Page 92 of Run for Her Life
“No, I spent the night at the hospital,” he said fleetingly. “Hmmm.” He frowned, distracted.
“What is it?”
“I’m just going through the reports, making sure everything is airtight for when we hand over the evidence to the DA’s office. When did you say Viktor showed up at Jeff Gold’s house?”
Zoe’s stomach folded. “Why is that important right now?”
“Because the cases are connected. Jeff Gold sent you Jackie’s letter, so whatever happened there has to go in here.” He flipped through the pages. “The timeline doesn’t make sense.”
Shit.The alarm in Zoe’s head went off like a siren. She scrambled to come up with an excuse as Aiden kept connecting the dots.
“You said he was there in less than five minutes after you, but the report says the shooting started fifteen minutes after you said. So you must have had a chance to talk to him.” He stared at her. “Storm, what’s going on?”
Her face was too hot. She felt her cheeks redden. “Can we talk about this later?”
The next thing she knew she was being dragged away by him.
“You’re lying!” Aiden snapped.
“I’m not!” Zoe said, her breaths choppy, her chest heaving. She met his fierce, burning gaze with determination. Seconds ticked by, stretching to infinity as Zoe focused on steadying her breathing and keeping her facial muscles still.
She was skilled at deception but Aiden was better at spotting it.
Strips of flickering white light lit the narrow hallway, which smelled of cleaning product and sawdust. Some people turned around the corner, chuckling and chatting, but they froze when they saw Zoe and Aiden.
Zoe swallowed hard, feeling eyes on them when Aiden grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her through a door into the empty staircase in the back of the building. “Watch it!”
Aiden let go of her and put his hands on his waist, breathing hard. “Storm, the timeline doesn’t make sense. There is a discrepancy in the reports.”
Damn it. “Maybe it’s a mistake. I must be misremembering.” Behind his glasses, his eyes narrowed. She pressed her back into the cold wall. The heating didn’t permeate this section of the building, where her breaths seemed to bounce around the concrete walls. She desperately tried to think of an excuse, an explanation, a believable lie.
She drew a blank. “Have you told anyone?”
“No one.” He seemed offended. “Storm, you know something, don’t you? What are you hiding? You aren’tmisrememberinganything. It’s obvious by your face.”
Zoe knew things—her mother’s connection to the case, Jeff Gold being Gina’s father and the fact that she didn’thaveto shoot her mother’s killer, Victor, dead. It had unsettled her, unnerved her. “I need time.”
He was puzzled. “Time forwhat?”
“To think and… just give me time. I need to figure something out.” Her tongue lay heavy in her mouth. The words were on the verge of spilling out. Aiden’s eyes bore into hers. “Please, Aiden. Just trust me.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he scoffed. “I didn’t expect dishonesty from you, Storm.”
Zoe felt the full force of his words. He left her standing on the staircase. The sound of the door slamming shut bounced around and the air whooshed. When she was alone, heaviness made her chest sink closer to her spine.
A scream was knotted in her throat. She clutched it tight and breathed through it. She had tampered with evidence to protect the memory of her mother.
She went back out at the sound of a mild disturbance. Jim had clomped in, wearing a hoodie that looked too familiar,his shoulders hunched and his eyes lined with shadows. His hands were cuffed and a uniform was with him. His disoriented gaze was taking in the station when they latched on to Zoe’s. Instinctively, his hand touched the shoulder he’d injured in the chase.
Zoe tried to stay composed. She didn’t want to give away how affected she was. Jim had seen a different side of her, a different her. Someone who rarely surfaced. But she was too shaken by Aiden’s outburst.
Zoe and Aiden were heading toward the interrogation room when Lisa blocked their way, frenzied. “Let me talk to him.”
“Lisa… I know this must be unimaginably hard,” Aiden said.
She glared at him. “Yes. You can’t imagine it.”
“He was the one who lured you and abducted you, Lisa,” Zoe said. “I confronted him. He struck me with the darts and then shot me.”
