Chapter 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."

"I was at work."

"And then at the movies. And then working out. Busy night."

Whittaker's nostrils flared, and he fisted his hands. Gray had succeeded in getting him angry. He wanted the man's emotions running hot, because he'd be a hell of a lot more likely to give himself away like that. "My house just burned down, and now you're accusing me of murder?"

"I'm asking you to tell me what this young woman"—Gray tapped on the photo—"was doing at your house."

"I told you I don't know."

"You didn't go home to meet her?"

"I work second shift. I like to stay up after I get off and sleep during the day. I gave the officers my ticket stub from the theater, and they found me at the gym so they know I was there. You can verify that I was never home."

"We're working on that. How well did you know this young woman?"

"I told you I didn't know she was at my house."

He looked away and started to fidget with his cuff. He was lying. Gray was certain of it. "At this point, if you cooperate and give me the information I need, I'm going to assume you thought she was eighteen and that you realize solving her murder is what matters most to me." The words nearly stuck in Gray's throat. The fucking asshole might have hired a teenage girl, but if he wasn't the killer, Gray needed to find whoever was.

"I didn't kill her."

"What was she doing at your house?"

"I don't know. How many times are you going to ask me that?" He was shouting now, face red with anger.

"Men your age aren't often acquainted with teenage women who've been arrested for prostitution unless they're the johns. So tell me how you know her."

"I don't know this girl. Look, I've got to figure out what the hell I'm going to do now that my house is gone."

"And I've got to figure out who murdered a teenager."

"I can't help you."

Gray slapped the folder closed. "That remains to be seen."

He went silent for a few moments, studying Whittaker. The man's horror at the pictures had seemed real, as had his anger. But his responses were too scripted somehow, like he was saying what was expected. Maybe that was nerves. It wasn't easy for anyone to act naturally during an interrogation.

Thornton knocked and then leaned into the room. "I need to see you for a moment."

Before stepping out of the room, Gray looked at Whittaker. "We're not done."

"You find out what the girl was doing there?" Thornton asked.

Gray shook his head. "He claims he doesn't know."

Thornton took a sip of coffee. Gray wasn't sure he'd ever seen the man without a cup in his hands. "Damn. His statement checks out, by the way."

"All of it?"

Thornton nodded. "He clocked out of work at 11:00. His movie ticket was purchased online. One of the employees at the theater remembers seeing him because he raised a stink about the cost of a large popcorn relative to a small. We can even verify that he took the bus to the theater from work since his car is in the shop."

"There wasn't time for him to go home before showing up at the gym?"

"No, he says he left the movie and walked to his gym. He would have arrived around two thirty. He scanned his card at 2:32 and the woman at the desk remembers him entering. She said he often comes in between eleven and three."

"What the fuck is up with people going to the gym at 2:30 in the morning?"

Thornton glanced down at his belly. "I sure as hell don't know."

Gray smiled for the first time in hours.

"We've got to cut him loose but I'd say we keep our eye on him. Because none of this makes any sense."

"I'll try to find out if there's anyone who'd want to set him up. Are we looking into connections with Andreas and with the other vic?"

Thornton nodded. "I thought of that. If this guy didn't kill her, there's still got to be a reason why it was done at his house."

"Could it be as simple as framing him because he was a former client?"

"It's a sloppy as hell job if that's what it is."

Gray nodded. "Sure is."

"Go talk to him. See if you can learn anything else, then head home and get some sleep."

"Sir, I can?—"

"Go home."

"Yes, sir."