Page 113 of Liar's Point

She drew back. “Excuse me?”

“Emmet’s the lead and this is his call. He thinks you need to take some time to rest, and I agree with him.”

“But... I can’t just—”

“You can, Nicole, and you will.” He stepped around her and opened the door. “Take the weekend off. We’ll handle things here.”

***

Emmet’s phone buzzed as he was getting in the shower. It couldn’t be his food delivery—he’d just placed the order. He dunked his head under the hot spray and let the water sluice down his back. He’d hit the gym after work in an effort to blow off some steam, but it hadn’t helped, and the ball of tension that had been sitting in the pit of his stomach for days now was still there.

Six days in.

And he still didn’t have a suspect. With every hour that ticked by, everything got more complicated. And no matter what he did, he couldn’t get rid of the ice-cold certainty that he was missing something critical, and until he figured out what it was, nothing he did was going to bring this case into focus.

Another call came in, and he leaned out of the shower. His phone was on the edge of the sink, and he saw the number lighting up the screen.

He yanked a towel off the rack and stepped out to grab it.

“Hello?”

“Why aren’t you answering?” Nicole demanded.

“I was in the damn shower. What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong is Brady just sent me home and told me to take the weekend off.”

Emmet ran the towel over his head. “Yeah?”

“He also told me you want me off the case.”

“I do.”

“What the hell, Emmet?”

“Hang on.” He set the phone down and wrapped the towel around his waist. “There have been some new developments. I talked to Scott Kinney. Do you know who that is?”

“Yeah, Aubrey’s boyfriend. Adam told me about him.”

“He’s the man Aubrey spent Friday night with.” Emmet leaned back against the sink. “I went over to his house to interview him, and he said Aubrey mentioned that some guy had been tailing her around, following her home from work, stuff like that, and that he drove a black Chevy Tahoe.”

Silence on the other end.

“Nicole?”

“Okay. So Aubrey was being followed?”

“Possibly.”

“What does that have to do with you kicking me off the case?”

“Nicole.”

“What?”

“The person who almost hit you last night was in a black Tahoe.”

“Emmet, are you serious right now? That’s the problem?”

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