“Where to now?”
“Charles Walker only lives a few blocks away, near my apartment.”
“How convenient. He’s probably at work though.”
I shook my head. “He works from home. Web development or some shit.”
“How, exactly, do you have that information already?”
“I’ve got skills.”
Kyla glanced at my phone. “You mean you’ve got contacts.”
She wasn’t wrong. Steve had already sent me Walker’s details.
Kyla followed me in her car and I spotted Vas landing in my parking lot as we passed my apartment. I beeped and he lifted his hand in a wave. Gratitude made my chest tight.
When I’d fallen in love with my apartment, the location had been a huge part of its appeal. My windows had no view of the tower, and the building backed onto a series of largely human neighborhoods in East Durham.
Charles lived in one of those human neighborhoods, in a blue, split ranch in Wedgewood. I knocked, waited, and Kyla rolled her eyes at me. “He’s in there. I can scent him.”
I pounded on the door some more. When Charles finally appeared, he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, his hand wrapped around a can of beer. His eyes were red and puffy.
“What do you want?”
“We’re investigating the fire at the coven,” I said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
He glanced between us and gave a sharp nod, turning and walking back into the house. We followed him in, and I heroically didn’t wrinkle my nose at the smell of old food, beer, and dust.
Brooke had been right. The guy was a slob.
And she’d never get the chance to meet another guy. Never feel the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach, never get to raise those kids she wanted. Life was damn unfair.
Charles sat on the sofa and glanced at me. He flinched and I forced a neutral expression onto my face. He gestured at a ratty armchair next to the sofa and I sat down. Kyla wandered the room restlessly.
There were signs of a woman’s touch here. A bunch of dead flowers sat by the window. The cushions were obviously new, patterned with cheerful floral covers. A vanilla-scented candle stood alone on the coffee table.
I forced myself to focus on Charles. “Do you know of anyone who might’ve wanted to hurt Brooke?”
Charles ran one hand over his face, shaking his head. He took a swig of beer and his eyes locked on the candle.
“She loved those things. Burned them all the time. I’ve got candles in my bathroom, for Christ’s sake. What kind of guy has candles in their bathroom?”
“She was making a home with you,” Kyla said, her voice soothing.
“She dumped me.” Charles’s voice cracked. “Because I never cleaned, never helped out. If she’d still been here, she wouldn’t have been at that fucking house. She’d still be alive.”
My heart twisted. “Nothing will bring her back, but we can find whoever did this and make them pay.”
My intuition was telling me the guy had nothing to do with the fire. He wasn’t organized or motivated enough to keep his own house clean. But people did things that seemed out of character all the time.
“Are you going to be questioning everyone who knows the victims? Or just the exes? I know how this works. The cops were here earlier. They’ve decided I’m the only one with motive.”
“You want to clear your name, tell us everything you can.”
My hand dropped to my thigh sheath as Charles lunged to his feet, but he wasn’t going for a weapon. He grabbed the candle and threw it at the wall, hard enough to leave a dent.
I slowly got to my feet. My turn to be bad cop. I glanced at Kyla. Hopefully she was able to pull off good cop, because I was running on far too little sleep.
