“Of course. And I’ll figure out who did this, I promise. Be safe in the meantime, please.”
“I will. I promise.”
Chapter forty-two
WHENEVER YOU’RE READY
Ishovelasmuchfood into my mouth as possible in the five minutes I am given before we leave, and try to block out the argument between Jalen and Cameron that has started over Cameron’s insistence on coming with us to the station. Each bite is a struggle to force down, but it might be the last good meal I have for a while. I clear my plate with nothing more than stubborn determination.
“Use your brain, Cameron. You know why you can’t come with us.”
“I don’t care how it looks. She needs me, so I am going to be there.”
“What she needs is for someone to make the right choices for her defense, especially now. You’re just too tangled in this to be objective.” Cameron opens his mouth to argue, but Jalen raises his hand to silence him. “You asked me to defend her, and I can’t do that if you keep interfering to spare her feelings. We’re pastthat now. So, unless you want to find someone else to take my place, you need to back off and let me do my job.”
Cameron practically snarls in response, and I take it as my cue to step in. “Can someone please explain to me why it’s bad for Cameron to come and wait for me in the lobby? I don’t want to do something that could be bad for my case, either.”
Jalen deflates with a relieved sigh. “Thank God at least one of you is thinking clearly.”
Cameron’s shoulders tense, but he stays quiet.
“Drew, you and Cameron showing up together isverybad for your case. If they see you as a united front, they will assume that you have coordinated your stories to protect each other and therefore can’t be trusted. You need every single person who saw you last night to be deemed credible by the detectives. Val and Ollie saw you in the master bedroom within the window of death, but then you and Cameron went off alone. You saw Leah for a few minutes, too, but then you were alone again. That’s a lot of time you are unaccounted for, and even more if they think Cameron would lie and say that he was with you in your room because he has a personal interest in covering for you.”
“What about everyone else, though? They were alone, too, at the times that they weren’t with me.”
“It’s not my job to worry about everyone else. It’s my job to worry about you. And if you were as vague as you described when you told me about your initial interview, and the others were more specific, it all starts to paint a picture.”
I stare at my shoes in shame at how royally I messed this all up. As much as I wish Cameron could come with me for support, Jalen is right. I need to ask him to stay behind.
“I’ll still be there if you want me to. Even if it’s just in the parking lot.”
“They have cameras on the parking lot, Cameron,” Jalen scolds. “You know that.”
I squeeze Cameron’s arm, both to comfort him and to keep him from ripping Jalen’s head off. “Thank you so much for looking out for me, but I need to do everything perfectly from here on out. I really, really, really don’t want to miss out on the birth of my nephew because I’ve been arrested.”
“It’s settled then,” Jalen says. “Thank you, Drew, for having your head in the game. Now let’s get going before we are even more late.”
Cameron’s face crumples as I take a step towards my bedroom. I pause to guide his face down to meet my eyes. “It’s going to be okay. You helped make me stronger from our talk earlier, remember?”
He blinks a few times to hide what I think is some moisture gathering behind his eyes and brings his forehead down to rest on mine. “You were already strong, even before that.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “But you, Jalen, Reggie, and Monika are all sticking your necks out for me, so I need to do my part too.”
I let him go and hustle to get my things so that I don’t add being late to an appointment on my already growing list of missteps as far as the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is concerned.
As expected, Jalen jumps into coaching me the second we are alone, and begins throwing out instructions before he even turns over the ignition. “Stick to the facts, and nothing more. If you are unsure about something, don’t guess. Remember, you can always turn to me if you’re confused, and I can advise you. That’s what I’m here for.”
“No guessing, defer to you. Got it.” I turn away from the window to buckle my seatbelt and keep my eyes forward so that I don’t have to see Cameron’s defeated expression from where we left him back in the lobby. “Will Detective Harvey be handling my questions again?”
“Not necessarily,” he says, pulling away from the hotel and onto the busy street. “But if he does, then that gives us a clue as to what they might be thinking.”
“Because he’s their star detective, so they will most likely assign him to the prime suspect?”
He nods with approval. “You’re catching on.”
I resume gnawing at the inside of my cheek while he gives a few more pointers, but we pull into the police station parking lot within minutes, so our time is up before we even really have a chance to get started.
I reach for the door handle to let myself out. “Hang on a second, I want to tell you one more thing.”
