“You are the expert on the caves,” Cadence said, cutting through his words, trying to catch his focus. “You knew about the entrance at Death Falls, but you didn’t tell us anything about the entrance on the northwest side of the mountains.” The entrance she’d been forced to walk through at gunpoint. “Do you expect us to believe you didn’t know about that entrance?”
“I didn’t get to explore the caverns fully! After four days of study at the first site, the walls started to tremble.”
Had someone given that tremble a little help? The perp, who’d been worried the professor might go too far and discovery things he shouldn’t?
“You never heard anything in the caverns?” Cadence pressed. “Did you, or anyone on your team, see anything that made you suspicious?”
He shook his head. His fingers were tapping on the tabletop. “Nothing. I swear, I would have gone to the cops if I had!”
She didn’t sit in the chair across from him. Kyle didn’t sit either. They both stood and studied the man who was shaking before them.
“You didn’t return to your motel room last night.” That had been easy enough to check, since the guy was booked at the same no-tell motel she was. “The clerk was watching. He said your crew came back, but you didn’t.”
He blinked a few times, clearing watery eyes.
She leaned across the table toward him. “Where did you go?”
Aaron surged to his feet. “It wasn’t—”
Kyle wrapped his hand around the guy’s shoulder and shoved him right back down into the seat. “Don’t f**king move.”
Aaron gulped.
“You were with me at the site. You followed me to the falls.” Cadence kept her voice flat. “Were you the one who sabotaged my wipers? You knew I’d have to pull over if they stopped, but you also knew I wouldn’t let my guard down if a man came toward my vehicle. So you sent Fiona—”
“No!” He lunged up again. “I don’t know any Fiona!”
In an instant, Kyle had grabbed the man and slammed him against the wall. Kyle’s forearm shoved under Aaron’s chin, pinning him in place.
Oh, hell. “Kyle!”
“Did you take those women?” Kyle demanded, his voice lethal. “Is that why you don’t have an alibi for last night? You took Cadence, you wanted to hurt her.”
“No.” A gasping wheeze.
“Where the f**k where you then?” Kyle snarled.
“Picked up a waitress…named Susannah Jane…We hooked up behind the bar…”
Cadence remembered Susannah Jane. Lily’s coworker who had been so concerned.
“Ask her! Please…just ask…” His face was turning bright red.
Cadence touched Kyle’s shoulder. “Let him go.”
He held the man for a moment longer.
Kyle, let him go.
Grudgingly, he released the man.
Aaron sucked in deep, gasping breaths. A normal shade slowly returned to his face as he gasped. “Freaking…police…brutality…”
They weren’t the police. They were the FBI.
Kyle was still crossing the line.
She looked into his eyes and only saw fury. So much for the mask he’d tried to don.
“I don’t believe your story.” Kyle’s words snapped out. “You’re the one who closed down the caves, the one who said they weren’t safe enough for anyone else to go in. Why? I think you just didn’t want someone stumbling into your sick playground.”
Even though his chest was still heaving, Aaron straightened his shoulders.
The nervousness of his body seemed to ebb.
“I know about your sister,” Aaron muttered.
Wrong thing to say.
Kyle froze.
“You want her killer, and you’ll do anything to close her case, even blame me.” Aaron shook his head and jutted out his chin. “Screw that. I’m not saying another damn word without an attorney. You won’t pin this on me!”
Kyle lunged for him.
Cadence yanked him back and hauled him outside before he could rip into Aaron. Or rip him apart.
She had the feeling that was exactly what Aaron wanted. To push Kyle.
To make him lose control.
She slammed the interrogation room door and jerked her hand to get a uniform to stand guard.
Then she pushed Kyle into the nearest empty room. “Don’t let him push you.”
“He was lying.”
“We don’t know that.”
“His body language was all over the place! The man was shaking, sweating. He couldn’t make eye contact for shit. He was lying.”
Her gut said he was, too. “He gave us an alibi. We need to get Susannah in here and find out what the hell is going on.”
He gave a curt nod. His whole body was locked tight. She could almost feel the heat rolling off him.
“We’ll talk to Marsh, and while we’re doing that, we can send some cops to pick up Susannah.” Right then, Aaron was at the top of her suspect list, but she wanted to see what Marsh had to say, too.
“Let’s go.” Kyle tried to pull away.
She just made sure to block his path. “When we’re in those interrogations, I could be standing across the table from an SOB who threw me in a dark hole with a dying woman hours ago.”
His pupils grew, swallowing the brightness of his eyes.
“You think I don’t want to go across that table? That I don’t want to shove my elbow into that man’s throat and watch him struggle to breathe, just like Fiona struggled?” Her words flew out.
Her control was cracking.
“I can’t,” she snapped. “We have the badge. We have to do this the right way. You have to help me, and I have to help you.”
His hand lifted. Brushed against her cheek.
Wiped away a tear.
Then his head bent. He pressed a kiss to her cheek.
The drumming of her heartbeat was far, far too loud. She wanted to grab him and hold tight, but she locked her arms at her sides.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Her eyes squeezed closed. “Hold it together, because it’s all I can do to…” No, she wouldn’t say any more.
He would know, anyway. Didn’t he always know?
His lips feathered over hers.
Then his head lifted. “For you,” he told her.
She nodded, understanding.
They left the room and went to find Ben. It was time the cops tracked down Susannah Jane.
When they finally entered the next interrogation room, Jason Marsh was sweating. But when he saw them, he didn’t jump to his feet. Didn’t shout a denial of his innocence as soon as he saw them.