Page 20 of Bait and Switch
“No strange cars?”
“No.”
He looked down at his notepad. “You and the victim?—”
“His name was Peter. Peter Vale.” Gabe and Peter may not have been involved anymore, but he was a human with a name, not a faceless victim.
Spurring stared at him, his beady eyes narrow. “You say you met Vale at a networking event.”
Statement or question? This guy was getting on Gabe’s nerves. He was tired of repeating himself and wished he could figure out exactly what the deputy was trying to home in on.
“That is exactly where I met him. I can even give you the address if you like.” Gabe kept his hands in his lap, his fingers wrapped around the go-cup so he wouldn’t be tempted to strangle Spurring.
“You were involved in”—Spurring looked down at his notepad again—“investments.”
Again, a statement. Gabe was certain this was an act on Spurring’s part; the chief deputy was not looking at his notes, he knew exactly what questions he wanted to ask Gabriel.
“Yep. We had projects and found investors to help them get off the ground. Sometimes we worked with other groups, sometimes we invested our own money. Why?” he asked innocently. “Do you have cash lying around that you’d like me to invest?”
A sneer twisted his thin lips as the chief deputy leaned forward. He must not have realized how close he was to the table because it rocked and scraped forward a few inches across the vinyl floor. Gabe managed not to startle.
“Peter Vale was not the victim’s legal name. How long had he been using a pseudonym?”
“Peter Vale was a fake name?” Gabe wasn’t able to control his reaction; his eyebrows shot up, and so did his voice. The hell. He hadn’t known Peter at all, had he? “How should I know how long? I didn’t know he was using a fake name. It’s not like I asked him for ID before we jumped into bed together. Why does it matter now how long he’d been using it? He’s dead. You should care less about his legal name and more about who killed him.”
“Maybe he was hiding from someone. Someone you know, and that’s why he was using a fake name. Maybe you found out and used the information to have him killed.”
Gabriel didn’t bother to try and tease the logic out of what Spurring was saying.
“I’m sorry, what? I found out Peter was using an alias and had him offed?No. Peter and I were romantically involved when we first met, but the bloom wore off pretty damn fast, and by the end we were merely housemates. I had no reason to harm him.As I have said numerous times, when I left town, I hadn’t seen or spoken to Peter—or whatever his real name is—in weeks.”
“Why did you leave Seattle?” Spurring demanded.
Gabe hesitated a bit too long before saying, “Among other things, my mother died. It was time to move on.”
Spurring’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t stupid; he knew that Gabe wasn’t telling him something.
“Can I ask a question?” Gabe asked. Spurring was slow to nod. “What was Peter’s real name?”
The chief deputy stared at him, apparently trying to decide whether Peter’s legal name was classified information or not. Eventually, he spoke. “Vale was the victim’s mother’s maiden name; his birth name was Peter Stevens. Does that change anything you’ve told us?”
Gabe ran through his internal address book and did not come up with anyone named Stevens. Maybe an acquaintance? He shook his head.
“Rings zero bells.” Gabe had to admit that Vale was a much more interesting name than Stevens. “Peter did tell me he was estranged from his family. Maybe just his dad? He never clarified. The subject wasn’t something Peter talked about, so I didn’t pursue it. Have you located his relatives?”
Gabe had assumed Peter’s story was one experienced by far too many, especially those of their age—that Peter’s family had turned their back on him when he came out as gay. If that was the case, would they care that he’d been murdered? Fuck that. Rage at the stupidity of humans surged, and Gabe had to take a deep breath to tamp it down.
Damn those dirty socks.
Spurring ignored Gabe’s question. For his part, Gabe tucked away the nameStevensfor later. There were probably thousands of Stevenses in the state, but were there thousands of Vales? Maybe he could track down Peter’s family himself. Surely if theTCSO knew Peter’s identity, they’d have reached out to notify the family? On the other hand, Peter likely had valid reasons for using a different name.
“You know what?” Spurring smacked his pen down and leaned back in the chair. It popped and Gabe winced, but the chair held. The deputy tapped a meaty index finger against the tabletop. “You’re not telling us something, Mr. Karne. And that something could be what led to Mr. Stevens’s death. You’ve been on Heartstone for two weeks, and the murder rate has doubled.”
He didn’t rise to the bait Spurring dangled. No way was he getting into a discussion about Dwayne Perkins’s death. The one thing he was sure of there was that neither he nor the Colavitos had anything to do with Perkins’s demise.
And fuck, it really could have been Lundin who had unknowingly alerted them to Gabe’s location when he did that damn background check. Gabe made a note to find out what service he’d used. Was it possible the long arm of the unlawful had stretched from Seattle to Heartstone?
“Don’t you think it’s wrong to call Peter by a name he actively chose not to use?” Gabriel asked. He was officially tired of the cop’s attitude. Not enough coffee, no breakfast. Too much death.
