“Just the space Miss Price has access to, which is her unit and any common areas. We will not enter any of the other units. The property management company supplied us with a detailed plan of the house. Miss Price will need to remain out here but the rest of you are free to go back to your own units. You just have to stay out of the common areas.”
“We’ll stay out here with Aubrey until you’re done,” Shane says.
We were able to hide the knife, but we didn’t check to see if there was anything else planted in my room, waiting to be found.
Tears form and spill over. I bat them away only for them to quickly be replaced. I hate crying. Hate it. But now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop.
Shane pulls me back to the chairs we were sitting in when the cops arrived, Eddie following close behind.
Frank’s party breaks up, everyone deciding it’s time to go home after afew of them are questioned by the police. No one wants to be caught up in whatever this is, but Frank stays, pulling up chairs for himself and Serenity next to us. I’ll be forever grateful to them for sticking with me.
Cops come in and out of the house, but thankfully, no one goes into the garage. Shane and Eddie pay an extra hundred dollars a month in rent for it so it should not be considered a common area.
Deacon is aware of what’s going on since Shane called him, but we decided if things go sideways here, he’s more help to us if he’s not involved. We may need someone available to bail us out of jail.
Close to one a.m., the cop who spoke to us earlier exits the house, followed by the half dozen who showed up with him. He approaches where we’ve been waiting patiently.
“We have executed the search and it came up empty. If you have any questions, you can call the number on the paperwork I gave you when we arrived.”
We just look at him.
When he realizes we aren’t going to say anything, he adds, “You are free to enter your unit, Miss Price.”
He turns to leave and yet we still don’t move. Not until every single cop is gone.
When it’s just us, I call Deacon. “They’re gone.”
“I’ll be there in five.” The line goes dead.
Serenity motions for Frank to follow her back to her place above the garage. “Fill us in tomorrow. We’re headed to bed.” I appreciate Serenity getting Frank out of here because we wouldn’t be able to speak freely in front of him.
The rest of us move to the kitchen, where we wait for Deacon.
Eddie drops the copy of the warrant on the table. “I’m going to walkthrough the house to make sure they didn’t break anything. At some point, everyone else needs to check their rooms to make sure the cops didn’t go where they weren’t allowed.”
Shane pulls a couple of beers from the fridge, offering one to me, but I decline.
I scrub my hands across my face, wishing I could wipe away the evidence of how badly this has upset me, but I start crying again the second Deacon walks through the back door.
He sees me immediately and slides into the chair next to mine. “Are you okay?”
I nod and he wraps an arm around me, pulling me in close.
“What the hell happened?”
Eddie catches him up on everything. Deacon is absently playing with the ends of my hair and I sink into him even more while I listen to them bat around their theories.
Finally, Deacon says, “Let’s talk to Serenity in the morning about a list of people at the party since one of them could have planted the knife. Not much else we can do tonight. Until we figure out who did this, the house stays locked up tight. No one but us in or out. Everyone good with that?”
We all nod.
Shane and Eddie head to their room and then it’s just Deacon and me in the kitchen. I can tell from how tense he looks that he’s pissed. He shifts me to the side so he can pull his wallet out of his back pocket and pulls out a business card and props it against the saltshaker so he can read the number.
“Who are you calling?”
“That lawyer, Hank, who showed up at Doug’s last night.”
“Why are you calling him?”
