“Y-Yeah. Sure,” Bobby stammered.
“Bobby,” Lacey said, as gently as she could, “this is really important.”
“I know, Ms. Ward. I know.”
“He’ll cooperate,” I said tersely, “won’t you, Bobby?”
Bobby nodded. Not overly adamantly, but at least he nodded.
“Is that a yes?” I asked, again tersely.
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Yes, I’ll cooperate.”
“Thank you,” Lacey said. “It means a lot. See you later, Bobby.”
Lacey and I headed back up to her apartment.
“You get it all?” I asked.
She grabbed the phone out of her purse and played back the recording of our conversation with Bobby. “Yeah. Got it all.”
“Good.”
“You do know that this most likely isn’t admissible in court,” she said.
“I know. But it’s good to have it for corroboration anyway.”
“I can’t disagree,” she said. “Now we just have to talk to whoever was on that night and morning.”
“We’ll do it, baby.” I pulled her to me and kissed her forehead. “We’ll get us both out of this mess.”
I closed my eyes, inhaling the tropical scent of her hair…and hoping to God I was right.54LaceyI dragged Rock with me to the soup kitchen for volunteer work on Memorial Day, and when I saw him interact with the veteran heroes, I knew I’d fallen in love with a truly good man. Sure, he’d come off as a douchebag at first, but inside his harsh exterior was a warm and good human being. A good human being who’d been through hell.
The man I loved.
The next day, we were both off to the office once more.
A little over an hour after I sat down, my cellphone buzzed. Rock.
“You’re going to love me,” he said into my ear.
“I already do.”
“Yeah? You’re going to love me even more. Guess what I just found out?”
“What?”
“I had a very interesting talk with the owner of your building.”
“Oh?”
“Yup. Did you know he installed security cameras a couple months ago?”
“No, I didn’t. You mean…?”
“You got it. Everyone who has gone in and out of your building is on tape. We need to get the tape of the night my father was killed, and you’ll be off the hook.”
I let out a big sigh, letting go of tension I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. “Did you call Hank Morgan? Does he already know?”
“You only recently became a person of interest. He might not know yet. Let’s call him now.”
“We can’t both call him.” I jerked as my door flew open.
Rock grinned as he stood in my doorway. As always, my heart skipped a beat just looking at him. He slipped his phone in his pocket.
“Shouldn’t you be at your own office?” I asked.
“I want this put to bed. We have enough on our plates trying to solve this thing. We need to get you off the hook.”
“Okay. Go for it. You call. You have more sway. After all, I’m not a Wolfe.”
“You’re not a Wolfe”—he smiled, his green eyes twinkling—“yet.”
My heart raced and tingles skittered along my skin. Was that a proposal? Hardly. Rock was entering numbers into his phone.
“Detective, hi. Rock Wolfe.”
Pause.
“I have some good news you might not know about yet. There’s a security video for Lacey’s apartment the night of my father’s murder. It should exonerate her.”
Pause.
“What do you mean?”
Pause.
My heart was firing like a freaking cannon. Morgan was clearly talking…about the tape. And that couldn’t mean anything good.
“That’s fucking ridiculous!”
Forget the cannonballs. My heart was pounding more like a stampede of angry wildebeests. Seconds passed like hours as I waited for Rock to utter something else. Anything else.
Rock’s face reddened, his eyes no longer twinkling. Anger oozed out of his pores.
Still he didn’t speak.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t speak.
Until finally—
“Someone is playing a dangerous game, Detective. You’d better find out who, because if you don’t, I will.”
Pause.
“Don’t even think about threatening me.”
A chill swept the back of my neck. What was Morgan saying?
“This conversation is over.” Rock shoved his phone back in his pocket.
My lips trembled. “I’m afraid to ask,” I said meekly.
“Fucking detective.”
“Is he dirty?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, but someone is sending him on a wild goose chase.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Or tried to. I was unsuccessful. “The video?” I said.
He shook his head. “Gone.”
My whole body turned numb. “G-Gone?”
“You’re innocent, baby, and so am I. And so are Roy, Reid, and Riley. Even my mother is innocent, at least in this.”
“Roy, Reid…and what?”
“Somehow, every single one of us has been implicated in the bastard’s murder. He’s got all of our prints at the scene.”
My hammering heart fell into my stomach. “But…you’re his kids. Of course your prints would be…”
Didn’t matter. A detective would know what kind of evidence implicated grown children of a murder victim.
Somehow, every single one of us has been implicated…
“How? Where did he get prints to match the rest of you? Where?”
“I have no fucking clue. We’re getting played, Lacey. Played like a fucking violin. And I’d bet the entire Wolfe fortune that my father himself set this up before he had himself offed.”