Page 49 of Inevitable Secrets

“Taylor, you need to get some rest,” Derrick whined, because now he was cranky. He hadn’t gotten sex, as he had been promised earlier, and now he wasn’t getting sleep. On top of all of that, Henry had just let that stupid, previously bearded freak beatnik go.

Derrick hadn’t bought his apology one bit. He knew what he had been doing when he had said those things in the alley to Taylor. When they were done talking to him, they had gotten out of that horror movie house and headed to the SUVs. Taylor loaded in and Derrick watched as Henry had given the asshole his card and told him to let him know if he thought of anything.

“You’re letting him go?” Derrick had asked Henry as he made his way to his own side of the SUV.

“Mr. Fletcher, I am not the police. I can’t arrest him,” Henry had said, seemingly apologetic.

Derrick silently fumed for a beat. “I just don’t trust that guy.”

“Don’t worry, I will be keeping tabs on him,” Henry assured him.

But Derrick didn’t want tabs kept on that guy. He wanted him to be locked in a cell, and he didn’t doubt that there may be one on the Fletcher Mansion property—the place was pretty old.

“Are you even listening to me?” Taylor exclaimed, stamping her foot and dragging Derrick’s thoughts back to the here and now.

“Yeah,” he lied, but Taylor just rolled her eyes.

“I just feel like I need to get this all organized in my head before I go back to the office,” she said, still pacing.

“What is there to organize?”

Taylor flailed her arms. “Everything!” she exclaimed again.

Derrick flopped his head back on the pillow and then looked over at the bedside clock. It was nearly one in the morning. He was obviously not getting any rest until Taylor felt like she had some sort of system to deal with this. So he heaved out a heavy breath, which he was glad to notice did not hurt all that much, and rolled out of bed. Time to hash this shit out.

Derrick intercepted Taylor on one of her passes and pulled her to sit on the foot of the bed beside him.

“Where do you want to start?” he asked her, and when he saw the relief in her eyes, he knew this was what she needed.

“It just all seems so messed up,” she said, a little quiver to her voice.

Derrick nodded. “Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed, “and it’s a lot all at once. So let’s look at it piece by piece.”

“Okay, so Dr. Parker said the head trauma may not have killed Cedric, but that the drugs for sure did. But,” Taylor said holding up a finger, “he also said Cedric wouldn’t have been able to administer the drugs because of the head trauma. So who gave him the drugs?”

Derrick shrugged. “We don’t know, Tay, but it sounds like Cedric hooked up with some pretty shady characters. I mean they took his tooth out when he died,” Derrick reminded her. “That almost seems like it was a trophy of some kind.”

“Yeah, but if this was someone who was looking for vengeance, why the drugs? Why not just bash his head in until he died?”

“Maybe he was shooting up when they bashed?” Derrick said shrugging.

“Yeah maybe,” Taylor said, mulling the idea over. “I wonder if Cedric had some crooked deals. Like maybe when he couldn’t get money from Preston Corp anymore he turned to, um, alternative incomes. Something very illegal.”

“That seems like a good possibility,” Derrick agreed, “considering the trauma.”

“Maybe Mellon is the killer,” Taylor said.

“That could be possible, or Mellon could be someone with more information,” Derrick said, not wanting Taylor to be panicked or hopeful that this Mellon person could be the answer. “Let Henry look more—we can’t do anything until we have more pieces.”

Taylor nodded but looked uncertain. There was still more that bothered her.

“What is it, Tay?” Derrick soothed.

“Why did he send him to watch me?” Taylor whispered.

Derrick tried not to sneer at the mention of the previously bearded beatnik. “Who knows if what that guy says is even legit, Taylor.”

“But what if it is,” she pushed. “What if he wanted to find me but then that was it, just watch me?”

---