Like Darius knew that Eve wasn’t in love with Mitchell Keys, he knew right then and there that Eve truly hadn’t put together one and one yet. That he hadn’t taken her to the department to be reunited with her fiancé or simply do paperwork.
He wasn’t her childhood friend right now.
He was Detective Williams.
A part of him didn’t like the feeling.
The other part domed his fingers on top of the table.
He met Eve’s stare head on.
“The only way he’s leaving is if he has an alibi.”
Eve’s eyebrows slammed together in complete confusion.
“An alibi?” she repeated. “For what?”
Darius felt the weight of his badge against his chest. His answer was as clear as could be.
“For the murder of Gary Whittaker.”
Chapter Seven
She wasn’t a small woman, but she wasn’t big either. Eve was average. Compared to Darius? Maybe that average lost a few inches. Physically, at least. She had to tilt her chin up to meet his eye but didn’t need to put too much space between them to get a good angle to do it.
She jogged for exercise when she had the time and was toned in some places, squishier in others. The muscles Darius had built since he was a kid had even the toughest of hers beat three to zero.
He had the law hanging around his neck in a badge. Eve had Scott Keys’s personal passwords memorized.
The differences in their divide were easy to see. Where one shone, the other flickered; where one ran, the other stood. And in the years since they had last seen each other, Eve felt like she had been the one who had stood the most still.
Yet height, muscles, past, present, badge or not, Eve felt confident that there was one area that little kid Eve still reigned supreme over Darius.
She had a mouth on her.
A Southern one, to boot.
And an angry Southern mouth? It yelled faster than it thought and sounded off with a syrup that could choke you if you weren’t prepared.
Eve couldn’t tell now if Darius had expected it, but she knew Mitchell hadn’t. The moment her volume rose above her average height, she felt one of his hands at the back of her elbow.
It did nothing to calm her.
“And here I thought you were just trying to be nice to an old friend, but it turns out you were just buttering me up to lob an absolutely ridiculous accusation at my fiancéon our wedding day,” Eve started in. “No wonder you were waiting for me at the library and offering me rides! Also, I track you down to ask you for help, and now I’m having to defend myself not even a few hours later? The absolute gall of you, Darius Fitzgerald Williams!”
Mitchell did a little squeeze against her skin.
Darius simply sighed out.
“I never buttered you up or lobbed anything at you, and I’m not being ridiculous,” he said. “In fact, as you just said yourself, you were the one who came to find me. Not the other way around.”
He left out the part where the reason she had come looking for him in the first place was to ask tostopthe wedding she had just become defensive about. If Eve hadn’t been so hot under the collar, she would have thought nice on the kindness of not pointing that out in mixed company.
Darius leaned forward a little and kept on before she could get rolling again.
“I’m asking a question about a current homicide case.” Darius pointed over her shoulder but kept her stare. “And, if I say so myself, I’m being pretty polite about doing it here first and not throwing both of you into an uncomfortable interrogation room to do it. So, if you would stop using my full name like I owe you money and take a breath and a seat, we can get this all moving somewhere other than right into a fight. Does that sound good to you, Evelyn Rebecca Myers?”
Eve’s nostrils flared. Her face scrunched. Both acts were like stretching before really starting to run. If she had been twelve,she would have kept going, louder than sin, but Eve the adult had picked up a little decorum in the last decade or so.
