised his head and did a quarter turn in the chair, pulling her into his lap. He captured her lips in a searing good morning kiss that left them both panting for breath by the time they pulled away from each other. They held each other for several moments.
“Good morning,” he finally said.
“Good morning.” Alexis beamed.
The coffee maker beeped it was ready. Alexis dropped another quick kiss on his lips before pushing to her feet. “I could use a cup. Should I pour you one too?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“I’m planning to whip up omelets for breakfast if that’s alright with you?” She grabbed two coffee mugs from an overhead cabinet.
She carried two mugs of coffee to the table and sat across from him. “Umm...should we talk about what happened last night?”
“Last night was amazing,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “But I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. I’m still the man who can’t give you what you want.”
“I don’t believe that and I don’t believe you do either.”
He tore his gaze away from her and looked into his coffee. “Let’s just focus on finding answers for Mark now, okay?”
His phone rang, cutting off her answer.
“Roman.”
“Mr. Roman, this is Detective Chellel. I have to ask you and Ms. Douglas to come down to the station for some questioning immediately.”
The detective’s tone wasn’t out-and-out hostile, but it wasn’t polite either.
“Questioning about what?” TJ pressed.
“It would be better if I explained once you were here.”
TJ shot a glance at Alexis, who’d paused her quest for coffee and was watching him intently now.
“Then we’re at an impasse. I assume since you’re making this call, you can’t compel our appearance at the station and neither Alexis nor I are willing to walk into questioning without knowing what this is about and whether we should bring our lawyers with us.”
He could almost feel the frustration and annoyance emanating from the detective on the other end of the phone.
“Jessica Castaldo was found deceased in her apartment early this morning. I believe you and Miss Douglas were the last two people to see her alive. Now, will you come in voluntarily, or do I send a patrol car?”
TJ DROVE HIMSELF and Alexis to the police station. They were led to separate interrogation rooms the moment they arrived. He was brought to a bland interview room that smelled vaguely of stale beer and vomit. The uniformed officer who led him to the room offered coffee. TJ declined.
He’d also declined to bring a lawyer with him, although he’d called Shawn on the way to the station. Shawn had cautioned them both not to speak to Detective Chellel without representation and had offered to arrange for an attorney to meet them, but Alexis countered that they had nothing to hide. While he agreed that they didn’t have anything to hide, Jessica had been alive and well when they left her apartment. He knew that innocence didn’t always carry the day. Still, he figured it couldn’t hurt to speak to the detective and get a sense of what had happened after they’d left Jessica’s apartment the night before.
But he was getting annoyed at the detective’s tactics. He’d been waiting in the interrogation room for more than forty minutes.
Finally, the door opened and Detective Chellel walked in. She slapped a file folder on the table between them and sat, giving TJ a long look. “What were you doing at Jessica Castaldo’s apartment yesterday?”
“Alexis and I wanted to find out what she knew about Mark’s death.”
Chellel scowled. “I told you I’d handle things from here on out. I told you to stay out of my investigation.”
TJ leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his lap. “You have your job, Detective, and I have mine.”
“Does your job include murder?”
He couldn’t see any benefit in antagonizing the detective. At least, not at the moment.
“It does not and whatever happened to Jessica, neither Alexis nor I had any hand in it.”
“You snuck into her building.”
“We did no such thing.”
Chellel snatched a sheet of paper from the file and slapped it down on the table in front of him. “The building sign-in sheet doesn’t have you or Ms. Douglas signing in, and the security tapes show you rushing toward the elevators while the doorman was away from his post.”
“I wouldn’t call that sneaking in. You said it yourself, the doorman wasn’t at his post.”
Chellel eyed him with open derision. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? What time did you arrive at Ms. Castaldo’s apartment?”
He took the detective through the details of his and Alexis’s talk with Jessica the night before. The detective let him tell the story the first time through without interruption before asking him to repeat it from the beginning. The second time through, it felt like she stopped him every ten seconds or so to ask a question or drill down on some minute detail. It didn’t matter, though. The story wasn’t going to change, no matter how many ways she asked the same question.
“So you’re saying Jessica admitted to stealing Mark Douglas’s employee ID and passing it along to someone who you think then used it to download the Nimbus program?”
“Exactly.”
Chellel shook her head. “And I’ve only got your word about this confession.”
“You have Alexis’s too. I’m sure she’s told you, or she will, the same things I have. We confronted Jessica, and she told us about her role in the theft. And there’s your motive for why someone might want her dead.”
Chellel’s brow arched. “Someone like Alexis Douglas, for instance.”
Now TJ shook his head. “No. Alexis doesn’t have a motive. She needed Jessica alive and willing to testify to her part in the theft.”
“Or,” Chellel dragged out the word. “She saw Jessica’s actions as having contributed to her brother’s death and she sought retribution.”
“Or, since we’re positing theories here, the man Jessica gave Mark’s ID to got spooked and decided to eliminate a potential witness.”
“I wonder what could have spooked this hypothetical killer. Maybe you and Ms. Douglas mucking around in my case, perhaps?”
It was a possibility. One he couldn’t help feeling a little bit of guilt over. It was entirely possible his and Alexis’s visit to Jessica’s apartment had led to her death, but the only thing they could do about it now was to help find her killer.
Chellel sifted through the papers in the file. “You’re licensed to carry a gun, correct?”
“Correct.”
“We’d like to run ballistics on your gun.”
“So Jessica was shot?”
Chellel didn’t answer.
“You’re welcome to run whatever test you’d like. Obviously, I didn’t bring a gun into the police station.”
“I can have a uniformed officer follow you to wherever you’re staying. Which is where?”
TJ smiled. He wasn’t about to reveal the location of the safe house. “No need. My sidearm is locked in the glove box.”
Chellel frowned. “Then I’ll have an officer retrieve it.”
TJ didn’t love that idea either. No doubt the officer assigned would also be told to snoop around in the car, but he didn’t see a way around it. He handed the keys to the rental to the detective.
She rose and left the room for several minutes before returning. “Thank you for being so cooperative. It will take a couple of days for the ballistics guys to do their work. I’ll get your weapon back to you as soon as possible.”
It annoyed him to be without his favorite gun, but he’d brought several others along for the trip in his go bag. “Not a problem. Can I ask one question, though?”
“You can ask whatever you want. I won’t promise to answer.”
“Fair enough. What time was Jessica killed?”
Chellel shook her head. “I can’t share that information with you.”
“Fine.” TJ held up his hands. “But if the lobby security recordings show Alexis and I going up to Jessica’s apartment, they must show us leaving as well. You know Alexis and I didn’t have anything to do with her death.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” the detective said. “There are security cameras in the lobby, but not at the back door to the building or in the stairwells. You or Ms. Douglas could have been scoping out the building and then come back later in the evening.”
“Come on, detective,” TJ said incredulously. “We were smart enough to scope out the building but dumb enough to let ourselves get caught on tape the day Jessica was killed? That makes no sense.”
Detective Chellel’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Murder never makes sense, Mr. Roman. I’ll be in touch.”