Page 56 of Wicked and Ruthless

“Hi, Mr. Scott.”

“Just Nash, okay? I want you to relax. You’re with people who will do anything to protect you.” She nodded nervously, and he gave the girl props for her courage. “Haisley is going to ask you questions. Nothing hard. I’m happy to help or clarify if you need me to, but I promise you’re in the best hands. She’s great.”

Haisley flashed him a surprised glance as she stripped off her coat and hung it on the back of her chair before giving Abby her full attention. “Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I know you’ve been asked a lot of questions.”

“Not really. The detective who spoke to me only asked if I saw any part of the two most recent disappearances. I didn’t work here for any of the others. But I wasn’t scheduled for a shift during the abduction last September because school had just started. I didn’t see anything on Christmas Eve. It was too crowded. Once Officer Haskins heard that, he was done with me.”

Haisley’s face tightened. For a moment, she looked as annoyed as he felt, but she did a great job of smoothing her expression and giving Abby an encouraging nod. “I’m guessing Nash asked you a lot more questions.”

“And the guy he was with, yeah. Ethan? Is he here?” she asked softly, a little blush staining her cheeks.

Nash reared back. Holy shit. Maybe Abby hadn’t been intimidated by him as much as she’d been tongue-tied around pretty-boy Ethan. He hadn’t seen that coming…

“He’s working another angle of the case.”

“Oh.” She looked a little disappointed.

He and Haisley exchanged a glance. Clearly, this development surprised her, too.

Thankfully, she didn’t let that derail her. “Do you remember seeing anything odd recently? Or potentially dangerous?”

“A-a few things. Maybe. I’ve complained more than once that the janitor is creepy. I guess it’s his job to lurk around the bathrooms and clean them. I don’t look on the other side of the food court where the men’s room is, but he doesn’t spend as much time there as he does slinking around the women’s room. I know that doesn’t make him actually guilty of anything, but I’m putting it out there.”

“You’re doing great. Every detail helps. We just want to hear whatever you’ve noticed that caught your eye. Has he done anything you would consider threatening or over the line?”

“Not specifically. He just stares a lot.” She shivered. “Like I said, he’s creepy.”

Abby was right. The janitor’s behavior sounded shady, but that didn’t make him guilty. On the other hand, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a person of interest since he’d come up in multiple interviews. Nash had intended to sit down with him anyway, but now he’d grill the dude.

“I know it can be tough and scary to work around someone who hits your ick button,” Haisley empathized, making the girl feel heard and validated.

“Oh, my god. Exactly! He just gives me the willies, and I can’t even…”

“I get it. But nothing specific that made you think he might be involved with the kidnappings?”

Abby shrugged. “I just feel like he watches all the girls at the mall, especially the pretty ones. He doesn’t actually say anything, but he leers. It’s gross.”

Haisley sent her a sympathetic smile. “Are you ever asked to take out the trash down that hall and through the door to the bins out back?”

“Not anymore. My manager makes the guys do that. Or it stacks up until she can do it. But all the girls around my age know better.”

“When you use that bathroom yourself, have you noticed anyone or anything else that made you anxious or uncomfortable?”

Abby shifted her gaze, then glanced toward the hallway in question. “When I work evening shifts, I try to hold it. It’s a long four hours, but I can usually make it. Weekends are a full shift, though. I wait to use my lunch hour to walk to another bathroom, but I can’t always make it, especially if it’s…you know, that time of the month.”

She whispered the words so softly, Nash barely heard. Poor thing seemed embarrassed about mentioning her period in front of a man. She had no way of knowing that, growing up, he had three sisters with whom he and his four other brothers shared a single bathroom. He lacked delicate sensibilities when it came to menstrual cycles. They were merely a fact of life.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Haisley assured. “Go on.”

“Well…”

Nash couldn’t tear his gaze away from Haisley’s profile as she listened to Abby. The determined set of her jaw and the keen intelligence sparking in her eyes as she absorbed every word mesmerized him.

God, she was incredible. A force of nature in her own right, with a knack for reading people and getting them to open up that left him in awe. He’d always known she was whip-smart and tenacious, but seeing her effortlessly accomplish what he hadn’t been able to made his heart swell with fierce pride and admiration.

And a bone-deep, unshakable love that felt like a battering ram to the chest.

“The night not too long ago, when one of the girls got away? I was going to run to my car because I’d left my phone in my glovebox. It wasn’t quite dark yet, so I thought it might be safe, and my mom was probably getting frantic that I hadn’t checked in. But when I opened the door to sneak out to the parking lot, I spotted a brown van and a guy in a dark skull cap hanging around. He bolted the second he saw me.”

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