Page 78 of Fatal Fame
"I know I've been hard on you lately," Noah said. "But I want you to know I meant what I said. I am proud of you. Never forget that."
She nodded, but he could see her mind was already moving past his words to whatever problem she was working through. "So you're going to look into the evidence logs?"
Noah chuckled despite himself. Even after nearly dying, even with a broken arm and enough trauma to justify months of therapy, she was still investigating. "First thing."
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as the elevator doors opened, feeling how small she still was despite her fiercedetermination. The mechanical hum resumed as they began their ascent back to ground level, back to the world of living cases and ongoing investigations.
"Anything else?" he asked, though he suspected there would be. There always was with Mia.
"There is one more thing." Her voice carried a different weight now, heavier than questions about evidence logs or missing latex gloves. "It's about Ethan."
28
Noah pressed his back against the cinder block wall of the State Police interview room, the bitter coffee in his paper cup doing little to cut through the fatigue that had settled into his bones. He watched McKenzie lean forward across the metal table.
Marcus sat opposite him, his expensive button-down shirt wrinkled from a night in holding, dark circles under his eyes betraying the stress of being the prime suspect in his business partner's murder. The podcast producer's hands were clasped tightly in front of him, knuckles white with tension as McKenzie continued his line of questioning.
"Look, let's go through this again," McKenzie said. "There have been public arguments about business decisions, creative control, and profit-sharing. You had legitimate grievances that could serve as motive. Hell, you were already positioned as the 'disgruntled producer' who felt overshadowed by Pierce's success."
Marcus shook his head, his jaw clenched with frustration. "This is insane. Someone has set me up. I did not murder Pierce."
"And yet you have no solid alibi for where you were beyond your word," McKenzie replied, consulting his notes with the deliberate care of a man building a case brick by brick.
"I told you, we butted heads from time to time, but that's normal when you're producing a major crime podcast. Pierce was ambitious, sometimes reckless. That doesn't mean I wanted him dead."
Noah studied Marcus, noting the micro-expressions that years of law enforcement had taught him to read. The man was hiding something—that much was clear—but whether it was murder or something else entirely remained to be seen. The evidence was circumstantial at best, but in small-town investigations, circumstantial evidence sometimes had to be enough.
The interview room door opened with a sharp click, and Noah turned to see his sister Maddie stride into the room with the confident bearing that had made her one of the most respected defense attorneys in the region. Her dark hair was pulled back in a professional bun, her navy blazer immaculate despite the drive from Elizabethtown.
"All right, say no more, Mr. Greer," she announced, setting her leather briefcase on the table with authority that immediately shifted the room's dynamic.
Noah felt his stomach tighten. "Maddie? What are you doing here?"
"I'm his legal representation."
"Since when?"
"Since I was retained by Sienna from the Cold Trail team. Right now you have nothing but circumstantial evidence at best on him."
McKenzie's thick Scottish accent carried a note of irritation as he responded. "Lassie, our guy here has no alibi. He has a known antagonistic history with Landry, cigarette butts of hisbrand at the scene, a witness that places a second person with Pierce before the murder, a burner phone in his room that was used to call a local realtor who spoke with a man by the name of Marcus, and we're currently testing his blood against the blood found at the scene. So forgive me if you think we're blowing this out of proportion, but I think we have a little more than?—"
"You mean this blood evidence?" Maddie interrupted, taking a sheet of paper from her folder and handing it to McKenzie.
McKenzie put his reading glasses on and peered at the document. Noah leaned in to see over his shoulder, noting the official letterhead from Dr. Chambers' office.
"Adelaide completed the analysis. It's not a match. It's not his blood. And the DNA on the cigarette butts wasn't a match either, which places him not there."
McKenzie glanced at Noah, who could only shrug in response. "Can't argue with that."
"Aye, but we can argue about what we do have," McKenzie continued, his Scottish brogue thickening with frustration. "Just because it's not his cigarettes or blood doesn't mean he wasn't there. You're overlooking the calls made to Pierce from the burner phone in his room, a call to Mike Torres who confirmed only hours ago it was his voice he heard on the phone. And then we still have no alibi for his whereabouts. Or at least he refuses to say he was anywhere but in his room, yet we know that's not true because we checked with the front desk who confirmed he wasn't in his room when they do the turndown service at night. When is that turndown service, you ask? Between 7:30 and 10. The maid went back there twice to fill the minibar as well."
"I told you the camera was broken," Marcus said, his voice cracking with frustration.
"Convenient. But that doesn't prove where you were."
Maddie looked at her client with the assessing gaze of an attorney who'd seen every possible variation of guilt andinnocence. "You mind if I have a conversation with my client alone?"
"Be my guest," McKenzie said, standing and motioning for Noah to follow him out of the room.
