Chapter Nine
“ S he’s just a child, Marty! Compared to Ron, she’s a child !” Eve raged. Then she pressed her wrist to her mouth and fought a gag.
We all winced. Yes. In comparison to Ron, Zinnia was a great deal younger, but in the eyes of the law, she was an adult.
“How could he do this?” she screeched, making my ears ring as she gathered up the skirt of her tunic and paced the floor. “It isn’t just that Zinnia’s half Ron’s age, but she was raised within the family! She loved him like a father! And how could he do this to Charmaine and Rafe? To us ? To our marriage? I thought we were happy—in love! He was so different than anyone I’d ever dated! I don’t understand!”
I blinked. What could I say. What word could I craft that could console her? No word existed.
Surprisingly, my favorite night dweller was the first to jump up and offer Nina-like sympathy. It wasn’t always gentle, it was more like a kick in the teeth, but it was always honest, even if painfully raw.
She gripped Eve’s wrist, staring into her eyes. “Listen, if he was having an affair with her, he’s a filthy prick—but we don’t know that for sure, Eve. So catch your damn breath and get a hold of yourself until we have all the information, okay? Despite your differences with the kid, Charmaine needs you to keep it together. She needs just one adult to be there for her.”
My heart twisted in my chest for young Nina. We knew where she came from. We knew all the adults in her life, with the exception of her grandmother, Lou, had failed her. She spoke from experience, experiences both Wanda and I were fully aware of.
I was raised by a single mother, but she’d always been there for me. I don’t know how I would have felt if she’d remarried someone I didn’t like.
I smiled gratefully at my BFF and mouthed a thank you for saying what I’d been incapable of saying.
Eve settled then, returning to her chair, but she wasn’t any less frazzled. She held up a hand, almost as though in defense of the world collapsing around her.
“I’m sorry, ladies. I… My world just tipped on its axis. It’s all too much. I feel like I just keep getting run over by a freight train, but you’re right. I need to toughen up for the children—even if Charmaine won’t talk to me, it won’t stop me from reminding her I’m here if she needs me.”
I nodded my understanding, my chest so tight, it felt as though it would explode. “Of course. But please remember, we don’t know who the father of Zinnia’s child is. We don’t know that the council police will ever know. I think we both get how poorly the council handles matters of this nature. So for now, we have no proof. I’m sure it feels impossible, but you have to let it go for the moment and focus on how to get through this. Nina’s right. There’s Charmaine to think about, and Rafe.”
Instantly, Eve’s pretty face softened as she groaned. “Rafe! Poor Rafe. He’s on his way home. His plane was delayed by a day, but he’s a wreck. I felt awful telling him about what happened on the phone. How do you tell someone, over the phone no less, their father’s been arrested and is confessing to the murder of a young woman he was raised with?”
I gave her hand a squeeze in solidarity. “I wish I had an answer for you, Eve. All we can do is take this moment by moment.”
“Pressing her slender fingers to her temples, Eve inhaled. “My word, how will I explain this to them? It’s not enough that Charmaine, no matter how hard I’ve tried, hates my guts, but what if…what if Ron did father Zinnia’s child? She’s already angry with me for marrying Ron. Nothing I do or say, no attempt I make at a relationship has helped. This will only make everything worse for her. She already lost her mother, but now her father, too? I can’t bear this kind of pain for her.”
My heart flip-flopped in my chest. This poor woman had been through the wringer, and now, she finds out her husband may have been having an affair. “You do know she’s with Hollis right now, don’t you? I promise we’ll take good care of her, Eve.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that, Marty. I want to be there for her. I swear, I do. She just absolutely doesn’t want me anywhere near her. So for now, I’m grateful she has you and Hollis, but I’m hoping we can work things out. I’ll keep texting and calling, even if she keeps ignoring me.”
Curling my fingers around the handle of my purse, I decided I couldn’t think of anything else to ask her, we’d done enough damage as it was. My head was throbbing, my bones were weary, and my tongue thickened as the interview went on…and we still had our visitation with Ron. It was time for us to skedaddle. I needed to regroup.
“I think that’s all for now, Eve. But if we think of anything else, can we call you? Or for that matter, if you think of anything else, please call us.”
Rising on shaky legs, Eve nodded her head, accepting my hug of comfort. She squeezed me tight and whispered, “Thank you, Marty. I promise to call if I remember anything that might help. Please tell Charmaine I’m thinking of her. As to now, I’m just glad you’re taking my visitation slot today. I’m not sure I can face Ron after hearing what you told me. The very idea enrages me.” She ran her hands over her arms and shivered.
You and me both, sister.
Nina shook her hand, and then she paused. “One quick thing. Any idea why the security cameras were turned off in the vault room? There’s some pretty valuable shit in there. Shouldn’t they be on twenty-four-seven?”
Eve shrugged. “I wish I had an answer. Ron handled all of that. I don’t even know the codes. He and the guards are the only people who know what the codes are.”
Nina popped her lips, following us to the small foyer of the suite. “Thanks again. Take care.”
We slipped out the door, all of us stopping in the hall to look at one another.
“I’m exhausted,” Wanda said on a long exhale as she buttoned her coat. “You guys?”
Nina nodded. “Normally I’d call you two wussies, but that shit took it right out of me. She’s trashed, and we just made it worse. I feel like crap, and I don’t even have feelings.”
Gripping my temples to massage them, I nodded. “We sure did. But she was going to find out about Zinnia anyway. Better from us than from that crusty dick Stan Freemont.”
Wanda began to make her way down the hallway, her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Let’s get to the car before we discuss. I need to sit and process.”
Nina looked weary, very unlike my vampire. I grabbed her hand, entwining my fingers with hers as we walked toward the elevator. “I appreciate you helping with this one. Hollis appreciates it, too.”
She gripped my hand as we walked down the long, beige-carpeted hallway to the elevator. “You know I’d do anything for her. She’s like my own. No thanks necessary. I just can’t help thinking about Zinnia’s mother and how shitty this is for her. I’m a parent, too. I’d die if something happened to one of mine—but not before I killed the fucknut who hurt ’em.”
Wanda pushed the button, the doors sliding open immediately. To our surprise, Stan Freemont stepped out.
He gave us his shark-in-the-guppy-pool look, scanning us from head to toe before jamming his hands in the pockets of his pressed trousers.
“Anything new to share, Mr. Freemont?” I asked, as he ogled my chest. I hoped he’d tell me Ron had confessed to fathering Zinnia’s child, but he didn’t budge.
“Nothing that I haven’t already shared via text,” he said with a wink. “Ron’s comfortable in that rathole for the most part and awaiting your visit. I’m still working on getting him bail, but it’s not looking good.”
Dear God, this man made me quake with disgust.
Nina instantly put herself between us and Stan. I smelled her frustration after our meeting with Eve, and I knew exactly who she planned to take it out on. “So why the fuck are you here?”
He held up a finger and took a step back, his lean face hard, his darting eyes blazing. “You stay right where you are and stay out of my head, Ms. Statleon. I know what you did back at the police station, and I also know it’s against your clan’s rules. I’ll take it up with them if you interfere like that again.”
Nina leaned forward, letting her face sit inches from Freemont’s. “It’s Mrs. Statleon, and you do you, boo. Go on and nark, Sparky. I’m sure the clan would dig knowing you’re a snitch, seeing as thirty percent of your income comes from their business.” The she grinned wide and pushed him out of the way to get into the elevator, holding the door open.
Wanda’s eyebrow rose. Only one—a haughty one—which meant she was eyeball deep in irritation. “Why are you here, Mr. Freemont?”
He lifted his pointy chin and all but sneered. “I am the family’s lawyer,” Miss Jefferson. I’ve come to discuss some business with Mrs. Ellis. Due to Mr. Ellis’s untimely incarceration, there are delicate dealings that must be handled.”
Wanda lifted her chin and gave him her death stare. “It’s Mrs. Jefferson, and if you can’t get our prefixes right, how can you possibly practice law?” She whisked past him and stepped into the elevator.
I smiled pleasantly at him, despite my throbbing temples. “I’m a Mrs., too. For future reference.” I hopped into the elevator next to my BFFs, fighting a giggle.
Then we all started to laugh. Nudging Nina, I asked, “The clan gives him thirty percent of his business? How’d you know that?”
“I’m not just the thug of the group, Marty. I have a brain. I know how to use Google. I looked his ratchet-ass up, and yeah, he does a ton of business with the clan.”
I pinched her cheek with a grin. “You’re so smart. Well done.” When the elevator doors pinged open, I muttered, “Now, let’s get to the car, so I can take some aspirin and we can start hashing this out.”
We pushed our way out of the shiny glass and gold doors of the hotel and headed to the SUV.
The skies had gone darkish again, meaning there was likely more snow in the forecast. I lifted my face to the wind, letting the frigid air ease my pounding head.
Climbing into the backseat, I shivered, digging through my purse for some aspirin. While werewolves are immortal, like I said, we can be killed, and we can also suffer very human ailments. Chucking the aspirin into my mouth, I popped open the bottle of water I always carried and settled into the heated seat of the SUV.
“So where do we start? Did you guys smell anything off? Hear anything I missed, because I have to tell you, Eve probably would be considered the prime suspect if Ron was cheating and if he got another woman pregnant. Both motives for murder.”
“Like I’ve said ten times in the last coupla days—jealousy,” Nina stated, as she pulled out onto the road to head toward the council headquarters. “But I didn’t get that from her, did you? She looks torn to shit, and she looked pretty damn surprised at the announcement of Zinnia’s pregnancy. Also, she has an alibi. She was with Pearl. I know we haven’t talked to her yet, but I gotta doubt she’s gonna say anything other than what Eve told us. I mean, that would be a pretty ballsy lie, right?”
Wanda nodded, following my lead and taking some aspirin. “Agreed. Plus, she’d deserve an Oscar if she’s lying. I felt her grief, her concern for Charmaine and Rafe deep in my soul. I wish Charmaine could see how lucky she is to have Eve on her side.”
Closing my eyes, I rest my head on the seat, my brain in overdrive. “So what do we have so far? A letter written to Zinnia that Pearl had, and we don’t know if she gave it to her mother or she never got it. An argument Eve thinks she heard Ron and Zinnia having—but she doesn’t know what it was about—roughly a week before her murder. An argument Richard overheard between Zinnia and Pearl, where Zinnia allegedly said ‘he’ll kill me,’ whoever he is. Some rando unknown who knocked me over at Pearl’s cottage. Surveillance cameras in the vault that mysteriously were off during the murder, and every single person telling us the Ellises were wildly in love.”
“And a partridge in a pear tree,” Nina sang.
Wanda looked at her phone when it signaled an incoming text. She frowned. “And no fingerprints on the murder weapon, but everyone and their mother’s fingerprints are apparently all over the vault foyer. Armand’s, Richard’s, Elroy’s, Pearl’s, the entire Ellis clan. Stan the pig just texted me.”
I took deep breaths as my headache began to subside. “Do me a favor, Wanda? In the pictures we were looking at of the crime scene? Ask Stan the Tool if he knows what that thing is we thought was Zinnia’s hair clip on the floor in the vault and why it’s not listed on the evidence sheet. Though, it doesn’t surprise me. The council police aren’t exactly CSI.”
With a nod, Wanda sent Stan back a text before she said, “So next, we grill Ron. Only this time we’re not so nice. You know, maybe take a different route? We treat him like the criminal he claims to be, especially in light of the fact that he could be the father of Zinnia’s child. Maybe that’ll help him remember what happened.”
“And then Pearl. We need to corroborate Eve’s alibi, but we also need to know if she knew Zinnia was pregnant, and if she knew by whom. She did have the letter, after all.”
“To the hoosegow we go,” Nina cheered as we drove along the lake.
While I watched the icy waters roll with the wind and the clouds move, growing darker by the second, I thought about how kind Eve had been regarding Charmaine, despite the fact that she hated Eve’s guts. That took more chutzpah than I had. Eve was a generous spirit, for sure.
And poor Rafe, having to come home from school because his father had confessed to murder.
Wait.
I blinked. Then I scolded myself for not putting this together sooner.
Remember when I said we’d made mistakes our last investigation? Then remember how proud I was that I’d adverted another mistake with this investigation?
I really needed to stop patting myself on the back.
Rafe.
Um, what letter does Rafe begin with?
R.
Good gravy, I could scream. How had all of us missed that? Was Rafe the father of Zinnia’s child? Had he written that letter to her? It made so much more sense than Ron being the father of her baby.
Had we dismissed him because he was away at school? I felt like a bloody fool.
We pulled up to a stop sign, Nina braking to come to a full halt.
As I was about to relay our marvelously stupid blunder to my BFFs, I caught a glimpse of something black and shiny, and heard the screaming roar of an engine—moments before we were tumbling head over feet. We were all yelling and cursing as the SUV bashed against the road before we plunged into the icy waters of the lake. But just before we landed in the water, I had a thought…
Have I mentioned Wanda’s not much of a swimmer?