Elijah shook his head, hating the sound of his friend’s voice at the very moment. “I need to go see her,” he mumbled out, his chin hitting his chest and his eyes squeezing closed.
“I’m sorry,” Paul began, and Elijah nodded distractedly. “Michael Stanton’s blocked you from seeing her.”
Elijah looked up. “What? I need to see her, he can’t do that!” Elijah’s voice echoed loudly down the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” Paul tensed as Elijah shook out from under Paul’s grip. “He’s the next of kin; he can do whatever he wants. And, for obvious reasons—”
“That spiteful son-of-a-bitch!” Elijah yelled as he balled his hands up into fists.
The interview room behind them opened and Mrs. Seager’s face came into view. She had been crying, the tell-tale red blotches on her cheeks and watery eyes were a giveaway.
“I need to get going,” she mumbled out, taken aback by Elijah’s furious expression.
“We won’t be a moment,”
“Please, take a seat, Mrs. Seager, we need to finish up this interview right now.” Elijah cut off Paul and pushed back into the interview room. He gestured with one hand for Mrs. Seager to take a seat but she shook her head and swallowed.
She liked Elijah, had liked him from the day he walked into the deli. He seemed like a good, moral man, so she’d been surprised to discover that he’d been having an affair with a married woman. But then, she’d thought, sometimes foolish hearts follow foolish paths. Just look at her own daughter. But the officer in front of her now, was nothing like the man she had thought Elijah to be. He seemed angry, not calm, and restless, not collected.
“I won’t say anything on record,” she said as calmly as she could. Her statement seemed to make Elijah even angrier.
“Then what good is it to me?” Elijah spat out, feeling self-conscious that Paul would be watching on the other side of the two-way mirror. Guilt tickled at the back of his mind; he’d never spoken to a woman like that, but right now, he was sick of playing the nice guy. Playing the nice guy had gotten him nowhere. He needed information and he needed it now.
The pieces of this case of Delores’s last days were slowly beginning to fall into place, and if she were to die, he refused to let it be in vain.
“Well, you’re a detective—an officer of the law, you’ll have to find other evidence to help the case.” She shook her head and looked away, part of her wishing she’d never come here in the first place. This was all a mistake, she thought.
Elijah took a deep breath, knowing he was about to cross a line, but he decided to hell with it anyway. He needed to make her talk. “A woman I love might die, Mrs. Seager, and I believe that the information that you have will help me find her killer.”
The woman took a step backwards, horror washing over her face. “That’s nothing to do with Christine. My Chrissy is a good girl. She’s not a killer!”
The nickname caught Elijah’s attention, and he nodded in agreement. “She is, she’s a good girl. She wouldn’t do something like this. But I believe the man your daughter is involved with is capable of something like that. Do you want your daughter to come to harm, Mrs. Seager? Do you? Because the man I believe she’s dating, if you can call it that, cannot be trusted. He’s dangerous.”
Mrs. Seager began to sob again, indecision and worry throwing up its hands as she tried to work out what was the best thing to do.
The door to the interview room opened once more and Paul stepped in. “Elijah, that’s enough.”
Elijah turned and glared at Paul, but there was no way Paul was going to back down. Elijah wasn’t thinking clearly right now, and he wasn’t doing anything to help the case with his bullying tactics.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Seager, you’re free to leave unless you have anything you wish to tell us,” Paul said to Mrs. Seager, silently pleaded with the woman to give them something, anything. But she shook her head and left the room in a hurry.
Paul turned to Elijah who had taken the moment to sit down at the table. His head was in his hands, his shoulders slumped low.
“What if she dies, Paul? What if she dies and I don’t get to say goodbye to her?” Elijah choked out.
Paul sat down opposite, leaning forwards on his elbows. “She’s not going to die. She’s going to be okay. And when she wakes up, she can tell us what happened. Okay?”
Elijah nodded but didn’t look up. His head felt like it was weighed down with lead, and it hung heavy on his shoulders. Up until this moment, he hadn’t really given much thought to her dying. He had only thought about her leaving and never coming back. But her actual death had never crossed his mind.
“What did Mrs. Seager have to say?” Paul asked, his arms crossed over his chest as he frowned. “Anything I should know about? Anything to do with Delores?”
Elijah shook his head. “No, not really.”
Paul frowned harder. “Not really?”
“I can’t lose her,” Elijah mumbled, more to himself than anything else. “I can’t, Paul.”
Paul reached across to pat him on the shoulder again, but then changed his mind. His hand slunk back. “I know, and you won’t. She’ll pull through. She’s a strong woman. She has to be to survive everything she’s been through.”
