Page 105 of Second Chance

He’s not happy.

“Well,” Daniel says tightly. “I guess we’re doing this then.”

“Great. Start now,” Detective Taylor demands.

“I…”

“Let me give you some pointers. Why didn’t you tell me about the murder weapon on the door? Why were you kidnapped? Is it connected to the murder? What was the motive for either crime, and how did your friends know where to find you?”

Daniel sighs. “Do you know what happens when you send a text message to a landline?”

The detective looks close to apoplexy.

“Daniel managed to get the kidnapper’s phone to text a friend’s landline,” Tony translates. “The friend called me.”

“And you ran to Germantown, guns blazing, and didn’t think to inform me.”

“Pretty much. I don’t have a gun though. The murderer does, but we don’t know what happened to it.”

A frown line draws tight between Daniel’s eyebrows. He didn’t think of that yet, then. Just as he hasn’t considered how he places his own guilt and sense of responsibility higher than Emilio and his kid, higher than Sean, higher than how insane Tony has felt since the last time he and Daniel were in a room together.

“God, I should arrest all of you for obstruction of justice.”

Tony shrugs uncomfortably. At least he won’t get fired for having an arrest record.

Stiffly, Daniel says, “We’re just trying to help.”

“No, you’re all putting yourselves in unnecessary danger and not helping me at all.”

The door to the bedroom clicks open. Blake slips out. “Could you all keep it down in here? I finally got her to go to sleep.”

Detective Taylor rolls her eyes. “And who is this one?”

“Blake Walia.” Blake holds out his hand for her to shake.

She does no such thing. “Who are you hiding in the bedroom?”

No one responds. Not even Emilio, though he shifts uncomfortably.

The detective walks toward the bedroom, and Daniel looks to Tony, panicked. Tony can’t offer him anything. What are they supposed to do, stop her? She’s armed, and she can, in fact, arrest them. She probably should.

Taylor pushes open the door, looks inside, and stops dead.

She looks back at them and lets the door fall closed quietly. “That’s Lily Peterson. The girl who tried to kill herself last year.”

Daniel nods slowly. “Yup.”

Detective Taylor rubs a hand across her face tiredly. “Okay. Okay.” She goes to the kitchen, takes a plate, and piles it high with scrambled eggs and toast. Then, she sits on the only chair available in the living room and says, “Go on. Explain yourselves.”

Hesitantly, they crowd around her. Daniel takes a seat on the edge of the foldout couch. Everyone else follows suit, perching on the available surfaces or right on the floor.

“Lily came to my office two days ago,” he starts. “She was confused and panicked. She mentioned the murder weapon, said she’d given it to me, and wanted to know why she hadn’t been arrested yet. She wasn’t speaking coherently, and I didn’t know if it was a confession to the murder or to the threats against me. I tried to call you—”

The detective gives him a look.

“Okay, I tried to call Tony. Before I could, though, Lily drew out a shotgun, or a rifle or… I don’t know anything about guns. Something about a foot and a half long, way too heavy for her—”

“Drew out from where?” Tony asks. Lily was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans last he remembered.

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