“How do you know about the criminal world?” I reach for the envelope and tuck it into my back pocket.
“My particular position gives me access to some brilliantly sadistic minds. I’ve met some interesting criminals in my interviews.”
A beam of red light gleams through the slightly open window, aiming for Nolan’s shoulder.
Kace found me! But I don’t want them to shoot Nolan or me. By now, they’d no doubt have ears on us.
“So if I leave that door, you’re not going to kill me?”
“I’m not a murderer. I don’t have a gun or a knife,” Nolan explains.
“You’re unarmed?”
“So are you,” he reminds me. “We can help each other or split our different ways here. You can go to the police and confess to shooting your fiancé’s partner and turn me in.”
Original intent aside, I defend myself, “It was an accident.” I’d be discharged and sentenced, but so will she.
“There was blood all over the floor. Not very becoming of a cop… I’d think about my offer.”
I catch the flicker of red again, and so does Nolan. “I was reinstated this morning,” I mumble. Cap had given me the official news when Kace came walking in, begging for me to listen. I stole his phone instead.
Nolan smirks at my revelation. “I know more than you think.”
The door to the shed splinters open. Kace comes in, guns pointing at him. Kace and I share a quick glance that makes me want to crawl under the table and hide, before Nolan stands up and holds his hands up in the air.
The officer behind Kace, decked out in SWAT gear, pulls Nolan’s hands behind his back as he reads him his rights. The whole time Nolan’s eyes are fixed on Kace and me. Watching. Analyzing. Studying.
“Kace…” I whisper.
His arms wrap around me, smashing my nose and face against his hard chest. “We have so much to talk about, but I need you to hear me out when we do.”
“Kace…”
“I’m sorry,” he says through gritted teeth. “I had no idea Frank … She killed our baby because of me, I’m so sorry. I saw it all.”
Before I can ask how Stefanie is, Nolan interrupts, “Detective Dalton?”
Kace instinctively pushes me behind him and confronts Nolan. “What?”
“It took you long enough.”
17
Brilliance
Dr. Nolan Mills
I heard a random car drive through the backroad, on my way from getting the water bottles, and I saw the streak of red light before she did, but there was nothing I could do. Resisting would give them reason to convict, so I made sure not to say anything incriminating.
“We have you on camera, Nolan Mills,” Dalton says after one of the officers reads me my Miranda rights. My charges are trespassing and kidnapping, but not murder. Of course not, all I did was use legal applications to deliver messages and bullets that I legally purchased. As for trespassing and kidnapping, we’ll see about that.
The evidence in this room proves all my subjects were of sound mind and capable of making decisions. I have evidence for each of them with a short description of the study, which they all legally agreed to.
I have nothing on me to the regard of murder; they barely have basis to have my license revoked. All my patients are fairing well, except for the ones in prison, but even they were evaluated and declared of sound mind. According to their confessions, no one was to blame but them.
“You have me on camera saving your fiancé and your unborn child? The air freshener, right? You did mention that being a good place.” Yeah. People always forget what they say in therapy. “Was I not the one who mentioned keeping an eye on Eleanor if you feared for her well-being?”
Detective Dalton grinds his teeth while he holds on to Eleanor. I did that too.
I catch the smirk on Eleanor’s face, even she can attest to my brilliance.
“You’re going to pay for this, Nolan. We know you have access to the stuff we keep in The Tank. You used it for your own benefit.”
IQ3 clearance was on a need to know basis. I’m protected by a non-disclosure agreement with the US Government. I’m not a liberty to tell specifics.
“I solved over fifty unsolved cases. Lock me up today, medal tomorrow, and one day… Noble Prize.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself,” Dalton says, as we walk through the bushes to the squad car. “They don’t give away Noble Prizes for the ‘Most Delusional’ category.”
I laugh softly as they put me in the squad car. “No one ever understands brilliance until they need it. What do you think, Eleanor?”
“Me?” she asks, slightly baffled.
“Did you shoot Stefanie on purpose?”
“Yes, kind of,” she says, earning her a pissed-off glare from Kace.
“Did I tell you to do it?”
“No. It was an accident.”
“Stop talking,” Kace orders both of us.
But I’m not done. “Now you two have a baby you can raise, a relationship with minor hiccups, and closure. Seems to me Eleanor’s motive is much higher than mine, yet I’m the one being taken back in cuffs, and she’s being given special privileges.”
“He’s right,” Eleanor says and turns to Kace. “Arrest me.”
“What?” He rubs his brow and looks over his shoulder at the other officers. “I’ll talk to Frank. She won’t press charges. When we got the call about a gunshot, and our address came through the radio, I thought…”
“That I killed myself?”
“The neighbor was home sick with the stomach virus. She said she heard noise and then a shot, and my head automatically went someplace dark. I swear, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if anything happened to you. I rushed home, and when I saw Frank, I was relieved it was her and not you.”
“She’s pregnant.”
“I know, I checked the camera to see what happened. You shot her in the thigh, she hit her head and lost a lot of blood, but she’ll be fine. There’s nothing incriminating on the video. I mean, nothing we can’t fix.”
I made sure the camera got a clear shot of my face.
“It took us awhile to get footage from the home security company. We knew you didn’t leave through the front, so we searched and found footage of you being kidnapped. I’m just glad we found you before something happened to you.”
“He wasn’t going to hurt me,” she says.
“I wouldn’t,” I chime in. “For the record.”
Kace growls at me. “Shut up!” He focuses back on Eleanor. “You don’t know what his plan was with you.”
“But he’s right, Kace. The reason all of this started for him is because people get away with things. You should arrest me, and if she doesn’t press charges, we’ll see, but I shot her. Accident or not.”
“For fuck’s sake, Eleanor.” Kace puffs air out through his mouth. “Turn around. Put your hands up against the car and spread your legs.”
She does as he says, eyeing me the whole time.