“And the night before? When she was killed?”

“Getting my beauty sleep.” She sniffs again.

“Okay. Marshall?”

“I was at home with my mom on Friday night and here working on something for Bekah on Saturday when y’all were at lunch.”

“Ooookay.” I breathe out slowly and nod. “Thanks. Y’all can get back to work now.” Then I wait until the door has been shut for several moments and there’s no noise outside before meeting Bekah’s eyes.

“Uh oh,” she whispers.

“Mike is lying. So is Grecia. I’ll call Danielle and Alison tonight to confirm Dean’s alibi, but we can rule him out, I think. Same with Marshall, but you call his mom. Her number is on file.”

“You really think Mike and Grecia are lyin’?”

I nod sadly, a heavy feeling in my stomach. “Whether it’s to do with Lena or not, I don’t know. But they definitely weren’t where they said they were.”

“Grecia said she was at Chuy’s. You want me to confirm that?”

“Already done,” Drake Nash drawls from the doorway.

“Were you a boomerang in a previous life?” My eyes find his. “You just keep comin’ back here, huh?”

“Can’t stay away,” he says, sarcasm heavy in his tone. “Grecia was at Chuy’s when she said. I already called the manager.”

“Told you,” Bekah muses. “Ninety pounds of taco and quesadilla.”

“Probably Corona, too,” I reason.

“Whereas we’re a hundred and forty pounds of cupcake and margarita,” she sighs.

“Probably forty-five at this point if we’re honest with ourselves, and that’s pushing it.”

“I’ve never known anyone to go off on a tangent as much as you two. You especially,” Drake snaps, looking at me. “You’re investigating a murder.”

“No shit. You fancy yourself as the next Sherlock? ’Cause Cumberbatch is way prettier to look at,” I lie, my hackles rising.

Truth is, not many people have anything on Drake Nash in the looks department. Especially not when he’s rocking a five-o’clock shadow the way he is right now.

Shit me. If I didn’t think I’d be tempted to uppercut him, I’d probably run my fingers across that stubbly jaw and purr.

“You’re kind of cute when you get defensive,” he replies with a smirk. “Do you realize your ‘potential’ suspect was a total dead end?”

“After I talked to her, I did.”

“I knew you didn’t come straight back here.” His eyes glint with annoyance and amusement. “Since you know how she died anyway, and I’m assuming Rebekah does, too”—he cuts his gaze to her for a brief second before it finds its way back to me—“Tim is putting hemlock poison, ingested, as her cause of death on the death certificate. Toxicology reports found it in her stomach. All the torture was inflicted on her as the poison killed her.”

I shudder. The first thing I did when I got home yesterday was research hemlock poisoning, and I needed a good measure of Jack Daniel’s once I’d finished to wipe the memory of Lena’s body and her suffering from my mind.

Every part of the hemlock plant is poisonous. It can take as little as fifteen minutes for symptoms to set in, but when they do, they’re horrific. The muscles weaken at a fairly rapid speed, causing extreme pain and paralysis. Sight can be lost as the muscles deteriorate and die, but the mind stays fully awake until the moment of death.

Basically, Lena Perkins was fully aware of every ounce of torture her killer was inflicting on her. She felt the poison threading through her veins and leaking out into the rest of her body, freezing her inch by inch until everything but her mind was rendered useless.

She absolutely knew she was dying.

I wouldn’t wish that death upon my worst enemy.

“Poor Lena,” I whisper, breaking eye contact for a moment. “So, what are you doing here?”

“To tell you that I meant what I said. Stay away from my investigation, Ms. Bond.”

“Detective Nash, please be assured that I have no desire to be a part of it. I have everythin’ I need from the HWPD.” I pat the autopsy report with a small smile. “Now, be a doll and keep out of my investigation.”

Slowly, Drake backs toward the door. He pauses and points at me, his biceps flexing. “Remember—you get anythin’ at all that could tell us who the killer is, you call me.”

I stand sharply and flatten my hands on my desk. I focus on him with angry eyes. “I’m a private investigator, but I’m not stupid. I’m not tryin’ to step on your toes. I’m tryin’ to do the job I’ve been trained to do. So, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate if you’d go and do yours and refrain from insulting me every time our paths cross, or I’ll report you for police harassment.”

“Are you threatening me, Noelle?”

“You bet your fine ass I am, Drake. Now, get out of my building before I have my two-hundred-and-eighty-pound ex-marine help you remember where the door is.”

I stare him down for exactly fifteen seconds before he turns and leaves.

“Sometimes,” Bekah says, “you’re real damn lucky your family is on the police force.”

Tell me about it.

I’ve decided that I’ve had just about enough of Drake Nash thinking he can control every inch of my investigation by sticking his nose into it. He—and, by default, the HWPD—are so far up my freakin’ backside that I’m starting to get piles from trying to get rid of them.

And, really, it’s not my fault that my file has given them nothing to work from. I could have warned him, but eh. He’s such a righteous bastard that it was much more amusing seeing him figure it out himself. Even if he is determined to get me off this investigation.

I’m trying to figure out what kind of women Drake works with, because if they roll over backwards for him, I’m on the fence as to whether or not they’re cop material. There’s doing as you’re told and then being bullied into doing something.

Drake is undoubtedly attempting to bully me into stopping. Unfortunately for him, I’m not afraid of him or of his scare tactics. They’re pathetic, and he’s beginning to look a lot like a petulant child.

Maybe he just doesn’t like the competition. Maybe he hates the fact that someone in Holly Woods doesn’t trust the police force to find the murderer, but they trust a poor, little woman to do it.

News flash: I’m not a poor, little woman. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old badass who has more guns than probably should be allowed on one permit. I’m not planning on bringing that up with the Government any time soon, but by badass, I mean I have three guns within grabbing distance at all times.

I don’t believe in overkill.

After Drake left, it became clearer than ever that what the big bad detective is scared of is being made to look a fool by the little private eye. If I solve this case before him, then he’s going to look like the world’s largest idiot in front of his bosses.

I’m not interested in feeding his ego. I’m interested in finding the asshole who killed my friend.

“Lena’s store goes to you now, correct?”

Ryan nods. “I don’t know what to do with it. She ran it by herself…but I can’t stand to sell it.”

“That’s okay,” I soothe him. “You have plenty of time to figure it out. Now, I hate to ask you this, but did Lena have any enemies? Business deals gone wrong? Maybe some dissatisfied customers?”

“Not that I know of. She’d been trading with the same two suppliers since she opened the store three years ago, and she was the sweetest woman I’ve ever known.” His voice cracks. “Even if something was wrong, she always made sure her customers were happy before they left the store.”

That I know to be true. Once, I bought a pair of shoes from her and the heel snapped off the first time I wore them. I let her know next time I saw her, and she all but dragged me into the store to replace them. Then she bought me a coffee to apologize, because that’s just the kind of person Lena was.