“Love you, too.” She clicked off.
I pulled the car back onto the road and headed to my destination.
Cheryl had rented a dilapidated single-wide outside of town surrounded by other run-down trailers. The owner of the park, a huge guy with a potbelly not constrained by his stained wife-beater T-shirt, had taken one look at the warrant and handed over the key. A few neighbors lifted their plastic blinds to peer at me as I stood on the rickety steps waiting for the lead officer to open the door.
An older black SUV pulled to a stop in the mud, and Detective Pierce jumped out, his gaze hot. “That was not very nice.”
I bit back a smile. “I thought they might have information.” Yeah. I’d called Pierce over to meet Thelma and Georgiana before I’d left. As the detective approached me now, I let the smile loose. “You have chocolate at the corner of your mouth.”
He wiped off his mouth. “She pinched my thigh. I’m gonna have a bruise for at least a week.”
“Toughen up, copper,” I murmured, enjoying his discomfort way too much. Then I caught sight of Nick in the passenger side of Pierce’s vehicle, on his phone. His gaze met mine, and heat tried to climb into my face. We hadn’t had a chance to talk yet, and that kiss was still on my mind. Plus, watching a movie with him had been way too comfortable, even though it had been an old action movie starring Sylvester Stallone. I turned just as the uniformed officer finished clearing the place.
“We didn’t find a thing at Whitaker’s earlier. Let’s hope we do better here.” Pierce yanked blue gloves from his back pocket and handed them over. “Try not to disturb anything.”
I wasn’t a moron. “Thanks.” I pulled them on and waited for him to proceed me. It was my first search, and while prosecutors didn’t usually participate, I was glad to be there. A part of me was fearful I’d brought danger to Cheryl and Randy, and I hoped I hadn’t contributed to their deaths. Plus, I was a little curious. Having the right to go through somebody else’s secrets was a little intriguing, and that was probably bad.
But still. I walked into the small living area and tried to pretend like I knew what I was doing. There was no sign of emergency personnel or life-saving devices. “Wait a minute. Where was Cheryl found?” I hadn’t thought to ask.
“In the park not too far from your office,” Pierce said, moving toward the dirty dishes piled in the minuscule kitchen.
I turned to the twin chairs next to shelves, which also had crap scattered across them. Apparently, Cheryl hadn’t been much of a housekeeper. The place smelled faintly of burned noodles and moldy carpet. I moved for the shelves to see framed pictures of Cheryl and an older woman next to one of Cheryl and Randy. They were smiling at the lake, the sun on their faces, looking young and free.
A pang hit me. How could they both be dead? Here one second and just gone the next. “Did Cheryl have family?”
“Sister in Los Angeles. They weren’t close. I’m not sure she’s coming out for the body,” Nick said, stepping into the room.
I swallowed and turned to take a stack of photos off the shelf to go through. Most were of Randy at the lake, river, and park. Several were of people at the spa, friends of Cheryl’s. In so many of them, she looked happy. There was one of her and Randy smoking what looked like an e-cigarette in the park by my building. “I read somewhere that people put pot in these cigarettes.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, black gloves on his hands as he went through the bottom shelves. “They use a hash oil in the vape pen.”
I shook my head at the kids. What had they gotten involved in? I flipped through the pictures, stopping short at one at the bottom. Randy and Cheryl sat in some sort of booth with an obvious party going on around them. Somebody to Randy’s left wore a Lorde’s leather cut. In fact, there were several in the background. I squinted, my breath catching as I looked closer.
“What?” Nick straightened and looked over my shoulder.
I tapped my finger at two figures behind Cheryl. “Recognize anybody?”
Nick dropped his chin, nearly hitting my arm. “Yeah.”
I swallowed. It was Aiden Devlin, Melvin Whitaker, and Scot Peterson, obviously talking next to the bar, their faces leaning toward each other as if whispering, all three with intense expressions. My stomach dropped hard. The connection between all three of them was right there.
Nick straightened. “It’s time to interview Aiden Devlin.” He looked toward Pierce, who was watching from the kitchen. “Bring him in, would you?”
Pierce smiled; his expression grim. “Gladly.”
* * *
Aiden Devlin overwhelmedthe interrogation room. Dressed in his leather cut, black T-shirt, and faded jeans, he looked like the dangerous man I suspected him to be. He also looked bored.
I stood safely on my side of the one-way glass next to Nick. It had only taken Detective Pierce an hour to track down Aiden and bring him in, and apparently Aiden had come willingly with no fuss. Even so, the cops were letting him cool his heels for a while in the room.
Nick cleared his throat, staring straight ahead. “I should apologize for last night.”
I didn’t take my gaze off Aiden. “No need. I’ll just use it to blackmail you at some point.”
Nick snorted. “Hey. To the best of my recollection, you tried to kiss me, Deputy Prosecutor Albertini.”
I grinned. “Your word against mine, and I win every time.” Turning, I fluttered my eyelashes even while noting the fresh bandage above his eye.
