Jaden (Jaded 3)

I pressed my hand to my stomach, then pressed harder. It had started doing flip-flops. “I—” A memory flashed in my mind.

“No,” Bryce said firmly, daring me to argue with him. “I said ‘make love,’ and you said ‘have sex.’ They’re different.”

“It’s not that different. It’s still screwing.”

“No,” he spelled it out, saddened. “You screw me. I make love to you.”

“Um.” Mena came up from the stairs and stopped, seeing us. A bewildered expression came over her and she stuffed her hand behind her back, her eyes went wide before skirting to the side. “The cops are here.” She bit her lip, but looked at Bryce. “They’re asking for you, but I think they want you, too.” She directed the last bit to me.

I shared a look with Bryce. Cops coming here was never a good sign.

He ran a hand over his face. “Okay. Uh, okay. Let’s go.”

The three of us trailed in a single line to the main living room. They weren’t in the entrance foyer, and as we passed it, I felt a smart-ass remark on the tip of my tongue. I swallowed it. Not the time. Not the place.

Then we were there, and the cops all sat up from the couch. The female one –I still refused to learn her name— signaled to Bryce. “Can I talk to you privately?”

“No.”

“What?”

“No.” He gestured to the group. “Unless you’re going to arrest me as a suspect, I’m sick of this. Everything you’re here about has to do with everyone here. They all deserve to know so whatever you have to ask me, ask me here. In front of everyone.”

She pressed her lips together, then let out a short burst of steam. “Fine.” She cleared her throat, tugging at the collar of her shirt. “Guadalupe Ramirez is missing.” She searched everyone, studying all of our reactions, but there were none.

Corrigan shrugged. “Yeah. So? We already knew that.”

“So . . .” Her eyes narrowed, resting on Bryce. “Has she contacted you lately?”

Bryce didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” He glanced at me, but he was speaking to her. “She’d been texting, emailing, and calling me until two days ago. So was Maria, until we stole her phone. After that, I started getting texts and calls. The voicemails sounded like Maria’s voice. I’m assuming she got a new phone.”

“Maria?” The male cop frowned, pulling out his phone. “Her assistant Maria?”

>

“Yes.” Bryce kept going, sounding so tired. “Maria is a huge part of Lupe’s life. She’s obsessed with her. Guadalupe was calling me and asking me to come back to her. At first she was threatening Sheldon, saying she’ll sue. When I kept ignoring her, she started pleading. Now all she does is go back and forth between threatening me, saying she’ll hurt Sheldon if I don’t do what she wants, and begging me to come back.”

“What do you say when you respond?”

“I don’t.” Bryce shot him a questionable look. “I’ve never responded. To her or Maria. You have Maria’s phone. You can check that.” He rubbed at his forehead.

“Okay.” The two detectives shared a look. “We’re going to be very honest with you.” She glanced at me. “The phone you got was a goldmine. You were right. There were emails, text messages, the whole nine yards of enough evidence to implicate the assistant in Grace’s murder. They talked about Grace even. They said she was a good subject,” she hesitated, “but we’re wondering how they even knew about Grace.”

“They were there.” The words burst out of me before I realized it myself. Oh my god. They were. I couldn’t believe it. “The night Grace confessed, they were there. We were at the hospital because of what happened to Corrigan, which—”

The female held up a hand. “We’re ahead of you there. We believe they did cut your car’s brakes. There’s elevator footage of Maria going down to the basement with a backpack and twenty minutes later, coming back up. Her backpack is missing so we don’t know what she did with it, but we’re guessing she had things in there to do the cutting, and then she got rid of all the evidence.”

The male added, “There’s a dumpster on the garage level. We’re assuming she tossed everything there.”

“And they’re missing? Both of them?”

The female nodded. “Yes. We’re sorry we dropped the ball on this. We really thought it was you, and of course, we can’t offer you an official apology—”

“—at least not until we find Guadalupe Ramirez and Maria Ramirez.”

“They have the same last name?” I turned to Bryce. “Are they family?”

“We’re looking into that, but it might comfort you to know that Maria Ramirez has had psychological assessments done in the past year. She’s gone into more than four treatment hospitals. None of them will release information, but if we can prove she’s dangerous, they’ll break confidentiality.” The two detectives grimaced at the same time. “All we have is circumstantial evidence right now, nothing to fully warrant doing a BOLO. However…” The female forced her mouth to grin, though her face was stiff. There were bags under her eyes. “We can do something helpful, at least for you.” She gestured to my ankle. “We can remove that today. We have enough so we can take you off the suspect list.”