Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
He sighed but bobbed his head in agreement all the same. “Of course. You’re entitled to one.”
“Wait—are you arresting me?”
“No.”
“So, I can call my dad to get me one instead of whatever hack you’ll assign me?”
He grimaced, looking down. “Do it in the fucking car and don’t tell anyone I said yes.”
“My phone and keys are in there. I assume I’m not allowed to get them.” I pointed over my shoulder at the open annexe door.
“You can get them. Like I said, I’m not arresting you, but you will have to check them at the front desk when we get to the station.”
“Not arresting me yet, more like,” I muttered, getting up.
I swore he cracked a smile, but I pushed that thought away so I could get my phone and keys. Keys from the counter, phone from the floor. Thankfully my phone wasn’t cracked or broken at all, and I kept both in my hands as I stepped outside and closed the door behind me.
“I won’t lock it,” I said, walking down the stairs to be level with Noah. “I can’t believe you’re the one taking me in for questioning.”
He eyed me as he opened the back door of his police car and ushered me in with a twinkle in his eye. “Believe me, I’m not exactly enjoying this.”
“Then stop looking like you are,” I snapped, turning away when he slammed the door shut.
I put on my seatbelt and studiously looked out of the window. A tent had been set up outside, and police cars and vans swarmed the entire property. They were turning the lawn into a bigger mess than it already was, and I wasn’t looking forwards to seeing the state they’d leave it in.
If I got to see it.
For all I knew, I wasn’t getting out of that police station tonight.
This interview room was miserable.
It was everything you’d expect it to be. Cold and clinical, and empty enough that if I whistled, it echoed right back to me.
Not that I’d done it one thousand times, of course.
Just, you know. Nine hundred or so.
I had to pass the time somehow.
My frantic call to my dad in the car had resulted in him sending a lawyer from Mr. Porter’s sister firm to the police station to represent me. We’d been over my past forty-eight hours about five times, and she couldn’t see anything I shouldn’t tell them.
She believed that I was innocent, although my presence here last night wouldn’t do me any favours, nor would it help that my parents were asleep before I’d even left and couldn’t verify my comings and goings. That said, it was nothing more than circumstantial evidence, and she hoped there would be some proof in the camera log somewhere that I’d been messing with them to back up my story.
Wrong place, wrong time, was how she’d put it.
Either way, I was instructed to tell nothing but the truth, and that was what I intended to do.
I hadn’t done it. I knew I hadn’t killed Declan Tierney, although I couldn’t say that I wasn’t sorry he was dead.
It felt like such a vile thing to think, but bloody hell, it was the truth. The man had harassed me while I was grieving, then he had the audacity to get himself murdered and end up at my bed and breakfast.
Talk about trying to spite me.
The doors to the room opened and Noah walked in with Jamie behind him. How the hell those two were allowed to interview me, I didn’t know.
Surely the head honcho bloke knew about my past with Noah? Or maybe they reasoned that since it had been ten years, it didn’t matter?
Ugh.
I didn’t know.
I just wanted to go home.
They introduced themselves to my lawyer, shaking her hand before they sat down.
Noah eyed me. “Are you all right? Can we get you some water or anything?”
“You can get on with it so I can go home,” I replied, leaning back in my chair.
“Charlotte,” my lawyer muttered.
I was going to kill her.
Not deliberately and not because I wanted to, but just because I was, well, me.
Occupational hazard of being me.
Noah waved it away and turned on the recorder, spouting off a spiel about recordings and my name and some other bullshit.
“Charlotte, I’d like you to talk us through your whereabouts over past twenty-four hours,” Noah said after a moment.
“Well, starting with yesterday morning, I was at my grandfather’s funeral,” I said. “We left his burial around one-thirty—”
“Who’s we?”
“Myself and my parents,” I clarified. “We then went to see Grandpa’s lawyer, Mr. Porter, for his will.”
“Is that where you found out you’d be inheriting the bed and breakfast?”
“Yes,” I answered slowly. “I assumed he would leave everything to my mum, so I was a bit surprised. We were there for about forty-five minutes, then we went to Grandpa’s house.”