The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(67)

Joseph started, the tiniest movement that Zach would have missed if he hadn’t been zeroed in on the other man. I’ll be damned. He’d thrown that out on a whim, chasing a gut feeling he hadn’t known to put into words until they were out of his mouth. But that was the one part of Rachel’s story that didn’t quite line up. Neveah had been bragging about sleeping with Lee, but if she’d actually gotten to that point with the man, he would have reacted differently. Lee was a goddamn open book, no matter how he tried to hide it, and Zach doubted he was capable of lying on such a fundamental level.

Which had raised the question—if Neveah hadn’t been with Lee when she’d sneaked away, who had she been with?

Now he had his answer.

He reined in the rushing anger snapping at his nerve endings, demanding he move, demanding he do something to punish the little shit across from him, sitting in this room while Neveah and Elouise were dead. It took work to keep his voice calm and his words offhand. “How does that work, exactly? You get off on sleeping with kids, looking at borderline underage porn, and then close your eyes and bear it with your woman?”

Joseph’s eyes flashed with white-hot anger, but then his face slid into his usual cocky smile. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Sheriff. What Martha and I do in the privacy of our home is no one’s business.”

“You mean what you two do in her house.”

There was that anger again, quickly doused. “Even if I did what you’re accusing me of, the age of consent in Montana is sixteen. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Neveah Smith seventeen?”

“Wasn’t.”

Joseph drummed his fingers on the table. “What?”

“You said ‘isn’t,’ and you meant ‘wasn’t.’ She’s dead.” Zach watched him like a hawk.

For the first time since he’d walked in the room, Joseph’s face went completely blank. No shock, no anger, no arrogance. Nothing. Joseph drummed his fingers again. “You don’t say. That’s a shame.”

If he hadn’t liked the man before, he sure as fuck wouldn’t with him sitting here, cool as a cucumber while being dealt the news that a woman—a girl—he’d slept with was dead. Unless he already knew because he’s the one who did it. He had to keep control. The goal was to make Joseph lose it. Not Zach.

It was harder than he could have dreamed. “You know, you say your home, plural, when you talk about Martha, but I don’t see it.”

“I don’t really give a damn what you see, Sheriff.”

He ignored that. Eden had said to keep Martha out of it, but the only time he’d gotten a response and made the other man’s mask slip had been when he’d brought her up. “Martha doesn’t really share—not power and not men. Don’t suppose she knew that you were knocking boots with Neveah Smith.”

“Don’t suppose she did.”

He gritted his teeth. “Woman like that, one of her younger men—well, both of them—dicking around with girls closer to their own age. That’s got to be a blow to the ego. She’s got Abram, sure, but that woman doesn’t share.”

Joseph leaned forward, every line of his body reading as lazy arrogance. “I know you’re not suggesting Martha killed those girls in a jealous rage. That’s ludicrous.”

Zach couldn’t exactly argue that, but it was motive all the same. That was the problem with this case—there was more than their fair share of motive to go around. He nodded as if agreeing with Joseph. “You’re right. Martha’s too smooth for something like that. If she wanted those girls to disappear, easy enough to make it happen without leaving a trail and dumping the body on my back doorstep. You, on the other hand, aren’t nearly as smart or as smooth as she is.”

“Me? Sheriff, you must really be hard up for leads if you’re looking in my direction. If I fucked Neveah—and that’s a big if—then it was a little fun between two consenting people. That girl wasn’t looking for something serious any more than I was. She had her plans set on the horizon—same as the other one.”

The other one. “You spend a lot of time with Elouise Perkins?”

Instantly, Joseph shut down. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Zach pressed and circled and nearly ground his teeth to dust, but Joseph never changed his story or offered up more information. An hour later, since he was about to lose his mind and commit assault, he pushed to his feet. “Make yourself comfortable. You’re not going anywhere.”

Joseph looked at his watch. “Only for another twenty-three hours. Unless you’re planning on charging me with something?” His shit-eating grin told Zach that the man knew exactly how little evidence they actually had on him. Fuck.

He walked out of the room without another word. The man might be right, but that didn’t mean Zach would allow him to bait him. Because that’s all the entirety of the interview had been—Joseph playing hard to get and sending him in circles. He nearly ran over Eden as he came out the door, but he made sure he heard it click shut behind him before he spoke. “You saw.”

“I saw enough.”

There wasn’t enough time to go through it. William would be texting him at any time, and there was still Lee to deal with. Still, he forced himself to slow down and look at her. “How’s the eye?”