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“A black and white mocha with dark chocolate drizzle. Two chocolate cakes, please.”
“Yours?” Lucy asked with a smile on her face as she turned toward Ryden. I smiled at her, showing all my teeth—the smile a shark would give you before it bit your head off—and her eyes widened as she backed away a little. I knew she got the warning.
Not this time, Lucy. He is FUCKING mine!
“A turtle mocha with extra caramel and chocolate drizzle. Add pecans, if you have them,” Ryden said with a straight face.
The big, bad wolf… drinks turtle mocha.
I snorted, pressing my hand against my mouth. The waitress shook her head, her smile not even slipping as she walked away from us.
“A turtle mocha? Well, aren’t you just diving headfirst into the sugary abyss?” I teased, fingering the menu, and his eyes narrowed. “Death by sugar overdose, Ryden?”
“What?” he snapped, eyes indignant. “Sugar calms me down when I’m angry.”
“You’re angry now,” I said, studying his face, and he gave me a slight nod. “Did I make you angry?”
“No, it’s not you. It’s…” He shook his head with a grimace.
“Go on?”
“It’s… nothing. So, how sure are you about your autopsy report?”
“Hundred percent.” My fingers twitched, but my smile never slipped.
“Could it be possible that someone wanted you to see what they wanted, and you saw only that?” he said, studying my face. It was hard for me to maintain my composure after that. No one had guessed that before, but here he was.
My stomach tilted, and my skin prickled as a thick snake of discomfort slithered its way through my bones.
Fuck. How did he know that? If he dug deeper, he’d know something was amiss, and I didn’t want that.
I was momentarily given a reprieve from giving him an answer when the waitress came back with our order.
“I have been doing this for a while, Mr. Sinclair, and I assure you, I don’t make mistakes,” I retorted.
“Call me Ryden. I mean, after calling me a fool… mister isn’t necessary,” he said with a shrug, taking a sip of his coffee with a soft breath. “But what if you were unaware? What if someone tricked you into this? As I mentioned, someone had meticulously planned this, Doctor West.”
“Yara,” I said. “So, how are you so sure that it isn’t Millicent Wark? And who is this person? The one who’s manipulating everyone?”
“Millicent’s a vulture, but this isn’t her. Someone’s trying to frame Millicent, and they succeeded.”
I took another gulp of my coffee, letting the hot liquid soothe the coldness that was slowly overtaking my bones.
“Go on.”
“The stab wounds do look like it’s a crime of passion, but… what if the wound in his heart isn’t the first stab? If you take a closer look,” he said, unzipping his backpack and extracting a file from within. Retrieving a photo of Victor’s lifeless body, he slid it across the table towards me, his eyes never leaving mine.
How did he get his hands on this? This wasn’t a picture the cops shared with the world. I realized how deeply connected he was with the force.
“God, you can’t just… casually take out pictures of a dead man in public,” I exclaimed, my expression a mix of shock and horror. Even though I was familiar with Victor’s wounds, and it didn’t affect me, I made a point to show my disapproval. “How the hell did you even get these?”
“I have my ways, and it’s not like you haven’t seen them before.”
“I’m not the only one in the café,” I said, pointedly looking around. “Tell me what I’m looking at, Ryden?”
“The way they’re so precise. Each thrust is done with a deliberate intention to…” He winced a little. “To kill, but also make it last. Lungs. Liver. Heart. Stomach.”
“Women are handy with knives.”
