The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(30)
The door opened, light spilling through the darkness and blinding her. She ducked her head back to curl tighter in upon herself. It didn’t stop the soft laugh that slid through the room. “God’s not listening, Neveah. But I am.”
The dinner with Eden Collins created more questions than answers for Zach. He wished he could blame that on the case alone, but the fact of the matter was that he could still taste her on his lips, even hours later. She was so self-assured and larger than life, but when she’d run her hands up his chest and melted into his kiss . . .
Distraction doesn’t begin to cover it.
He sent Chase and Henry to bring in the Perkins parents as soon as he arrived at the station that morning, mostly so he could cross them off the suspect list. His last twisted hope that Michael Perkins was somehow involved in the death of his daughter had gone up in smoke last night, but doing his job meant pursuing all leads.
He met Eden out in front of the station. She looked . . . fuck, she looked good. She wore a fitted pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, and the same leather jacket she’d had on the day they met. Combined with the ankle boots, it gave her a certain don’t-mess-with-me vibe. He couldn’t help looking at her and seeing the woman transposed on the agent, her hair mussed and her eyes half-lidded with promised pleasure. Zach ran a hand over his mouth, trying to focus.
She nodded as he held the door open for her. “You’re bringing them in?”
If she can put the case first, you damn well better do the same. “You were right last night—we need more information. I don’t know if the Perkinses are going to be the ones to give it to us, but we have to try.” He thought it was a lost cause, but he wasn’t about to admit that aloud to anyone. Not even her. Maybe especially not her.
“Then let’s get to it.”
As easy as that. Except it wasn’t easy, and he didn’t know how the hell this thing was going to go. Zach led the way back to their two dual-purpose rooms. One was set up with the cot for the rare times when someone needed to sleep off a drunk and he wasn’t in the mood to toss them into one of the three holding cells in the back of the station. The other room was a generic catchall for shit that didn’t have an actual place. There weren’t files or anything confidential in there, but it looked a bit like his great-aunt Ruthie’s house—barely controlled chaos. “Husband or wife first?”
Eden gave him a considering look. “Wife. You’re awful pretty, and she might be more likely to open up to a charming, handsome man without her husband around.”
He stared. “That’s some cold-ass manipulation.” The exact same kind of thing he’d considered. He wasn’t sure what that said about him—about what this case was turning him into—but it wasn’t good.
Her hazel eyes went hard, the final piece of the vulnerable woman he’d had dinner with last night disappearing, and the hardened FBI agent taking her place. The look said that she’d seen horrors beyond reckoning. “I do what it takes to see the responsible parties brought to justice.”
There was nothing else to say to that, so he led the way to the room where Ruby Perkins had been left to cool her heels. She looked so small sitting at the plain plastic table. Defeated. It was like by taking her out of her comfort zone, he’d damaged a part of her. Is it harder to justify what Michael does to her when she’s around other people? Zach took a seat across from her, aware of Eden leaning against the door. She wasn’t an imposing figure, exactly, but Ruby still watched her the way she might watch a rattler who could strike at any moment. She turned watery blue eyes on Zach. “Why is she here?”
“She’s assisting in the investigation of Elouise’s death.” It didn’t matter if it wasn’t official—he wasn’t about to spread that information around. If the locals thought he had the FBI in his pocket, it wouldn’t hurt him any, and Eden seemed content to stay silent and let him lead. He sat forward and braced his forearms on the desk but immediately retreated when Ruby flinched. Damn it. “I’m hoping you could give me more information about that.”
“I told you what I know when you came by yesterday.”
She’d barely said a damn thing yesterday. Michael was the one who’d run that show. Zach tried again. “Ruby, we know. Elouise had bruises on her body that happened before she disappeared. It’s been confirmed by an outside source that she admitted Michael likes to use his fists when he gets a few drinks in him.” Which seemed to be his constant state of being, from what Zach had seen. He kicked himself for the thousandth time for not knowing what was going on under his nose. He’d known Michael was an asshole of epic proportions, but it hadn’t ever occurred to him that he’d take that nasty temper out on his wife and child.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She twisted her fingers together until it looked downright painful. “Elouise was always a willful child. She needed a strong hand to guide her.”
From what he’d learned at the high school yesterday, Elouise Perkins had been little more than a ghost who drifted through the high school’s halls. She attended her classes, got good grades, and had a nearly perfect attendance record—her only absence corresponding with a broken arm from a fall last year. Every single one of her teachers said she was polite, if a bit distant, and kept her head down to avoid attention. From all accounts, she was counting down the days until college started and she could get the hell out of town and away from her family.