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Missed you when I woke up.
I miss you too. Got called in right after you went to sleep.
Back soon? Mason this time.
I wish.
A heart emoji appeared next. Then two more from Mason. If Gray hadn’t known he was head over heels for Jack and Mason, the fact that sending hearts to each other didn’t register as absurd would have clued him in. Keeping the phone where Bryce couldn’t see, he sent back a few hearts of his own.
“Work?”
“No. Jack and Mason.”
“Aww, they text you together.”
Heat rushed into Gray’s face. “Sometimes.”
“It’s okay. I already know you’re crazy about each other.”
Gray rolled his eyes and checked the time. “I better get going. I need to see if we’ve gotten closer to finding the homeowner.”
“You could go home and take a ‘nap.’ I bet your boys miss you.”
Gray raised his brows. “I could say the same to you.”
“True.”
“I might as well just stay up and hope I can leave at a reasonable time tonight.”
“Good luck with that.”
They left a hefty tip for the waitress and headed out.
5
When Gray got to the station, Whittaker had just been located at his twenty-four-hour gym. He was being brought in for questioning any minute, and Gray was downing another cup—he’d lost count what one he was on—of the sludge the station referred to as coffee. It wouldn’t look good to fall asleep during an interview.
Whittaker was rumpled and looked like he was wafting in that hell between wired on coffee and crashing hard. If the story he gave the cops was true—he’d worked second shift, gone to a midnight movie, then gone to the gym—he couldn’t have been at his home when Danielle died.
Maybe his story was true and maybe it wasn’t. Gray hadn’t heard anything to explain why an underage girl with a record showed up at his house. He wasn’t in the mood to play around or make things easy. Too much was at stake. He’d gone in circles for weeks on his murder case and found no motive beyond the girl’s profession, which he wasn’t buying. There was no weapon, and worst of all, no suspects. It was a fucking mess. If this was connected, he had a chance of finding at least a few pieces of the puzzle. This fucker was going to spill any information he had.
The ID wasn’t in on the vic yet, but all evidence pointed to it being Danielle. If this fucker had killed her…
Rage at the thought gathered inside Gray. Whittaker better hope he had an explanation for her presence at his house that didn’t involve him fucking her. Gray needed answers fast. Whittaker would be getting all bad cop with no good one to help him.
Gray shut the door of the interrogation room firmly behind him, deliberately not looking at Whittaker as he slumped, face in his hands, at the table. After pacing the room for several seconds, letting the tension build, Gray slapped a folder down dramatically like he was playing a cop on TV. He opened it and pulled out two photos, one of Danielle a year ago, smiling, dressed in a sweater and jeans, looking like a happy teenage girl, and one of the burned body.
“You see this.” Gray tapped the grotesque picture from the murder. “This is what Danielle’s been reduced to. I want to know what she was doing in your house, why you weren’t there, and whether you burned her to a crisp.”
“Wh-what?” the man stammered. “I… I would never. I…”
He looked green. Gray considered grabbing the trash can. The last thing he wanted to do was clean up vomit. If the man was faking his horror, he was damn good.
“She was at your house last night.” Whether or not the body was hers, the neighbor had seen Danielle enter Whittaker’s house.
The man shook his head.
“A driver dropped her off there. A neighbor saw her go in.”
