30

The FBI did not slack off when they had their suspect in custody. A female agent escorted Tylesia into the women’s locker room so she could get a shower, borrow some clothes, and basically wash off the stink of captivity. They had to get her statement, of course, and run her through a basic eval and checkup before they could let her go home. Tylesia was all for writing out her statement and eagerly went where directed.

Me? Well, I got to go to ye old faithful interrogation room. Marc took point, sitting next to me at the interrogation table, with Chad sitting across from me.

The room was a standard ten by ten with commercial carpet and white walls, nothing in it but a table and chairs. Chad slouched there, eyes on the Formica top, a listless air to him. He looked apathetic on the surface, but his lines told a different story. The deep ultramarine blue of grief hung upon him like a dark cloud, all mixed in with the hot red of anger and the emerald green of fear.

Huh. Now there was an interesting mix. I’d seen something like this before, when a man had been wholly rejected by a woman he loved, but…these two weren’t in love? Oooh bitch, I bet this was one-sided. Shit, I had a feeling I now knew the story.

Marc started us out. “Special Agent Marc Gonzalez is leading this interview. Date is August 1 st , time 11:13 p.m. With me is consultant Jonathan Bane. Interview is in regard to the Evans abduction case. Jon?”

I loved how he said he was leading the interview, but I got the first question.

Still, I did have an idea of where to start.

I kept my voice steady and calm. “Tell me what started this all.”

Chad didn’t lift his eyes from the table. “Does it matter? She hates me.”

“But you love her.”

His eyes filled with tears, bottom lip trembling. “I love her more than anything.”

Called it. This stupid bastard. I was filled with disgust already. And he hadn’t even told his story.

“That’s what started this, I guess.” Chad blew out an unsteady breath. He kept fidgeting, leg jumping up and down as he jiggled it, too agitated to settle. “When we were all in college, I saw her in one of my classes. She’s so vibrant , y’know? Spunky and beautiful, and I just wanted to be with her. More than anything, I wanted to be with her. I tried to play the long game. I would sit next to her and be friendly in class, and I tried to get to know her. At first, that seemed to work. Then at the end of the semester, I asked her out, and she turned me down. She was nice about it, but…I just didn’t get it. Why had she been nice the whole semester if she wasn’t interested in me?”

I swear to you, this was why women were so leery of the “nice guys.” They were so quick to make assumptions just because you were polite and smiled.

“I thought maybe she was dating someone. You can be interested in someone else while you’re in a relationship, everyone knows that. So I tried to be patient. I stayed friends with her, and kept signing up for classes I knew she’d need for her major, and kept trying. But it didn’t seem to matter what I did. She still wasn’t giving me the time of day. She kept rejecting me. Then she told me she was aromantic, and I didn’t know what the word meant. I had to look it up. But I saw it for the excuse it was. She just didn’t want to be in a relationship with me, for whatever reason, and that was her go-to. She didn’t see how perfect we were for each other; otherwise, she’d never have said that to me.”

No, moron, she was really aromantic. Asexual, too. Wow, this man was past all saving.

I saw obsession in his lines. It wouldn’t have mattered how Tylesia rejected him, he wouldn’t have been able to accept it either way. Knowing this, I pushed him a little.

“So your first thought was…what? To kidnap her?”

“No!” He slammed both hands on the table with a sharp bang , then clenched his fists and forcibly calmed himself after that shouted word, but his voice was still rough. “No. I tried getting her to go on a date with me first. She wouldn’t even entertain the thought. Then I saw her around her brother. Didn’t know he was her brother at first. I just saw how she looked at him. Like he was everything to her. I wanted her to look that way at me but she wouldn’t…she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of a friend date. I tried everything. But she just ignored me.”

Marc shot me a look like he was already over this man’s shit. Me too, brother. Me too.

“I had to make her see.” His eyes shot up suddenly, locking on mine, as if he was desperate for someone to hear him. To understand him. “I had to get her away from him long enough for her to realize she was just under his thumb. I’d be so much better for her. But she wouldn’t listen to me as long as he was around.”

“So you kidnapped her?”

“WHAT ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?!” He slammed his cuffed hands against the table again, crying now. Ugly crying, too. Snot and everything. “What else was I supposed to do?”

How about taking the no? Seriously, when a person said no, that should be the end of it. My sympathy meter was at an all-time low here.

Marc pushed a little. “Did the plan to frame her brother come from the onset or…?”

“Oh. No. I didn’t mean to do that in the beginning.” Chad calmed a little. I could see from his lines he wasn’t lying. “No, I just wanted to take her away for a few days. Just so I could talk to her without him constantly interrupting. But the one time I tried to lead her away to my car, she threw my hand off and warned she’d call the police if I tried that again. And then her brother swooped in and grabbed her. I was so angry. So fucking angry with him for interfering AGAIN. I don’t think he even realized I was there, he was so focused on her.”

His story made sense to me because Dwayne barely remembered him. He hadn’t even thought of him as a suspect. Chad really hadn’t registered on Dwayne’s radar.

“I knew then I had to prevent him somehow from following after her.” Chad let out a bitter laugh. “What better way than to frame him for her murder? He’d be locked up tight, and finally, I could have Tye’s full attention.”

“Is that why you went through the effort of manufacturing all of the evidence? To make sure he was pinned for the crime?”

“Sure. It worked, too.” His lines abruptly went red hot with rage. “Until you entered the scene. How did you disprove all that?”

I pointed to Marc at the same time he raised his hand.

“That was actually me,” Marc said calmly. “I’m a Tracer.”

Chad’s expression fell. “Oh. Shit. I didn’t think you’d pull in a Tracer.”

“Yeah, it was pretty obvious the evidence was all fake. You were keeping up with the trial?”

“I had Google alerts for it. Just in case. By that point, I was really losing hope. Tye still wouldn’t talk to me.” Chad’s grief came surging back, burying his anger for a moment. “No matter how much attention I paid her, no matter what I said or did, she just spewed hate. I didn’t deserve the hate. I took really good care of her.”

The delulu was strong with this one. It was actually alarming how deluded he was, how hardcore he believed what he was saying. Marc caught onto it too, and he shot me a look like Is this guy nuts ?

Yes, but no. He was absolutely off his rocker, no question, but he knew what he had done. There was no excusing his actions.

I had to establish that in this interview. It was half the reason why I’d wanted to sit in on this. That and my desire to wrap it all up.

“Chad. You do realize that kidnapping her was the wrong thing to do?”

He nodded, still heartbroken. “At the time, it seemed like the only option. I knew she’d be mad, but I was so sure she’d forgive me, too.”

It was hard, but I didn’t roll my eyes. “You also realize you should have released her right away and set the record straight?”

“I…couldn’t.” Chad’s tears started back up, and he was almost pleading with us. “I needed more time. I just…I just needed more time. Don’t you see? She would have forgiven me.”

Marc had apparently had enough. “Sir. Do you not realize who Jonathan Bane is?”

“He’s…a psychic. I know that. A Reader, I think?”

“Do you understand what that means?”

Chad shook his head uncertainly. “I know he can tell truth from lies.”

“I can do far more than that.” Time for a dose of reality. I wanted him to be fully aware of how badly he’d screwed up as he rotted in prison for the next fifty years. “I can read everything about you. How you’re originally from eastern Tennessee and the golden child of your aged parents. How obsessed you are with Tylesia even now. You rejected being a licensed psychic because you didn’t want to work for the government and your parents were outraged. You cut contact with them because of it.”

Chad went abruptly still. “No one…no one knows that.”

I tapped the corner of my eye with the tip of my finger. “I can see it all. Understand this, Chad. Tylesia wasn’t ever going to forgive you. She might have been indifferent to you before, but she hates your guts now. If we handed her a weapon and carte blanche, she’d murder you with a smile. No amount of time would overcome that.”

“You’re…you’re lying.” His face drained to a corpse-grey color. “Please tell me you’re lying.”

“You took an anchor from her psychic,” I responded quietly. “There’s an amazing love there. A loyalty and fierce protectiveness that can’t ever be erased, which is really why you wanted her so badly. Because you wanted her to be your anchor.”

Man looked ready to pass out. “Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t need to. I can see it all in a glance.”

“I just…I just needed her. I needed her so much more than he did.”

Ah, and the truth finally came out. His obsession with her, his conviction of how much he needed her—it all made sense now. I’d shake my head at his stupidity, but I was too angry on behalf of the entire Evans family. I really wanted to take a clue bat and smack him a few times instead.

Chad’s head dropped. “And now I’ll never see her again.”

“Count yourself lucky,” Marc advised. “I think she’d murder you if she ever saw you again. Jon, anything else?”

“Naw, I have nothing else to ask him.”

I stood and left the room, leaving Chad behind. I’d definitely see him again in a courtroom setting. I’d have to testify to make sure this man was put behind bars. Did it make me a bad person if I was looking forward to it?

I checked my own lines. Naw, I was good.

Marc had more things to wrap up, so I left him to it. He didn’t need me for the rest of this. I met up with people in the hallway. Donovan put his phone away in his pocket as I came out. Gonzalez looked absolutely done. Just done.

“I cannot believe one man’s obsession caused all of this. So much unnecessary pain, time, money—all because he was set on having something he couldn’t. I really hate humanity some days.” Gonzalez glanced past us toward the closed door. “At least this will be an open-and-shut case.”

“Oh, for sure,” I agreed. “Too much evidence and witness testimony for him to skate around this. If he doesn’t get life, I’ll be surprised.”

“I’ll start a damn petition if he doesn’t get life.” Gonzalez was still mad as a hornet. “When I think about someone doing to me what that man did to Dwayne and Tylesia? He better get life.”

I really didn’t think a lesser sentence would happen, but we’d see.

“Well, on a different note”—Donovan seemed amused for some reason—“we’ve been kind of left behind. Tylesia is already on her way to the hotel. Grant’s been whisked away. Atlanta’s Missing Persons begged and pleaded, and he caved and said he’d help them until tomorrow morning.”

I had to shake my head. “Didn’t we bring him with us to give him a break?”

“Man’s a soft touch.”

“Apparently. Well, we’ll have to abscond with him tomorrow. He has no way back without us.”

“A fact Alan is counting on, I think. Let’s go back to the hotel if we’re not waiting on them. I, for one, would like a hot shower.”

I got instant agreements. Good to know we were all on the same page.