Hell Without You (22 page)

“You want to question me?” Donovan asked.

“That’s right. You’re not under arrest, but I need to speak with you. If you could follow me to the police station now—”

“Fine. Let’s just get this over with.” Donovan frowned.

“I don’t know about this,” Clementine said as the officer climbed back into his cruiser and pulled ahead of her, like she didn’t know exactly where the town’s police station was. “The doctor said you’re not supposed to do anything straining or overly-stressful.”

“Getting heckled by the police would be more stressful than answering a few questions. I’d rather just cooperate and be done with it.”

Burying a tooth in her inner lip, she followed the police car. “Okay… I guess it won’t take too long. It’s not like they could possibly have any evidence to implicate you. You didn’t even leave the house last night.” The very thought was ridiculous. Maybe the police didn’t suspect Donovan of being involved – maybe they had questions because he lived near the crime scene and they were looking for witnesses, like he’d suggested.

He nodded. “If they ask how I spent last night, I’d better not be too specific.” He flashed her a brief smile, eyes gleaming.

She couldn’t bring herself to smile back, even as the muscles in her core drew tight in remembrance. After reaching the house, they’d explored positions that weren’t inhibited by his sling. Her inner thighs still ached from when she’d straddled him, knees on either side of his hips. “I can’t believe Trevor was murdered. Nobody gets murdered in Willow Heights.”

“If anyone deserved it, it was him.”

“Don’t you dare say that to the police.”

He frowned. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I can’t believe they want to question you, either. I bet Robert had something to do with this. If it turns out they suspect you were involved, I’ll
know
he had something to do with this.”

Though the thought turned her stomach, she’d never been more grateful that no charges had been pressed against Donovan all those years ago when he’d assaulted Trevor. There was no record of the incident, even if her step-father had brought it up now.

Rain was falling in sheets by the time they reached the police station. “Make sure you cover your bandages,” she said, a fresh wave of anger washing over her. What a waste of time. Donovan should’ve been at the house relaxing, not playing along at the police station. And she had to get up early to make the hour and a half commute to DC.

“Follow me, Mr. Kemp.” Detective Wagner walked down the small station’s only hallway.

“Guess I’ll wait here,” Clementine said, sinking down onto a bench near the door.

Donovan nodded and followed the detective.

Alone with the bench’s hard back digging into her spine, Clementine listened to the rain falling against the roof and windows. How had Trevor been murdered, anyway? And why had the crime scene been located along the rural road leading out of town, yellow tape strung up at a seemingly random place equidistant between Donovan’s house and Shady Side? Had Trevor been left in the ditch?

A chill settled into her bones as she mulled the matter over. Someone had killed Trevor, and it hadn’t been Donovan. And if the police suspected that Donovan might have done it, that meant that the real murderer was roaming free, maybe still in Willow Heights. But who?

She hadn’t spoken to Trevor in seven years, hadn’t seen him since the summer she’d been eighteen, until she’d bumped into him at the grocery store. But he’d been raised to be selfish, the kind of person who felt entitled to privilege – just like his father. And she had no reason to believe he’d changed. It wasn’t hard to believe he’d made enemies, but to this extent?

He didn’t even live in Pennsylvania. He’d only been visiting from Connecticut. What could he have done during his visit to attract such brutality?

The memory of his hands on her body and his stinking breath in her face rushed back to her, sudden and vivid. Immediately, she shoved the recollection away, smoothing a wrinkle in her jeans as she fought to distance herself from the thought. Maybe he’d picked on another woman – one who’d fought back. Hard.

What a thought. Heart beating way too quickly, she sat, immobile, listening to the rain and trying not to think. This would be over soon – whatever Robert may have said, there couldn’t possibly be anything to tie Donovan to the crime. A few questions, then they’d be on their way home.

Except Detective Wagner must have had more than a few questions, because Donovan didn’t appear for nearly forty-five minutes. When he finally emerged out into the main area, Clementine stood. “It’s about time – I was getting worried. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine. Ready to head home?”

Clementine nodded, but Detective Wagner stepped forward. “Actually, Ms. Lettvin, I’d like to ask you a few questions too.”

“Will it take another forty-five minutes? Because Donovan needs to get some rest and so do I – I’ve got to commute to DC in the morning.”

“I can’t make any promises time-wise, but it’d be a great help to the investigation if you’d cooperate. This is about the murder of your step-brother, after all.”

Again with the lack of conviction and sensitivity. What had her mother and Robert said to Detective Wagner?

“Okay,” she breathed after a few moments of deliberation. “I’ll answer your questions, but please try to make them quick.”

He said nothing and probably couldn’t have cared less about her personal schedule.

She followed him anyway.

They settled in a private room that was a far cry from the dark-walled, bare-bulbed interrogation spaces they showed so often in movies. Everything was a pale shade of bluish grey, even the simple desk that separated her from the detective. Detective Wagner’s eyes were a dull blue too, and focused on her. “I understand that you weren’t on the best of terms with your step-brother Trevor. Is that true?”

“It is.” They didn’t think she could be a suspect, did they? If they did, she’d have to have a word with her mother – something she’d planned to avoid indefinitely.

“Why is that?”

“He sexually assaulted me when I was eighteen.” The fact that Trevor was dead made no difference – she wasn’t about to sugarcoat the truth. “That was about seven years ago, and I hadn’t spoken to him since.”

“He sexually assaulted you.” He phrased it like a statement, but it had to be a question. There was no doubt in her mind that her mother and step-father hadn’t filled the detective in on what Trevor had done to her.

“Yes.”

“By sexually assaulted, you mean…?”

“He … stalked me. I caught him watching me on a date with my boyfriend, then discovered some photos he’d taken without my knowledge on his computer. Whenever I confronted him, he cornered me in his bedroom at my mother and step-father’s house – restrained me against a wall with his body. Then he shoved his hands beneath my clothing, touched my breasts and implied that he was going to rape me.”

“But he didn’t?”

“I struggled. He gave me a bloody lip, but eventually he stumbled and I was able to break free – I scratched his face and he fell. I kicked him in the shin and ran.”

Detective Wagner scribbled something down in a notebook, his face impassive. “Why would Trevor have done that?”

“What – assaulted me?” Exasperation flooded her thoughts, her body, making her itch with the urge to leave the detective and the police station behind. “I don’t know. What makes sexual predators behave the way they do? I do know that he’d been drinking – maybe that emboldened him.”

“Drinking what?”

“Beer. The assault happened during a party my mother and step-father were hosting. Trevor was twenty, but he snuck drinks when no one was looking. Or maybe people simply turned a blind eye – I don’t know.”

“And this was seven years ago?”

“Slightly over seven years. That was during the summer, shortly before I left for my freshman year of college.”

“And you never saw Trevor again?”

“I went to college in New York and I never came home to visit my mother or step-father. I was angry because they refused to believe me when I told them what Trevor had done. We’re still estranged.”

“But they paid for your schooling at an Ivy League university?”

“Columbia.”

“I see.”

The detective spoke in flat, measured tones that set Clementine on edge. Did he even believe what she’d told him about Trevor?

“And you never saw Trevor again, after that?” he repeated.

“Actually, I caught a glimpse of him at Studebaker’s about a week ago. We didn’t speak, and I don’t think he noticed me.”

He jotted something else down in his notebook.

Clementine glanced around the room looking for a clock, but there was none. The questions had already taken longer than she’d hoped.

“About your living situation with Donovan Kemp…”

Another fifteen minutes passed as she explained all about how and why she’d returned to Willow Heights, how she was living with Donovan, how they were engaged. Questions about their trip to Florida and Donovan’s injuries took another quarter of an hour. Of course, Clementine said that Donovan’s burn was the result of a kitchen accident. She also pointed out that Donovan’s injuries would’ve made it difficult for him to attack and kill anyone, though Detective Wagner didn’t acknowledge her opinion.

And then he asked what he’d probably been waiting the whole time to interrogate her about.

“Seven years ago, when Trevor allegedly assaulted you, you told Donovan, who was your boyfriend then too, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And he believed you?”

“Of course.”

“And I understand there was an altercation between Donovan and Trevor?”

A sense of wariness crept over Clementine, making her spine tingle. How much had Donovan told him? What had her mother and step-father said?

Now she knew why the detective had wanted to question her right away, before she’d had a chance to talk to Donovan.

“There was a fight.” As much as she ached to protect Donovan, anything but the truth might eventually cause him more trouble, and that was a thought she couldn’t bear.

“A fist-fight?”

“Yes.”

“Who would you say won the fight?”

“Donovan.”

“Was Trevor injured?”

“His face was bruised, as I remember.”

“Is that it?”

“I believe he lost a couple teeth. Got a bloody nose. Like I said, I wasn’t speaking to him at that point. I did my best to avoid him. As I’m sure you already know, there were no charges pressed against Donovan. He doesn’t have a criminal record.”

He ignored her last statement. “Did you feel that Trevor deserved what Donovan did to him?”

“Yes. He tried to rape me.” Who wouldn’t have felt the same way, in her shoes?

The questions didn’t end there. Detective Wagner asked plenty more, most of them revolving around the night before – where Donovan had been and what he’d done. She answered them all truthfully, aware that the truth – which was that he’d spent the night at his house with only her – wasn’t exactly gold, as far as alibis went.

Still, the fact remained that Donovan hadn’t committed the crime. While the questions were invasive and a waste of time, in the end, no real harm would be done.