Page 30 of Redamancy (Fated Fixation #2)

Chapter twenty-four

W hen I see Joe again, he’s not nearly as disheveled.

In the four hours since our initial attorney-client meeting, he’s shaved. He’s ironed his slacks. He’s put on a fresh shirt that isn’t tracking half of Toby’s coat with it.

He’s transformed from the goofy, consistent third wheel on movie nights with LuAnne, and into the hardened public defender that does battle with New York’s criminal justice system five days a week.

“I’ll do most of the talking,” Joe instructs me as we wait inside a different interrogation room for the detectives.

This one is a marginal upgrade from the previous—the walls a slightly less lifeless gray, the chairs metal instead of plastic, and nobody appears to be blasting the air conditioning.

“They might ask you questions, but you have no legal obligation to answer. At least, no more than you already have.”

I flush under his pointed stare. “I thought I was just giving a witness statement.”

He shakes his head. “They’ll say anything to get you in one of these rooms and talking on camera.”

And I should’ve known that, I think. I let the shock overwhelm me. I let it keep me from thinking clearly.

I have no more time to bask in whatever failures led me here, because a moment later, the door bangs open, and Detective Dalton saunters in.

“Mr. Castelli,” Dalton’s voice bounces off the walls with the same thunderous quality as before. He reaches across the table to shake Joe’s hand. “Good to see you again. What’s it been? At least a year, right?”

“Detective Dalton,” Joe replies curtly. “And at least.”

“My colleague will be in shortly. He’s waiting on a chemical analysis,” Dalton parks himself in the chair across from us and flattens that same manila folder on the table. “But I’ll try to make this quick.”

There’s a general aura of smugness about him, and my stomach dips with anticipation.

There’s no way they actually found anything.

Joe leans back, shoulders straightened. “I agree. Let’s make this quick. The only thing you’ve got to hold my client on right now is circumstantial evidence,” he says, his voice lacking its usual warmth.

Dalton smirks. “Well, we had circumstantial evidence but—” He gently waves the closed file in our direction. “—coroner’s report might suggest otherwise.”

What?

My eyes dart over to Joe, who shoots me a faint reassuring smile before he addresses Dalton again. “Foul play?” He lifts a brow. “And what cause of death?”

Dalton slides the file across the table. “Cardiac arrest second to acute drug intoxication. See for yourself.”

“Overdose,” Joe sighs. “Does not prove foul play by my client—or anyone—unless you’ve got some miraculous smoking gun in here.”

Dalton’s smirk only brightens as Joe flips open the file, scans its contents—and his entire forehead creases with confusion. “Propranolol?”

“It’s a beta-blocker,” Dalton explains. “At therapeutic doses, it’s used to treat high blood pressure and heart arrhythmias, occasionally migraines and anxiety too.

” He crosses his arms. “The dosage found in Palmer’s system was nothing short of lethal, though—at least three or four times what a doctor would ever prescribe.

The medical examiner thinks it probably sent him into cardiac arrest within five or ten minutes. ”

Jesus Christ.

Joe’s brows lift. “I see. So, death was intentional.”

Dalton nods.

“This sounds more like a suicide than foul play,” Joe replies.

“See, I considered that but—”

The door swings open again, and Bryant strides in and passes over a new report to Dalton. “Here you go.”

Dalton accepts the file. “And the other thing?”

“Grabbing it now.”

Bryant exits the room, and Dalton scans the file, his smile widening.

Well, that’s not a good sign.

“Just as I thought,” he mutters, and then—for the first time since he walked in—Dalton looks at me directly. “Are you a health conscientious person, Ms. Davis?”

I glance at Joe, who gives me a small nod, so I answer. “Uh…I don’t know. Depends on your definition of ‘health conscious.’”

“Oh, you know,” Dalton’s brown eyes gleam. “Like salads. Smoothies. Juices. You look like a girl who drinks a lot of green juice to me.”

“Is this relevant to the case, Detective, or are you just harassing my client?” Joe interjects.

In response, Dalton plucks a printed photograph from the new report and slides it over to me. “You recognize this?”

I squint at it.

The enlarged photo is a little grainy and unfocused but—

“I think so,” I say. “It was on the counter when I found Tom.”

“So, you know what it contained?” Dalton presses.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Joe cuts in. “Only if you want to.”

I shift in my seat, the sense of dread only growing. “He drank his greens every morning before breakfast. That’s what I’d assume.”

Dalton hums. “Interesting. So, you had prior knowledge of this habit?”

I don’t say anything.

“We didn’t have much to go on at the scene, you know,” Dalton continues.

“But we performed a chemical analysis on the contents of that bottle. You want to guess what the report came back with?” He whistles.

“Traces of propranolol.” I’m rooted to the spot by Dalton’s piercing, unforgiving stare.

“Let me take a wild guess. When you ‘crashed on the couch’ the night before, you added a bunch of Propranolol to the only beverage in the fridge you knew Thomas Palmer would wake up and consume. Maybe you didn’t think he’d do it so early.

Maybe you thought you could sneak out before he—”

“And now you’re trying to coerce a confession from my client,” Joe snaps, and he leans forward, one finger pointed in Dalton’s direction.

“This interview is over. For all your suspicions, you still have yet to prove my client had a hand in Thomas Palmer’s death beyond her presence at the scene.

You have no motive. No prints. No other eyewitnesses.

Your theories about Ms. Davis are baseless, and frankly, at this point, you haven’t even proven you have reasonable suspicion to detain her.

” The metal chair creaks as he rises. “I will be speaking to your supervisor about your conduct on this case.”

Dalton just leans back, one leg crossed over the other, and shrugs. “You’re welcome to speak with my supervisor if you’d like, counsel,” he says. “But I think you’re going to change your tune when you see what else we found.”

Bryant steps into the room again, and when I see what he’s carrying, my blood turns to ice.

“I won’t ask you if you recognize this item,” Dalton drawls sarcastically. “Seeing as it’s yours.” And then he takes the purse— my purse—from Bryant and begins dumping out its contents.

My phone, my wallet, and the spare tube of mascara I keep inside the shoulder bag all clatter out first. “I’ll admit, I was not expecting it to be this easy,” he says. “But it makes sense. You didn’t have any time to get rid of it.”

Some part of me already knows what he’s going to pull out before he does it. The rattling of pills gives it away as Dalton plucks a prescription bottle from the purse, the label turned so I can clearly see—

Propanolol

My heart sinks.

“You know,” Dalton continues. “I’m actually familiar with this stuff.

After my Great Dane got diagnosed with heart failure a couple of years ago, the vet prescribed Propranolol to manage his symptoms. Similar dosage too.

” He rattles the nearly empty bottle while Bryant rummages through the rest of my purse.

“This is a legitimate prescription too. I almost called the doctor—but I guess I didn’t need to.

” His eyes flicker over to me. “You made that easy for us too, Ms. Davis.”

He turns the bottle over so I can read the prescriber name this time—and my muscles turn to stone.

No.

No, this is—

Bryant lays LuAnne’s prescription pad on the table in front of us.

“What do you think?” Dalton ticks his head towards his partner. “You think someone might’ve stolen Dr. LuAnne Hart’s prescription pad for their own nefarious purposes?”

No.

Panic steals the air from my lungs.

The room blurs out of focus, and I barely register the scrape of Dalton’s chair. Or the hard edge in his voice as he lists off all my legal rights. Or Joe, rigid and silent as a statue, with his eyes still fixed on the prescription pad.

It’s only once cold metal clicks around my wrists that the truth washes over me—clear as day.

I’m being framed for murder.

By Adrian Ellis.