“Oh, sorry. I must have forgotten to mention it. It was brief, maybe five or ten minutes. Val was there with me too. For part of it.”
He looks up to meet my eyes, and I immediately shrink under his gaze. “Drew, I told you when we started that it’s crucial for me to know every detail. It’s my job to decide what is important and what isn’t, so I need you to focus and answer my questions thoroughly and completely.”
Jalen looks so much like his brother that it almost feels like it’s Cameron admonishing me right now, and I realize very quickly that I don’t like that one bit.
“Is there anything else you need to tell me about Leah before we move on to Val?” Jalen prompts.
I swallow. “When I walked in on Leah in her bedroom, I found out that she was pregnant, but she asked me not to tell anyone.”
“Thank you.” He finishes jotting down his notes, which takes longer than I would expect, making me wonder if he already finished writing about her and has started a section aboutme.
After the painfully extended silence, he asks, “What was the name of the next woman you met?”
“Val, short for Valentina.”
He writes her name at the top of a new page and leans back in his chair. “Tell me about her.”
I take a deep breath and conjure up every single detail I can think of but pause before speaking when I realize that he might get the wrong idea about her, too, especially without having the privilege to get to know her like I have. I have no clue what caused the police to suspect foul play, and if Jalen knows, hehasn’t disclosed it to me. But I am certain that telling him that Val is trained in martial arts and admitted to having many sharp objects in her house would certainly cover at least a few scenarios. I come back to the present moment with the sound of Jalen’s pen scratching on his paper.
I lean forward. “What are you writing?”
I half expect him to tilt his notepad back so that I can’t see, but he just ignores me and keeps writing. “Remember, it’s your job to tell me everything, and my job to decide what’s important.”
“But I haven’t said anything.”
He puts a star next to the last word that he wrote, and then looks up. “Tell me everything about Val, same as you just did with Leah.”
I give him every detail I can recall about Val but soften the ones that I think could put her in a bad light and put more emphasis on her good qualities. I pause when I get to the part where she told me in the bathroom that she Googled Cameron and found out that some people think he’s a bad lawyer, but I spit it out when his pen speeds up on the page again at my hesitation.
He doesn’t blink at the insult to his brother and remains stoic as I wrap up with meeting her and Ollie back in Cameron’s bedroom after the power went out.
“Before we move on to Ollie, is there anything else, no matter how small, that you haven’t told me about your interactions with Val?”
I look back down at my lap. “Not that I can think of.”
He hesitates, as if he’s going to push back against my answer, but after a few seconds, he moves on to Ollie. It’s a brief conversation, because I didn’t spend much time with him, so Ollie’s notes only take up a half page on his legal pad.
“I think that’s a good start. I need to go down to my room to make a few phone calls, but you have my number if you think of anything else or have any questions.”
I sink at the fact that he said this was a goodstart, but manage my most genuine, “Thank you,” while he packs up his barrister briefcase. I’d never have been able to secure this level of representation on my own.
“One more thing, Drew. Before I go.” I mentally prepare for another correction as we walk towards the door, but to my surprise he softens a bit. “I want to make sure you understand that if this does, in fact, become a criminal case, that means there is a murderer on the loose. For your own safety, I would strongly caution you from leaving this hotel room for any reason. Without knowing who did this, we don’t know their full motive, and I’d hate for anything bad to happen to you or my brother.”
I blink at his warning, both because it is a sobering reality that I hadn’t fully considered, and because it seems oddly cordial considering the way he’s treated me thus far. I have no doubt that he will do his best to represent me, but I think that has more to do with his loyalty to Cameron than it does with his fondness for me.
When it becomes clear that he is waiting for a response, I nod that I heard him, and he strides past me to let himself out. I stare after him until the main door to my room clicks closed and then take a few steps forward to lock the deadbolt and secure the chain behind him, heeding his warning.
Chapter thirty-seven
YOU ALMOST HAD ME
Imakeitbackto my bed just in time to collapse under the weight of the last twenty-four hours.
Delaney is dead.
We are trying to find out how, and why.
Someone who I was just under the same roof with may have done it; someone that I care about, because it’s not just Cameron that I made a connection with yesterday. I also grew fond of Leah and Val and can’t fathom that one of them could have done this either.
