Chapter 31

chapter

thirty-one

Brittany led Gage and Nia out the back exit and into a small alley behind the club. She placed a brick in the doorway to keep the door from closing and locking them out.

The woman didn’t look nearly as perky now as she had when she’d run into them outside Rob’s apartment, Gage mused.

Was she trying to fake her grief? Or was she simply upset because Gage and Nia had found her here?

“Any luck figuring out what happened to Rob?” Brittany’s voice sounded softer than it had inside the club as she turned to them.

“We’ve been trying to find answers,” Gage told her. “We’re hoping you might have some information that could help us.”

She pointed to herself. “Me? You think I have answers? ”

“I actually talked to someone who told me the two of you broke up.” Gage watched her expression, interested to see how she would react.

“Broke up?” She nearly snorted. “Who told you that? You know what, it doesn’t matter. I could see why someone would be confused.”

“Could you explain that?” Nia asked.

“I mean, I guess Rob did officially break up with me.” She rolled her eyes. “But I knew it was only temporary. He was totally into me, and we were going to get back together. He just needed some time.”

Her expression drooped as if she remembered that time was something they didn’t have anymore.

“Why were you so certain that you were going to get back together?” Nia asked.

“I think Rob really liked me. And I liked him too. We had a good time together, and I think he just got cold feet. He told me he didn’t like to casually date. But I wasn’t sure he was ready to jump into something serious either.”

Brittany was totally clueless. Gage had no doubt about that. The woman didn’t appear to give any deep reflective thought to anything.

“And you’d only been together for two weeks?” Gage continued to press.

“Yeah, but when you know, you know.” She crossed her arms. “And why are you questioning me about this? I didn’t kill him.”

“You said you thought Darius might have had him killed,” Nia reminded her .

If the woman thought Darius was a killer, why would she be here at his club tonight? It didn’t make sense. Not to Gage.

Brittany frowned. “I just figured since now that things were over between me and Rob that maybe . . .”

“And by things being over you mean now that Rob’s dead?” Gage’s tone contained an edge of disgust.

Brittany sighed, puckering her lips into an overblown frown. “Look, I’m not used to being single. And I thought maybe Darius wanted another chance.”

“But didn’t you cheat on him?” Nia clarified.

Brittany rolled her eyes. “It’s confusing.”

“Then why don’t you explain it for us?” Gage prodded.

Then they waited to hear what she had to say.

Nia watched Brittany, having trouble taking her seriously.

Nia had met Brittany’s type before. The beautiful but insecure type who always needed a man on her arm or she didn’t know what to do with herself.

Based on what Gage had said earlier, Brittany was the kind of woman who probably looked for a man who could support her lifestyle so she didn’t have to work.

Just like her mom was supporting her lifestyle now.

The shallowness of it didn’t impress Nia. But she tried not to be too judgmental .

However, there was still the possibility Brittany knew more than she was letting on about Rob’s death.

“I told Rob when we met that I’d broken up with Darius when I hadn’t actually broken up with him yet,” Brittany said. “So Rob didn’t really know the whole truth.”

“But you didn’t tell Darius that?” Gage asked.

She shrugged. “It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t listen to me anyway. He’s the jealous type, despite what he might have told you.”

Nia could see Darius as being more territorial than jealous. Losing a girlfriend to another man probably wounded his pride or made him feel inferior.

“Listen, Brittany,” Nia started. “You need to tell it to us straight. Do you really think that Darius did something to Rob? Because that wasn’t the sense I got from him.”

She sighed and glanced to the side.

Trying to come up with a cover story, if Nia had to guess. Brittany hadn’t expected all these questions to be directed at her.

“Just tell us the truth.” Gage lowered his voice. “If you really want to know what happened to Rob, then stop leading us on these wild goose chases.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes again. “The truth is, I did wonder if Darius could have done something like this. But after talking to him today and seeing how uninterested he was, it made me question my initial reaction. Darius really doesn’t want anything to do with me. In fact, I think he’s already dating someone else.” Red crept up Brittany’s neck as if that embarrassed her.

Nia figured Brittany had tried to woo Darius back, despite the fact he was dating someone else, and he’d rejected her. That had probably injured her delicate ego.

In that sense, Brittany and Darius had probably been perfect for each other.

“If all that is true . . .” Gage twisted his neck, waiting for Brittany to finish.

“It is,” Brittany interjected, nodding with exuberance. “I promise.”

“If that is true,” he repeated, “then who might have killed Rob? In the two weeks that you dated, did you notice anything strange that might help us figure that out?”

She crossed her arms in front of her and let out another sigh. “I know he was really excited about that app he’d developed. Every time I went over, he was trying to tweak it. He just wanted it to be perfect.”

“And?” Nia waited for her to continue.

“There’s nothing weird I could see about it. The only thing I know is I came over one time after he’d been playing with it, and he had a strange expression on his face. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. I figured maybe he’d discovered a bug in his app or found some type of problem he couldn’t fix. You know Rob. He always wanted things done right. It was one of the things I liked about him.”

Nia stared at the woman.

Initially, she’d wondered if Brittany had something to do with his death. But now she didn’t think so. The woman wasn’t smart enough to pull it off—even if she had help from someone else.

But if Brittany wasn’t the killer, and Darius wasn’t the killer . . . that really meant that they needed to find Cormac.