Page 8

FAITH

G rabbing the camera from my passenger seat, I cocked my head at the rusty blue pickup parked on the street. The old Ford couldn’t be what Kylie’s mother drove home from Texas.

I rounded the corner of the house and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw a shaggy-haired man, dressed in board shorts and flip flops, bent over fiddling with the lock on Kylie’s apartment door.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” I hollered. “This is a closed crime scene.”

When the man looked up, I immediately recognized his face. Coulter fucking Rodman stared back at me with eyes as big as saucers. A chill ran through me. WTF is he doing here??!!! Not only had the jilted ex entered my taped-off crime scene, but he was breaking into the victim’s apartment!

“Detective Pierce,” he stammered .

My free hand moved to rest on the gun in my holster.

“Mr. Rodman. Step away from the door please.” I could kick myself for the empathy I’d felt for him yesterday.

I had interrogated him relentlessly because I couldn’t afford to show weakness.

But I’d actually felt a little sorry for him. Now, though, he looked guilty as sin.

His gaze flicked nervously to my hand on my firearm. “I just came to see if there was anything here that would explain how Kylie ended up dead.”

“So you decided to break in?”

Coulter’s face twisted in shock. “No, of course not.” He pointed at the key in the lock. “I have a key.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Your ex let you keep a key?” This guy was unreal.

“They always kept spares for upstairs and downstairs hidden there,” he said, nodding toward an overturned conch shell.

“Always have. The other one is still there.” I kept my eyes on him but stepped into the pea gravel to inspect the shell.

Sure enough, a weathered brass key laid nestled among the rocks.

It was no excuse for him trespassing in a crime scene, but his explanation of the key seemed plausible. “Is it unlocked?”

“I was trying when you scared the crap out of me,” he said, reaching to try to knob. He jiggled the key until it turned, and the door swung open. Stepping aside, Coulter gestured for me to enter. I slipped on a pair of latex gloves from my pocket before pulling a flashlight from my belt.

“Light switch is on the right inside the door,” he said, clearly familiar with the crime scene.

I flicked the light on and scanned the room.

When Coulter followed me inside, I wavered between kicking him out and wanting his perspective.

He knew Kylie intimately and had potential insight into her life, so he might notice something out of place.

I decided he could be valuable and grudgingly let him stay.

“Don’t touch anything, Mr. Rodman,” I warned, staring him down. “I mean anything . You got it?”

“Got it.” He nodded, his smile fading, “You can call me Coulter.” His nostrils flared as he took in a deep breath. “It still smells like her.”

“And rotten tomato,” I said, my chin motioning toward the fruit flies circling the decaying half a tomato still on the cutting board on the kitchen counter.

“She must have just eaten. Kylie would have never left that out,” Coulter said. “She was compulsive about keeping things clean.”

I could see the neatness of Kylie’s personality. The apartment was exceptionally tidy. Other than some magazines and cards on the coffee table, and the lunch remnants on the counter and plate in the sink, it was immaculate.

“What drew her outside?” I wondered aloud, scanning the surroundings. Returning to the front door, I opened it and carefully examined the worn lock.The metal was weathered from the salty air. It was hard to tell if the tiny scratches around the keyhole were recent.

“Let me see that key.” I held out a hand.

Coulter handed it to me. The door was unlocked when Waylan entered.

He locked it behind us when we left. But someone could have broken in.

I opened the door and slid the key into the exterior keyhole.

It caught but required a slight wiggle. That could be normal for an old lock, or it could be evidence that someone had tried to get in.

“Did it feel weird to you?” I asked.

“Weird?”

“The lock. Was it harder to open than usual?” I asked, squinting again at the scratches on the lock.

“It’s been years since I’ve opened it,” Coulter replied. “Plus, you were yelling at me and had your hand on your gun,” he said nervously. “But now that you mention it, I did have to jiggle it to get it to turn.”

I retrieved an evidence bag from my pocket and dropped the key in it. “Thanks.” I allowed my lips to turn in a hint of a smile. “You can call me Faith.”

“Alright, Faith,” Coulter said with a grin that made me regret suspending the formality.

He was almost too charming for a first-name basis.

His brow soon creased with concern as he looked around the room.

“Do you think someone broke in?” I could tell he was thinking what I was…

it sure didn’t look like it. But was he saying it to cover his own tracks?

“I don’t think anything yet,” I said, dusting my gloved hands on my trousers. “I’m just gathering evidence.”

“Well you know that key has my fingerprints on it from today , right?” Coulter asked, obnoxiously.

“Yes, since you broke into the crime scene and tampered with the evidence.”

“I wasn't tampering with evidence! I was trying to figure out what happened to Kylie. There is zero chance that the Kylie I knew slipped and fell– and drowned – in the canal she grew up on. Zero.” He shook his head adamantly .

“Accidents like this are always unexpected, Coulter. If it was an accident, it’s a complete shock to loved ones, 100% of the time.”

“Touché,” he said, dropping his head.

“At this point it’s still anybody’s guess,” I said, feeling somewhat sorry for him again.

“Who knows? Maybe Kylie saw something on the dock and went to check. Or maybe she was leaning over to try to get something out of the water, lost her footing and fell in, hitting her head when she did. Any of those theories are feasible.”

He shook his head again, a dry chuckle escaping even though he clearly didn't find any of it funny. “Not for the Kylie I knew.”

“And here we are, back to the zero-versus-a-hundred argument. But that’s why I’m not in the business of guessing. I formulate theories based on evidence.”

His arms crossed over his broad chest. “So what’s your theory?”

I tilted my head, admitting, “I don’t have enough evidence to formulate one yet.

” I gave him a firm look and tried to match it in my tone.

“But collecting evidence is my job, Coulter, not yours. I let you stay here on the scene because I thought you might be able to offer a unique perspective, given your history with the victim and your familiarity with the scene.”

His shoulders drew back as he bristled, “Or… you were hoping I’d say something that would implicate me in Kylie’s death?”

He wasn’t just a pretty face after all. Of course I wanted to see how he reacted at the scene.

But there was no point in putting him on edge now.

“As I said, I am reserving judgment until we have all the evidence. But you have to understand that you can’t be out here trying to solve this mystery on your own.

Not only does it taint the scene, it also looks suspicious. ”

His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I woke up thinking that there is no way that Kylie just fell in the canal and drowned. I had to see for myself if there was anything that looked strange.”

“Finding you breaking into her apartment definitely looked strange.”

His hands raised apologetically. “I get it. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head, not trying to hide the admonishment in my voice. “Yeah, you said that already.” Sorry for what? was the question.

Coulter Rodman was no idiot. I’d seen enough smooth talkers to know that I couldn’t be swayed by his reassurances, however convincing they were on the surface. But something in me wanted to believe him.

It might have been his pretty face. And broad shoulders. And strong, manly hands. All those things, combined with all the right words.

He let out a sigh. “I know. I promise it won’t happen again. After the exchange at the station yesterday, I didn’t want to ask Waylan to bring me here. I knew that would cause more trouble for everyone. But I had to know.”

His shift in demeanor took me further off my guard. I felt for him. “Well, you’re here. What do you see? ”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” His gaze moved to the coffee table strewn with magazines and papers. “Looks like she was planning her wedding.”

I stepped closer, shuffling the bridal magazines to reveal the stack of cards that spilled from underneath.

Kylie was a happy bride-to-be addressing save-the-date cards and choosing flower arrangements.

And then she was dead. I couldn’t ignore that the man least likely to want to see her married was still the prime suspect.

“Save the date cards. March 18th.” I looked up at Coulter. “How does that make you feel?”

“Pretty awful. Not because she wanted to marry Jake. But because she probably really wanted to marry Jake.” He shook his head and sounded defeated as he continued.

“That’s the whole reason I was trying to talk to her after she told me she was engaged.

I wanted to look her in the eye and see if she really meant it. ”

I tried to focus on getting him to talk, rather than the heartstrings he was tugging. “Because with you, she didn’t really mean it?”

“She gave the ring back less than a month after we were engaged, so… apparently not.” The tinge of bitterness in his tone made the hairs on my forearms stand on end.

“Well, I guess we’ll never know,” I said matter-of-factly. The dead can’t speak. We have to rely on the survivors to tell their story.