“You can sit in the lobby and when Officer North is available, I will let him know you are here. If you want to leave at any time, just give me your phone number and I can have him call you,” Gail stated, sympathetic but firm.
“Thank you,” I told her.
The lobby was a cheerless area, with plastic and metal chairs bolted to the floor. There weren’t any magazines, nor a television to keep my mind occupied. I sat down and folded my hands together to keep them from shaking.
Time stretched.
Occasionally a person would pass by or an officer would come to chat to Gail at the desk. Someone came into the station to drop off a delivery then left again. Every time a door opened, my chest tightened with hope that it would be Ephram.
It wasn’t.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out without thinking, my fingers moving on instinct. It was Jane, asking if I was still in town. She wondered if I could pick up some cans of cherry pie filling.
Jane, I just ran into—
I stared at the screen then deleted the text.
TMy fingers typed again.Kitty, I need—
Deleted.
I’m at the police station.
I stared at the words before I deleted them.
The habit was so familiar it scared me. The reflex to handle it myself. To not make it anyone else’s problem. To doubt my own instincts before trusting someone else with them.
I didn’t know why I was still doing this. I knew better now. I knew I wasn’t alone, that I should tell my sisters, and yet the instinct to carry it myself ran deep, etched in from years of being the one who tried to handle everything on her own even when it was too much.
How could I tell them that the man who robbed us, that I let into our lives, was back in town?
I locked my phone and slipped it back into my pocket.
The cold cut through me, and I hugged my arms tighter around myself, willing the shaking to stop.
Chapter Fourteen: The Interview
The interrogation room sounded far more intimidating than what it really was.
Plastic and metal chairs, a metal table that was bolted to the floor, and a faint hum from the vent above that never quite shut off. Wickham sat at the table, hands folded loosely, posture relaxed enough to look cooperative without appearing submissive.
People who were nervous fidgeted. People who were guilty rushed.
Wickham did neither.
I took my seat across from him and opened the folder without comment, giving him time to read the room again, to recalibrate now that Lydia was no longer present. His gaze tracked my movements with polite interest.
“Thank you for coming in,” I said.
“Of course,” he replied easily. “I’m happy to help clear things up.”
That phrasing again. Clear things up. Not answer questions. Not cooperate with an investigation. He framed himself as the solution, not the subject.
I noted it and moved on.
“Let’s go over your role with the Bennet family from your perspective,” I invited, giving him room to hopefully make a mistake.
He nodded, already prepared. “I was hired to assist with operations for a Christmasevent. It was short-term, and I was mostly consulting on how to run it. That’s what I do for a living.”