Page 161 of Good Boys Don’t Bite

“You really cannot stop doing that.”

“I know.”

“It's becoming impressive.”

Ronan smiled. The tension eased. Elliot looked at his phone again. Then at the time. 11:49.

“I'm going upstairs.”

Ronan watched him stand.

“Your room?”

Elliot looked back.

“Is this another location check?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

Ronan hesitated. Elliot recognized the answer before he said it.

“Stay with me.”

The words were quiet. Not command. Request. That mattered. Elliot stared. All the anger he'd been carefully holding shifted. Not gone. Rearranged.

“Okay.”

Ronan's shoulders relaxed. They went upstairs. Ronan fell asleep first. Elliot didn't. He lay on his side facing the window while Ronan's arm rested heavily across his waist. The room was dark except for moonlight breaking through thin clouds outside. It painted pale rectangles across the floor and caught on the edges of architecture sketches pinned above the desk. Elliot listened to Ronan breathe. He should have felt trapped. Ronan had forced the disclosure. Questioned him. Threatened to go to Vance. Doubted him. Instead Elliot felt safer with Ronan's arm around him than he had all week. That contradiction irritated him. He looked toward the nightstand. His phone rested beside Ronan's. Tomorrow, Vance would ask for it. Bell would object. Police might get a warrant. Then they would pull records.

Location. Messages. Maybe cloud data. Elliot wasn't stupid enough to believe privacy settings made anything disappear completely. He thought through Tuesday. Lucas. Midnight. Ronan had seen him before midnight. The car. That was the problem. Vance had surveillance of a dark sedan near the river. Not plate. Not clear model. Enough to ask. Elliot's car had already been searched. Nothing. Good. But location records? His phone had remained home. That was why he'd left it. A perfect alibi sitting on a nightstand. Elliot stared into the darkness. Tuesday at 12:44 A.M., his phone had been inside the carriage house. Ronan had been downstairs working. If police pulled network records, the device would appear connected to their Wi-Fi. Home.

Exactly where Elliot claimed to be. He had planned that. What he hadn't planned was Ronan. Ronan could not confirm seeing him after midnight. But digital evidence might do it for him. Elliot felt his pulse slow. There. A solution. Not complete. Enough. Then another thought arrived. His car. He hadn't taken it Tuesday. Also planned. The sedan on surveillance wasn't his. Vance would discover that eventually. Elliot almost smiled. Nothing to worry about. He shifted carefully beneath Ronan's arm. Ronan made a low sound and tightened his hold instinctively. Elliot froze. Then relaxed. Mine. The word came automatically. He closed his eyes. Tomorrow, police would look at his phone. They would find it exactly where it should have been the night Lucas disappeared.

They would find no incriminating messages. No suspicious photographs. No hidden confession. No location trail placing Elliot anywhere near the river. And if Detective Mara Vance wanted an alibi, Elliot was going to give her one so clean she'd have no choice but to look somewhere else. The problem was that somewhere else increasingly looked like Ronan. Elliot opened his eyes again. No. That part needed fixing. At 8:51 Monday morning, Gregory Bell stood beside Elliot outside Bellweather Police headquarters. Ronan stood on Elliot's other side. Vance emerged through the doors. Her gaze moved immediately to Elliot's phone. Bell spoke first.

“My client is willing to provide screenshots of the conversation with Lucas Harper and allow verification of those messages ondevice. He is not consenting to a full forensic search.”

Vance looked at Elliot.

“Why?”

Bell answered.

“Because that's an extraordinarily invasive request unsupported by the stated purpose.”

“I asked him.”

Elliot smiled faintly.

“My lawyer's answer is better.”

Vance did not smile.

“Do you have something to hide?”

Ronan stiffened. Bell remained calm. Elliot looked directly at her.