Page 55 of The Cinderella Secret
“Agreed,” he said.
“But who would want that?” She was drifting around him in a circle and he turned to keep track of her. “And why?” Her tone was one of complete befuddlement.
He couldn’t believe he was having to state the obvious. “Well, if someone wanted to win a court case…”
She lifted her head and stared at him and he realized that none of the last few moments of commentary had been addressed to him. She was blinking at him as if she had only just now remembered he was there. “Oh!” Her expression shifted into one of horror and she took a few rapid steps toward him, waving her hands as if to erase something. “No! No. You can’t really think…” She blinked again and her expression shifted to pained embarrassment, and she stopped, standing too close again. He could smell something sweet and little bit spicy. Was it a perfume or a lotion? It tickled his brain with a memory that wouldn’t surface.
“Oh, my God, you’re being so epically polite about this,” she said. “That is just so you. But no! I didn’t fake evidence.”
“Well, I don’t think you did,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he’d just been complimented or not.That is just so youcould go a lot of ways depend on who she thought he was. “But someone on your team…”
“No, you don’t understand.Igot those records. And I got them from—”
The door to the room slammed open and Bai Zhao stormed in.
“Get out!” he screamed, fury suffusing his face. “How dare you be here with her?”
Aiden glanced at Ella for a cue on how to handle this. She looked as shocked as he felt.
“Sir,” said Aiden, instinctively angling his body slightly between Ella and the screaming man. “I’m speaking with Ms. Zhao about the case. You need to—”
“Get out!” Bai yelled again, pointing toward the door. “Get out or I will have you thrown out!”
“Bai!” The old woman smacked the edge of the TV with her cane making a cracking noise. Bai spun in surprise. Ella’s grandmother rattled off a few sharp sentences in Chinese and whatever she said brought Bai back to earth, but it did not make him any less angry.
“Get out,” he said through clenched teeth. “You are not permitted here. If you wish to speak to my niece, you will do it at the office.”
Aiden looked at Ella. She pulled herself up straighter and met his eye. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mr. Deveraux. I will be in communication with you about the matter.”
She held out her hand.
“Before Monday,” he said, shaking her hand because that’s what she wanted him to do.
“Count on it,” she said with a polite smile that was nothing like the one she’d been hiding behind her hand earlier.
Then he walked out of the apartment, and he couldn’t help feeling that every step was a mistake.
20
Jackson – Nowitsky
“Look, you didn’t hear this from me,” said Nowitsky, “but the whole thing is fucking weird.”
“Fucking weird isn’t a secret,” said Jackson, signaling the waitress. “I got that from Aiden.”
“OK, but…” Nowitsky looked around the diner. There weren’t any cops in the place, but Nowitsky still leaned in closer. “CSI is still processing the scene, but I don’t think they’re going to turn up anything new. It was a four-man crew. Called themselves John, Paul, Ringo, and George.”
“I always went with the Stones myself,” said Jackson with a shrug. “But whatever. As long as no one wants to use the Backstreet Boys, it’s cool.”
“Beatles are probably easier to remember though,” said Nowitsky.
“For your generation,” said Jackson, taking a sip of his coffee.
Nowitsky was a solid police detective who technically did not take bribes. What he did take was letters of recommendation to his kid’s college of choice where the Deveraux name carried weight. Eleanor was now watching young Ms. Nowitsky’s progress with interest and Jackson thought she might be interning with Eleanor’s office during the summer.
“Fuck you,” said Nowitsky. “Anyway, the aliases suggest they’re professional. Then there’s the fact that they made repeated references to a male person who told them that the response time would be twelve minutes.”
Jackson thought about that. “That’s bullshit. The response time in that neighborhood should be five minutes tops. I mean, maybe it’s bit longer for SWAT, but a uniform should be there way faster than twelve minutes.”
