Page 34 of A Simple Mistake (Deadly Mistakes #1)

THIRTY-FOUR

Gabriel

Present

I don’t know why I’m weirdly nervous as Liam drives to the chief’s house. He sure as fuck isn’t since he beams at me every time I look his way. It’s like we’re headed off on a romantic date and not to his very own crime scene.

“What if you left evidence?”

“I definitely didn’t leave evidence.”

“What if you made a mistake?”

“I didn’t.”

“What if a neighboring camera caught you?”

“There aren’t any cameras facing their house. There’s literally nothing facing their house, their house and property is so damn big.”

“What if you left a fingerprint?”

“I wore gloves.” He parks the car behind a police cruiser and turns to me. “Gabriel, I promise. I promise that I was so careful that no one will ever find a thing. And better yet, no one’s going to look too hard, I assure you. Who is going to care enough about a man like him to think that someone else set it all up? People are just going to be happy no one else will die. They’re going to fixate on trying to figure out who his other victims were, not some wild possibility that he didn’t kill himself.”

“You’re right,” I admit as he cups my face in his hands.

“My kiss will make everything better,” he says as he kisses me gently.

I don’t know that it immediately fixes everything, but it does make me feel a little better and gives me the strength to get out of the vehicle. Liam basically struts up to the house where an officer directs him where to go, like Liam isn’t already aware. I find myself following close behind him as we go upstairs to where people are standing outside of the room while they wait for a team to get here to document everything.

My eyes are fixated on what I see—a chair flipped onto its side, the back of the body, blood sprayed out along the wall—as so many emotions roll around in my mind.

“Can I have your foot, my sweets?” Liam asks as I realize he’s already donned his gear to keep the crime scene safe. I feel like my body isn’t even my own as I lift my foot while he kneels in front of me to slide the protector over my shoe.

I glance down at him, half expecting him to be smiling, but instead, he’s just watching me closely as he puts one onto my other foot as well. “Sorry, I’ve been… a bit overwhelmed,” I say.

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he responds as he gives me a gentle smile. He holds the gloves out, so I take them as I move through the doorway.

I’m careful to avoid stepping on anything as I walk into the room and find myself facing the monster who held me… who made me understand what true darkness was. The monster I feared more than I ever imagined I could fear anything. The man who haunted my dreams and my waking hours. The person who I was convinced was going to be the last one I saw before I died.

But now he is gone.

He’s never going to touch me again.

He’s never going to haunt me again.

And the person I love is the one who killed him.

Shouldn’t that bother me more than it does? But instead, all I feel is relief. I feel so much relief that I find my legs sinking down, but Liam catches me.

“I’m sorry… I’m just… he really is dead,” I say, my face flushing a bit at the ridiculousness of just… dropping right there.

“He is.”

I straighten and Liam lets go of me as I comment, “I feel like I can breathe. How awful of me to feel so much relief over the loss of a life.”

“You’re not the only one,” Penny says as she walks in with the tech team. “After what you’ve been through, absolutely no one can blame you. I saw his confession video. You two see it yet?”

“No,” I reply.

“There were Polaroids all over the room in it… photographs of the shit he’d done to his victims. Did someone move them before we got in?”

I look around. “I wonder if his father or mother did. Was anyone else in here? We’re the first detectives on scene and I know the first responders wouldn’t have.”

“I’ll definitely figure that out,” Penny says as she hurries off.

The moment we step out of the room, Chief Hopkins fixates right on Liam. “Why the fuck is he here? He’s the reason my son was bullied into killing himself! Tobias is innocent?—”

Michaels, who must have just arrived, steps between Liam and the chief. “We have a video confession from your son before his death.”

“The photographs from the confession are missing,” Penny informs us as she joins the group.

“Look for them. He possibly moved them before his death,” Michaels says.

“The blood splatter states that they were present when he died,” I comment, aware that Liam knows this, but he’s more focused on me than anything else happening. “Someone moved them after his death.”

Michaels hesitates before looking over at the chief who seems to realize how badly he fucked up. I bet he didn’t have enough time to perfect the scene since Liam called it in. “Who was the first person in the room?” Michaels asks.

Chief Hopkins says nothing, turns around, and walks away as Michaels watches him.

“Well, fuck,” Michaels grumbles.

“We’re going to step outside for a moment,” Liam says.

“Of course. I’m sure this is a lot, and it’s unusual to see you have human emotions, Paige,” Michaels replies.

“Oh, I’m only having them for Gabriel. I’m sorry if I led you to believe otherwise. Don’t forget my cake for tomorrow.”

Michaels ignores Liam, which results in Liam glaring at him before he heads outside with me. I go out to his car and lean against it.

“He really is gone,” I murmur.

“Really, really.”

Obviously I can’t say much here, so instead, I slide over until I’m leaning against Liam as I feel the cool night air brush against my skin.