Love, Lies, and Deception(40)
“Alec and I had decided to go for a walk, and everything was going fine until I smelled something that stunk like hell. It was so bad it made me vomit everywhere, and when I looked up from throwing up that’s when I saw her. Her eyes stared right back at me, all haunted and empty.”
Emily flung her arms around my shoulders and hugged me tight. “Oh, Rissa, that’s terrible. You don’t know who it was, do you? Do you think she goes to ASU?”
I shrugged in her arms. “I don’t know what her name is, but Alec and I know who she is,” I informed her wearily.
She quickly let me go, but held me in place so she could look at me. “Who is she?” she asked, her eyes wide and voice quivering.
Blowing out a shaky breath, I wrapped my arms around my stomach to help stop me from shaking. I couldn’t stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks when I told her, “It was the girl from the bar, the one in the video who put the drug in my drink. It looks like she might’ve been murdered.”
“Here we are again, Ms. Chase,” Detective Michaels said, taking a seat across from me.
He had his notebook and pen at the ready to record my answers, along with a voice recorder. We were sitting in Alec’s living room while he was outside talking to the other officers. From what I heard, they had the scene marked off and were collecting the evidence. The girl’s body had already been bagged and taken away to be examined.
They wouldn’t let Alec in the room with me because they wanted to see if our answers matched up. It kind of made me feel like I was the criminal, but I tried to remember that they had to do it.
“Where were you last night between eleven and two in the morning?” Detective Michaels asked.
I sat up straight with my hands clutched tightly in my lap. “I was here, Detective. I spent the night here with Alec.”
Nodding, he wrote down my answer. “Was Alec here the whole time with you?” he asked, staring at me blankly. Why was he asking that? Did they think Alec was a suspect?
I nodded cautiously. “Yes, he was here with me the whole time.”
“Did you go to sleep during that time between those hours?”
Narrowing my eyes, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why are you asking me this? Do you think Alec’s a suspect?”
Detective Michaels sighed and shook his head. “It’s too soon to rule anybody out. Mr. Holden wouldn’t tell us exactly what he was doing during that time, so it makes him look suspicious.” Relief washed over me and I smiled; the detective pursed his lips.
“Would you care to tell me why you’re smiling?” he asked, giving me an exasperated look.
“If you want to know why Alec didn’t tell you what he was doing, it’s because he was trying to maintain my privacy. And to answer your question, neither one of us slept during those hours. If you must know the intimate details, we were having sex during that time.”
Detective Michaels blushed bright crimson and scribbled in his notebook. “Well, that answers that,” he chuckled before turning serious again. “Anyway, as you already know we suspect this may be the girl who put the Rohypnol in your drink. We’re investigating all angles, and all the samples we collected have been sent to the lab. We should know more by tomorrow. I don’t like the way things are looking right now. We haven’t had a murder here in a very long time.”
Wearily, he stood and patted my shoulder. “If I need to ask you more questions I’ll call you in. Just be careful, Marissa. I have a bad feeling about all of this, and you’re right in the middle of it. Stay with your friends and don’t go anywhere alone, okay?”
I nodded. “I understand. I’ll stay safe.”
He smiled warmly at me and traipsed out the door, giving Alec a clear path to come back inside. Alec shook the detective’s hand before shutting the door and coming to sit beside me.
“Why didn’t you tell them what you were doing during those hours?” I asked him curiously.
He shrugged. “I figured you would tell them the truth, and besides, they didn’t need to know exactly what we were doing. It was none of their damn business.”
“True, but it’s not a good thing if they think you’re a suspect. What did they say when you took them to her body?”
Sighing, Alec patted my knee and got up to go into the kitchen. “They didn’t really say too much considering I was the number one suspect … again. They asked why we went out that way, and I said that’s usually the trail I run every day.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Well, that right there made you definitely look like a suspect.”
“And what’s bad is that I’m usually the only person out there when I go for my runs. I never see anyone. Hopefully, they’ll find some answers soon, especially since the girl is the one who drugged you. My guess would be that whoever made her do it didn’t want any loose ends.”
Alec came back from the kitchen with a glass of wine for me and a beer for him. Taking the wine, I asked, “But why would anyone want to drug me other than to make it look like you did it? Who would want to pin that on you?”
Alec took a sip of his beer and stared worriedly at me. “That’s exactly what I’d like to know. If more things keep happening, I might not be able to stay here any longer. If word leaks out that I’m here, it’s going to be one huge clusterf*ck of problems.”