Five Days Later
Roxy limped into the police station, her hips and leg wrapped up mummy-style while she healed. She’d been staying at her mom’s for the past few days, and it had been a nightmare.
Between Danielle helicoptering around and her mom asking if she was bleeding on the couch every ten minutes, she was more than ready to go home. To her own bed. Without a live-in doctor and furniture-dictator mother.
She understood, and it was nice they cared as much as they did. But even understanding didn’t help waking up to her mother turning her over to check the bandages—more than likely checking the furniture—but whatever. And it wasn’t once. Multiple times. Roxy hadn’t had a whole night’s sleep since she’d arrived at their house four days ago.
At least when she was on the drugs she could sleep. Day or night. But now she was off the tough stuff. She was tired and bored out of her mind. The bad news was, she hadn’t seen an episode of Days of our Lives since college. The good news was, she turned it on, and she was able to understand everything like she hadn’t been gone for almost 10 years. She was pretty sure they were on the same story line now that they were on back then.
That gave her an hour a day of something to do.
“Roxy.” Detective MacAuley’s face hadn’t been around harassing her in days. She almost missed him. “How are you feeling?”
“If I don’t make any sudden movements, I’m fine.”
“Where’s Amato?” He looked around the room. “You didn’t drive. Did you?”
“No.” She could barely passenger these days. “Rafe is on his way. He’s parking the truck.”
“Well, we’ll take you back, and I’ll have him wait.” MacAuley crossed the room and talked with one of the front desk officers. He came back and escorted Roxy to an interrogation room.
She hated those rooms. They were cold and sterile. And it meant she would get yelled at by Detective Geary. She hesitated at the door. No Geary. Maybe today was her lucky day. Maybe he won the lottery and quit the force.
She slowly lowered herself into the chair. Standing was okay. Sitting was all right. But moving between each position hurt. It was getting better. She didn’t need to scream when she moved anymore. Progress.
She waited for her body to get used to sitting. The pain ebbed as she held her breath. Finally, she let out a long burst of air.
“Are you okay?” MacAuley looked concerned—almost pale. Like her head would spin around and vomit pea soup. Or worse, like she was going to cry.
“I’m fine. Those sudden movements, though.” She smiled, and it didn’t even have a wince in it. Her body was calming down. The pain subsiding.
The door opened and Detective Geary appeared, carrying a manila file folder. Dammit. No lottery winner. Which meant she’d have to listen to him yell. She wasn’t in the mood—not that she was ever in the mood for yelling, especially at her—but couldn’t she just catch a break?
“Ms. Horne.” Geary was using the scary voice, which didn’t bode well for Roxy.
“Detective Geary.”
“How are you feeling?” He said the words as if reading from a book.
Like he cared. She wanted to cross her arms and sneer. But she didn’t. “Fine.”
“We wanted to talk about Donnie Dunne.”
“Didn’t you get everything you needed when I called Rafe and they confessed?”
Geary looked at MacAuley with a confused expression.
“We didn’t hear them confess.” MacAuley shook his head. “We couldn’t hear anything they said.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Rafe heard you scream.”
They didn’t have the confession. They only had her word against the mother-daughter killers. Who probably had plenty to say about Roxy. None of it good. From the look Geary and MacAuley were sharing, she was still a suspect. After everything she’d been through, they still thought she could do something like that.
Geary sat down and opened the folder. “Let’s start with the gun at your place of employment—”
“Mandy put it there so they could frame me. Gretchen killed her father. Not me.”
“Why don’t you wait for me to ask the questions instead of jumping in?” Geary sighed. “Steve isn’t dead.”
“Her real father, Donnie.” They didn’t even know about Donnie being the father. She was so incredibly screwed.
“We’re still waiting on a paternity test to validate that.” Geary stared at Roxy. “Now, when did you find out they’d tried to plant the evidence at your office?”
“When they tried to kill me in a mock drive-by.”
Geary wrote something inside the file. “Was that the night we found you in the Schmidts’ home?”
“Yes.”
“Why did they paint gang symbols inside the house, if it was supposed to be a drive-by?”
“You’d have to ask them.” She wondered the same thing. Their plan had holes. Hopefully, the police were trying to fill those holes with the truth.
“What else did they tell you?”
“That Gretchen killed her dad, and Mandy did what she had to, to help cover it up.”
“Anything else?”
“The SBM jacket is Mandy’s. She went up to the room when Adelaide brought Donnie’s phone to the hotel. She wanted to talk him out of trying to blackmail money from his own daughter.”
“Thank you for your time.” Geary stood.
Wait. What? “That’s it? You believe me? Even without the phone confession?”
“That’s it.” Geary tapped the manila folder on the desk and walked toward the door. He was much more pleasant this time. Not that this level of pleasant was so hard to achieve when everything prior had been nothing but contempt. Today it was more like apathy. “You’re free to go.”
He left. She was going to miss that guy. Not.
Roxy stared at MacAuley but didn’t get up. For two reasons, really. One, she wanted to know if she was still a suspect. And two, those sudden movements sucked. She wanted to put that off just a little longer. “Am I still a suspect?”
MacAuley shook his head. “No. The ice cream place put up cameras in the back of the store because they were having trouble with raccoons living in the garbage can. We have Mandy putting the knife in the can.”
Saved by trash pandas. Who would have thought those things would turn out to be a blessing?
“Once we got them to talk,” MacAuley continued, “they confessed to everything. The paternity, the blackmail, the murder. Except to hear Gretchen’s take, it was Mandy’s idea.”
“Well, considering Mandy didn’t want to kill me and Gretchen did, I’m Team Mandy.” All the way.
“Mandy didn’t want to kill you?”
“No, she kept saying there were other ways. They could move away. Even when Mandy got the gun, she didn’t use it.”
MacAuley leaned back in his chair. “Then why did you push the bear on her?”
“Because she did whatever Gretchen told her to do. It was only a matter of time before Mandy would have used the gun on me just to shut her up.”
“Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?”
“To hear Mandy and Gretchen tell it, Mandy is some evil mastermind that engineered this whole thing.” MacAuley leaned forward.
“I get the feeling Mandy would do anything for her daughter. And Gretchen has kids. Mandy probably doesn’t want her grandchildren growing up without a mom.” Roxy felt bad for the kids. It wasn’t their fault any of this happened, but when it came down to it, they were the ones who would suffer.
“The husband has already filed for divorce. He never thought his wife could kill someone.”
“In Gretchen’s defense” —Roxy couldn’t believe she defending that wack-job— “Donnie was a horrible person. He had the ability to make the crazy come out of anyone.”
“Not that I’m arguing, but that doesn’t make what she did right. In fact, she was pretty coherent when she tried to kill you.” As coherent as Gretchen could get anyway. “You know you can leave anytime.”
It was time to get out of here. Before they changed their mind. “I know. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t a suspect. And to see why I was brought in.”
“We needed to see if you knew anything we didn’t already know.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “We’re going to interview Mandy again. See if she’s the evil mastermind she’s pretending to be.”
“Good.” Roxy pushed the chair back and stood. Aches. Pains. Winces. Once all the drama subsided, she wobbled to the door. “Thanks for believing in me.”
“Thanks for not listening and helping.” He stopped the door before she could open it completely. “But in the future, when we say back off, back off. You wouldn’t have gotten shot if you’d have listened.”
“But you wouldn’t have caught the bad guys.”
“You have no faith. We would have apprehended the criminal, and it wouldn’t have nearly killed Amato. He was a basket case when we found you.”
“I feel bad about that.” Rafe had been so attentive since the hospital. He obviously felt guilty that she’d been hurt, and the reality of the whole death thing made her appreciate him more.
“Hold on to that feeling if you ever find yourself wanting to play detective again.”
“I’ll try.” She would. She wasn’t dumb enough to make a promise to never interfere again, though. When you were a lead suspect, you did crazy things. Not that she had plans to be a suspect again. She could check that one off her bucket list.
She passed the cops fluttering around the precinct, and MacAuley stayed at her side.
“You can go back to your desk.,” Roxy told him. “I know my way out.”
“Yeah, but I’ve seen you grit your teeth when you limp. I don’t want you to fall. Rafe would have my ass.” Which was kind of sweet. Even if he pretended it was for Rafe’s benefit, she knew better. He cared.
They passed the front desk in the main atrium, where Rafe leaned against the wall. He jumped forward when he saw her. “Everything go okay?” Rafe wrapped an arm around her.
She had a feeling all she’d have to say is that Geary was a jerk, and Rafe would kick his ass. That was tempting, buy she didn’t feel like sticking around while they arrested him. And she’d have to bail him out. She didn’t have bail money on her. “It went fine. I’m not a suspect anymore.”
“It’s about time the Las Vegas PD got their head out of their asses.” Rafe smirked as he looked directly at MacAuley, taunting him to disagree.
MacAuley leaned into Roxy. “Give me a call if you get sick of him.” Then he turned to Rafe. “Amato.”
“Keep going, MacAuley.” Rafe didn’t look too thrilled with him at the moment.
Roxy wasn’t sure the whole bail thing might not still happen.
“Yeah. I’ve got important cop stuff to do. You sure you don’t want to come back?”
“Positive.” Rafe glared at MacAuley’s back as he walked away. “Dick.”
“That dick always believed in me.”
“Yeah, he has his moments, but overall, he’s just a dick.”
She wanted to argue, but honestly, these two were like diet soda and Mentos. Not lethal, but definitely messy. Roxy followed Rafe as he led her to his truck. He’d managed to get a front spot. No wonder it took him so long to get inside. He probably had to wait for the spot to open up.
He paused next to his truck and moved a piece of her hair from her eyes. “Where to next? Should I take you home, or would you like to come to my place?” He leaned in, his breath a wisp along her ear. “I bought cake.”
Cake. She had been living with her parents since the hospital. Going home sounded good, until she really thought about it. Her apartment probably had moldy cheese and stale cereal, but that was about it. On top of that, she still had boxes stuffed with her crap all over the place.
Her check had bounced because the direct deposit didn’t quite cover it. Which meant Ms. Potter had called, ready to box up the rest of her stuff. Roxy wasn’t proud of the fact that she needed her mommy to bail her out, but she still had a place to live. She still had her job, where they’d agreed to let her shadow one of the private investigators once she was back on her feet. She would finally start working toward her license. She’d get her life in order, clean up her apartment, learn a new trade, and pay off her debt to her mother.
But not today. Today, there was cake. And Rafe. The look in his eyes was promising so much more than that. She couldn’t have sex yet, but they were creative people. They’d find something to do with each other that would be almost as amazing.
She leaned into his lips. The kiss was everything. Hard. Sweet. A kiss that bubbled through her chest and landed in her toes. “Your place it is.”