me in on a Sunday.” I waited until she’d sat and then told her everything that had happened since I’d last seen her, including my trip to the morgue just hours before.
“Bailey’s cheesecake?” she asked after I’d wound down.
I started. “Well, yeah. Wait a minute. What about the morgue?”
She grinned. “Sorry. I’m hungry. Any chance you could pay me in food?”
“Gladly,” I said, sitting back in the overstuffed chair and finally relaxing for the first time all week. “You don’t cook?”
“Nope. My wife did, and I miss that as much as her.” Wanda sighed. “So. The morgue. I mean, Eww. Right?”
“Right.” I leaned forward. “It smells like formaldehyde and death. So gross. Do you think Aiden killed those guys?” The question was haunting me. He couldn’t have done that.
She shrugged, and her trio of gold necklaces tinkled delicately against each other. “Dunno. What do you think?”
I set my head back on the chair. “I really don’t know. If he did, that scares me.” I wasn’t ready to tell her that I’d slept with Aiden. I’d talk to Lacey first about it, like usual.
Wanda waited.
Heat climbed into my face. “Then I wonder—”
“If Aiden would take out Jareth Davey for you?” she asked quietly.
My gaze dropped to my hands. When was the last time I’d had a manicure? Way too long ago. Not that I could go to the new spa, since they’d been shut down for running drugs. “Yeah. I know it’s wrong.”
“Who could blame you?” she asked. “The guy has stalked you your entire life, and you can’t find him. How freeing would it be to know he was gone?”
My head jerked up. “You think I should ask Aiden?”
“God, no. Murder is wrong. It’s not wrong for you to wish you could feel safe again.” She leaned forward. “Don’t feel guilty about feelings, Anna. They’re all good and right. It’s actions that make or break us.”
Intellectually, I knew that, but it sure helped to hear it. I glanced at my phone. My hour was half up. “I need you to profile Aiden for me,” I said.
She crossed her legs. “I’ve never met the guy.”
“I know, but based on everything I’ve told you, do you think it’s possible he killed those two guys from the van?” I didn’t want it to be true.
“Sure.” She tilted her head. “Don’t you?”
After seeing his rap sheet, it’d be logical to think that, but I didn’t. I just didn’t think he’d cold-bloodedly murder two men. “Why would he do such a thing?”
“Why do you think?” she asked.
The shrink’s questioning was starting to tick me off. “That’s what I’m asking you. He wouldn’t have killed them just because of me, right? I mean, if he did kill them. They’re from a rival gang, so that would put them in the crosshairs of the Lorde’s guns.” I hoped.
She glanced toward the window, obviously mulling it over. “Well, he saved you when you were kid. Per your words, he thinks that’s the only good thing he’s ever done. Would he take that further to save you again?”
I held perfectly still. “Yeah. Would he?”
She looked back toward me, her eyes soft. “You know him better than I do. Psychologically? Yes, it is possible. What do you think?”
I really didn’t know. My phone dinged, and I glanced down at a text from Nick saying both Melvin and Aiden had been brought in. I guess I was about to find out.
Chapter 33
Nick pulled a table closer to the one-way window in the police station interview room, and I gratefully hopped up on it to watch the interrogation of Melvin Whitaker. I’d already called my mom to tell her I had to work and would miss the Sunday family barbecue this week.
“My grandma cut out the picture of us in the paper from the other day,” Nick said, also taking a seat. The wooden table groaned under his weight.
I rolled my eyes. “Figures. I’m sure mine has, too.” They’d completely ignored the fact that we’d been on the scene of a homicide at the time. I looked through the glass. “Where did you find Melvin Whitaker?”
“Hotel near the border. He’d used credit cards,” Nick said.
Melvin looked even skinnier than last time I saw him. Today he wore wrinkled gray pants, a polo shirt, and a shiny gold watch. His skin sagged at the arms and beneath his chin just enough to show he was in his sixties and not in good shape. Probably spent too much time in a lab creating illegal