Page 57 of Deceit & Desire

“So, to sum up,” he said finally, his voice clipped. “Missy was playing games with both of you. Roman tried to break it off, she refused. Then, days later, she ends up dead after a series of fights with you and a botched confession of love from Roman to you. And you expect me to believe neither of you had anything to do with Missy’s death?”

I exhaled sharply, my frustration boiling over. “I don’t care what you believe, Landon. I’m telling you the truth.”

“If you’re telling me the truth, help me prove it, Zoe! Do you think I want to put two friends I went to school with in jail for another friend’s murder? No. I don’t. Help a guy out, for God’s sake.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “But don’t tell Roman I told you any of this next part, please. It’s… personal.”

“Seems to me there’s a lot of personal feelings tangled up in this mess with Missy, but if it’s relevant, I need to know it.”

I blew out a sigh, grinding my teeth for a moment. I reached across the table and grabbed the file in front of Landon, flipping it open and pointing to Missy’s estimated time of death, tapping it with my finger. “Here’s the hole in your theory, Landon. We weren’t anywhere near the barn at Missy’s estimated time of death.”

“Okay, walk me through it, then. You said Roman followed you to the creek behind the barn. How far is it from the barn? How long were you gone?”

I pursed my lips, a little annoyed by his interruption. “I was getting there, if you’d give me a second.”

“By all means, continue.” Landon waved a hand at me and leaned back in his chair.

I held up a finger, getting ready to start ticking off my list of reasons why his theory was wrong. “First of all, it was a fifteen minute hike from the barn to the creek after my second fight with Missy.”

Landon grimaced. “I never realized the creek was that far away from the barn.”

“It is if you take the hiking path, which I did.” I held up a second finger. “Second, the conversation between Roman and me took almost twenty minutes between him pouring his heart out to me and me refusing to hear him out—we went around and around in circles before I left the creek. He poured his heart out to me and I was so mad I was having none of it. I stomped on his heart as hard as I could and shattered mine, too, in the process.”

“Hell hath no fury like a scorned teenaged girl.” Landon drummed his fingers on the interrogation table, studying me through narrowed eyes.

I winced. “It definitely wasn’t my best moment.”

“What about after you crushed Roman’s heart? What then?”

I held up a third finger. “Then it was a fifteen minute hike back from the creek for me, and Roman stayed behind at the creek, I don’t know for how long. He was… devastated, to say the least.”

“Remind me never to toy with a woman’s emotions just to get a rise out of her.” Landon suppressed a shudder.

I held up a fourth finger, ignoring his quip and plowing ahead. “Missy’s estimated time of death, which this department has thrown in both of our faces multiple times over the last ten years, is smack dab in the middle of that fifty-minute window where Roman and I were away from the barn. If you want to waste your time chasing ghosts instead of finding who really killed Missy, that’s on you.”

His jaw tightened, and he stared at me for a long moment before finally standing.

“I’ll verify your story,” he said. “And if it checks out, maybe I’ll start looking in another direction.”

He turned to leave but hesitated at the door, glancing back at me. “For your sake, Zoe, I hope you’re telling the truth. Because if I find out you’re hiding anything else, there won’t be any deals next time.”

The nagging feeling that there was more to Missy’s death wouldn’t leave me. Whoever she’d been trying to provoke, whoever she’d been keeping from Roman, was still out there. And until we found them, none of us would be free of this.

But I didn’t trust the cops to investigate it properly, not with a guy like Barton in their ranks. Hell, no. I had my own plans to figure this shit out, if I could just get the hell out of this interrogation room.

I nodded once, the tension in my shoulders easing ever so slightly. “There won’t need to be. That’s everything, Landon. Everything I know.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t push further. Instead, he stood, gathering the file in front of him. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Zoe. I just hope you’re as good at it as you think you are.”

He turned and walked out, leaving me alone in the interrogation room, the silence pressing down on me like a vice. I exhaled shakily, my fingers trembling as I rested them on the table.

The truth was out now, at least most of it. I’d protected Roman, not telling Landon that Roman knew about the second fight. Landon didn’t need to know that because Roman wasn’t the killer. I knew that much. And whatever happened next, I’d made my choice. There was no turning back.

Chapter23

Let This End Tonight

PLAYLIST: “BURY A FRIEND” BY BILLIE EILISH

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