Page 45 of A Forgotten Mistake

“We’ll be right outside waiting for the police to call, alright?”

“Okay.”

“Go into your room. You shouldn’t sit out here with him here. Go in and wait for us.”

He gently guides her into the bedroom before coming back and heading out with me.

Gabriel gives me a look as he runs a hand through his dark hair. “They’re still going to boot you off this case the moment they realize she texted youwellbefore she called it in. They’re going to suspect it’s her. You might not even be able to touch the case. I assume you knew that when I got her to agree to call it in. I was just hoping that if it looks like we didn’t turn up, and shecalled it in, we’d have time to work the case before they realized her connection to you.”

“I know,” I say. “But if you’d told her the likelihood that I’ll be kicked off it, she would have insisted on me hiding the body.”

“If I hadn’t been there… would you have?” he asks curiously.

I think about it as we head down the stairs. “I’m not sure what it would have accomplished. Sure, she would have avoided arrest, but at what cost? Someone wants to frame her and if they can’t… will they try to kill her? Something’s not right. And I’m going to figure out what it is.”

“Did anything stand out to you when we were in there?”

“Her knife block was full; if she chose to kill him while filled with emotions, she wouldn’t have gone for a knife in the drawer. The knives in the drawer are rarely the sharpest, being thrown in with other utensils instead of those kept apart. You can’t say she cleaned up the knife and replaced it when her hands hadn’t gotten wet. The way the blood went up her arms was well done, but it wasn’t splattered right. There were areas where the splatter looked to have come from the side.”

“How could she have slept through that? You think she was drugged?”

“I assume she was… or she used herself. We’ll have to see where she was earlier. When I knew her, she took sleeping pills to sleep. I can’t tell you if that’s still a habit or not. Was she unable to sleep because of what happened the other day and took more than she needed so she never heard them enter? Did someone drug her? Of course we won’t get toxicology right away.”

We head out to the car but only move it to the street because we should get the call at any point that tells us to head to the apartment.

“Aren’t you surprised they haven’t called us yet?” Gabriel eventually asks as we watch the apartment. “I would say thateven with her asking for us, they might not have permitted it, but then where are the police?”

I check my phone and see that it’s been almost ten minutes and nothing. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be hearing sirens at this point. Tossing the idea of having her blocked out the window, I call Abby to see what’s going on. It’ll be simple enough to explain that I called in response to her texts, but she doesn’t immediately pick up.

Gabriel asks, “You don’t think she’d have run, right? Do you think she agreed with us just so she could make a run for it?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest,” I admit as the phone rings and rings.

I hang up and sigh before calling the department. “This is Detective Paige. I’ve received urgent texts from Abigail Brown, the suspect in Steven Wong’s murder case. Have you received a call from her?”

“Hold please,” a woman says as I get out of the car and head toward the building. “Nothing. Can you give us an address?”

“Yes.” I rattle off Abby’s address. “Hyde and I are headed there now.”

“Backup will be there shortly.”

After ending the call, I grumble, “I should have just fucking called it in with me standing in the goddamn foyer. What was the sense of this if she wasn’t even going to call it in? I was trying to make it so it at least took a few days for them to realize we knew each other. I was trying to make her look less guilty. Why the fuck did I even care?”

Gabriel reaches over and squeezes my hand, and I’m amazed at how much it calms me down. “Because you were trying to help her and knew that if she called the police herself, the outcome would be best for her. The moment we were pulled into it, it complicated things… and would also make people question what she thought you could do differently. We need to make sure thatno one ever looks into you. I need to protect you more than I need to protect anyone else.”

“I’m fine. I promise I’m extremely safe,” I say. “You don’t ever have to fret about that.”

Gabriel gives me a look like he’s prepared to fret every day for the rest of his life. He really shouldn’t. He’s much too cute to fret.

I knock on the door, but after getting no response, I try the doorknob. “It’s still locked. Would she lock it if she ran?”

“Maybe to delay us?” he asks.

“Possibly,” I say as I see something I hadn’t noticed before. “Was that door cracked earlier?”

“Which door?” Gabriel asks as he looks down the hallway at the door I’m fixated on. It really is hard to see that the door is cracked with the way we’re positioned. I could have missed it the first time, but I don’t think I did. I never miss shit like this.

I pull out my gun and start toward it before knocking on the door. “This is the police, come to the door with your hands up,” I bark.

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