Page 34 of Locked In Ice

He opened his mouth—

A fist pounded into Ophelia’s hotel room door.“Hey!”Shay called out.“You two talking in there?What the hell?”

Ophelia grabbed her cross-body bag and marched for the door.She whipped it open and frowned at the detective.“What the hell, indeed.Yes, we are talking.”

“Getting your stories straight?”Shay glowered.

“Conferring with myclient,” Ophelia corrected ever-so-smoothly.“And I am telling you, Detective O’Brien, you are wrong.Lane should not be a suspect.”

Shay just grunted.

“But we’ll play by your rules.For now.”

A somewhat dazed shake of Shay’s head.“Playing?Is that what you think we’re doing?Lady, I never play when it comes to murder.”

“What a coincidence.Neither do I.”

***

Fucking fuck.This couldnotbe happening.Lane sat at the small interrogation room table, a cold and extremely stale tasting cup of coffee in front of him.He’d been in so many rooms just like this one.

Hehatedinterrogations.Cops tried to use their mind games.Tried to push and push.Cop after cop had attempted to break him when he’d been suspected of murder before.

Multiple murders.

Three women who all looked far too much like his twin sister.

And the reason he’d been suspected so hard?Because I was near one of the crime scenes.A late-night walk that had led to the fires of hell opening up and swallowing him whole.

Now it was happening again.Another cop trying to link him to a murder.And he had no one to back him up.

Fucking fuck.

“You came to town because you were hunting Thomas Bass, isn’t that correct?”Detective Shay O’Brien asked him.Another female detective—she’d identified herself as Jules Carter—stood a few feet away, silently watching.

“I came to town because I was looking for a killer,” Lane replied.

Ophelia sat beside him.She reached for the coffee cup in front of her.Took her first sip and— “OhmyGod,” Ophelia exclaimed as she made choking noises.“Are you poisoning us?Do youhateme?”

Shay sent her a quick glare before focusing right back on Lane.“You were hunting him.Because you fancy yourself one of the Ice Breakers now, isn’t that so?Because being all vigilante is so much better than letting the actual authorities do their jobs.”

“Well,” Ophelia said as she pushed her cup very far away from her person, “if the actual authorities had done their jobs, no one else would have needed to hunt theserial killeryou had working at a local high school.And, frankly, I can’t speak for my client, but I was absolutely here to hunt him.You are welcome for my services.”

Shay’s jaw locked.“I don’t need your alibi,” she gritted.

“Good.Because I haven’t given you one yet.”

Shay pointed at Lane.“You were hunting him.”

That was a statement, not a question, so he just stared back at her.He’d learned that the less you said in interrogations, the better.

Before, I tried to make the cops understand that I wasn’t guilty.I had nothing to hide, so I cooperated—at first.Only every word he’d spoken had been twisted and used against him.The next thing Lane knew, the cell door had been clanging shut on him.

“You deliberately let yourself get caught by him, didn’t you?”

“Oh, this is new,” Ophelia interjected with a hint of interest.A hint.“Please continue, Detective.I’d love to see where this walk will take us.”

With her nostrils flaring, Shay did continue as she charged, “You acted as if Thomas got the drop on you, but you wanted him to take you.All part of your master plan.If you gave the appearance of a victim, then you could kill him and claim self-defense.”

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