Page 74 of Cornered

“That makes absolutely no sense.”

Gray talked over him. “And last but not least”—he tapped the desk—“you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Apparently you’re all kinds of jealous and you’ve gone psycho. Those are direct quotes, by the way.”

Donovan couldn’t figure any of this out. “We’re missing something.”

Gray cleared his throat and sat straighter in his chair. “So far, everyone here is either drunk, high, or a truly disturbing combination of both, which has led to everything from belligerence to begging. Nothing that has been said can be used against them or anyone else. I doubt most of them will remember what they told us.”

“How many arrests?”

“Twelve. So far.”

Donovan sat in the chair across from Gray. “Twelve?”

Gray blew out a slow breath. “I’ve never seen anything like this here. But I’ve heard of something similar.”

“What happened?”

“Last year, a new dealer came to the city where a friend of mine is a deputy. This dealer decided to offer free samples. It took a while to figure it out. And they didn’t catch a break until the third event. Six people died over the space of a month at four different bars around the city.”

Donovan considered it. “So a guy comes in, offers a few hits. Then a few more. Maybe people try it who wouldn’t normally or who never had before? Things get out of hand. Or maybe it wasn’t someone who wanted to establish himself. Maybe it was someone who wanted to stir things up.”

“Either one is a valid possibility.” Gray pulled something from the printer behind his desk and handed it to Donovan. “I want you to look over the list of everyone who was there tonight.”

“What am I looking for?”

Gray shrugged. “I have no idea. But I think you’ll know it when you see it.”

Donovan studied the list. At first glance nothing jumped out at him. “Is this everyone?”

“Probably not. That’s just the first list I’ve compiled. When the dust settles, I’ll have Tony start looking through the footage.” Gray pointed to the door. “Close that, please.”

Here we go.Donovan closed the door, then returned to the chair.

“The knife.” Gray shoved another page toward him. On it, a picture of a knife. Thankfully it was not covered in blood. “We need to ask Cassie if it’s hers.”

“It is.” Donovan handed the photo back.

“How do you know?”

“Chefs are serious about their knives. Cassie would bring her knives to my house when she cooked for me. That knife has a small mark near the end.” He pointed to the spot on the photo. “It’s on both sides. She told me the story that when she was in culinary school, she somehow managed to pinch it in a press of some kind. Honestly, I don’t know how she did it. And this is the knife that went missing her second week at Hideaway.”

“So this knife has been missing for two weeks? Why didn’t she report it?”

Donovan rubbed the back of his neck. “She said that she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t lost it.”

“So, she used it, and then she couldn’t find it. So she assumed it was misplaced in the kitchen?”

“Yeah.”

“This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. A guy walks into a bar with a paring knife...” Gray stabbed the photo. “How does a guy walk around with that? It’s not like he could slip it in his pocket without stabbing himself in a delicate area.”

“I don’t care so much about how he got it in the building as I do about why he had it with him. It’s not like he coulduse it to frame Cassie for something. She has an airtight alibi. She was with me.”

“She was with you when the fight went down. But what about later tonight? What if the plan was to commit a crime with the knife and try to frame her for it?”

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