Colorado Mountain series by Kristen Ashley

“Shit,” Kami whispered.

“The money, Kami,” Mick prompted.

She shook her head then looked at me. “Is this confidential?”

“I’m sorry?”

“This interview, will this be made public or anything?” she asked.

“Why?” Mick butted in.

“Because I promised I wouldn’t say anything,” Kami told him.

“About what?” Mick queried.

“About the money, I promised I wouldn’t say anything,” Kami replied.

I leaned toward her. She hadn’t shared this part with me fully, we didn’t have the time, what she had said was that it was all innocent.

“Kami,” I caught her attention, “if you had a reason to borrow that money then you need to tell Mick what it was. He’s trying to remove you from the suspect list. You need to give him all the information he needs to help him do that.”

Kami looked at me and for the first time I saw she was uncertain. “But I promised.”

I leaned closer and touched her arm. “You’re being questioned for a double homicide. I think whoever you promised will understand. If something else is going on here, we need to ask Mick to leave so we can confer.”

Her eyes held mine for long moments then she looked at Mick. “It was for Shauna.”

This surprised me. Shauna again.

My gaze also went to Mick.

“Shauna?” he asked.

“Yeah, she’s…” Kami paused, pulling her hand through her hair, her eyes slid to me then to the side then back to Mick. “She’s in trouble. Money trouble. They were gonna shut off her electric, her water, gas. They already shut off her cable. Her cards are maxed. And she doesn’t have any insurance and she’s pregnant.”

“You gave the money to Shauna?” Mick enquired.

“Yeah,” Kami replied.

Mick turned slightly in his chair so his profile was facing the mirror behind him and he dipped his head, communicating to whoever was watching they were meant to do something.

“I got the permit and I got the gun,” Kami went on, missing Mick’s movements. “It’s never been fired. It’s never even been loaded. It’s in a shoebox in my closet.” Then she leaned forward and repeated, “Mickey, you gotta know, no matter what went down, I’d never hurt Curt, never send death threats and I’d never, not ever, hurt Bitsy.” She bit her lip as her eyes got bright and she finished, repeating, “You gotta know. You know me and you gotta know.”

“All right, Kami,” Mick said gently. “Let us check this out, yeah?”

Kami sat back and turned her face away, nodding. Mick looked at me, rose and walked out of the room.

I turned to Kami. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes came to me and I noticed that Vulnerable Kami was gone, Bitchy Kami was back.

“No, I’m not okay,” she snapped. “I’m sittin’ in a Police Station being questioned as a suspect in a double homicide!”

“Mick’s just doing his job,” I told her. “He’ll check your story and you’ll be fine.”

“I know I’ll be fine. I didn’t do jack, not to Curt, not to Bitsy, hell, I wouldn’t do that shit to anyone. But people’ll know I was questioned.”

“It’s my understanding a lot of people were questioned. Mick even asked Max for his alibi.”

Bitchy Kami escalated to Uber Bitchy Kami and she hissed, “What?”

“The morning after the murder, Mick came to Max’s house, asked for his alibi.”

“That’s not even funny.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I agreed. “But since he had one, it doesn’t matter.”

She looked away, her face tight, her mouth muttering, “That’s just whacked, totally whacked, and Mick knows it.”

I was surprised at her defense of her brother but I wasn’t surprised at her reaction to his news. Everyone felt the same way. More evidence that Curt was in some way responsible for Anna Maxwell’s death and, in being so, the fact that Macho Mountain Man Max didn’t exact retribution then meant he was unlikely to do it now.

Before I could reply, the door opened and Max and Linda walked in.

“I’ll be givin’ Mick Shaughnessy a piece of my mind for this, make no mistake,” Linda declared upon entry.

“What happened?” Max asked me.

“Since Kami explained things to me before we let Mick interview her, obviously she explained things to Mick and answered all his queries. He just needs to check their validity and we can move on,” I told him.

“Thanks, Nina, for helpin’ out,” Linda expressed the gratitude Kami not surprisingly had not.

“Not a problem,” I murmured then offered, “Maybe Max and I can go get some coffees? Would you all like a coffee while we’re waiting?”

“That’d be nice, thanks,” Linda replied.

“Knock yourself out,” Kami muttered.

Max opened his mouth, possibly to protest at leaving his sister or to give Kami a piece of his mind for her attitude but I gave him a look, got up, shrugged on my coat, grabbed my purse and moved to the door. Max read my look and followed.

I waited until we were out of the Station and on the boarded sidewalk before I spoke.

“You should know something,” I whispered, squeezing his hand as he’d taken mine when we left the Station.

“I’m guessin’ this is somethin’ I should know that I won’t like,” Max remarked and I stopped and looked up at him.

Deciding to get it out, I did. “It was Shauna who talked Kami into buying that gun and it was Shauna who needed the money Kami borrowed on the house.”

He stared at me a minute, his jaw tense, his eyes hard then he looked away and muttered, “Fuck.”

I tugged at his hand until he looked back at me then I said, “Okay, now I’m getting into possible slander here but… what if Shauna knew that Curt had made changes to his will around the time she told him she was pregnant?”

“What?”

“She didn’t know that Curt knew he didn’t father her child. What she knew was that there was a possibility he didn’t since she wasn’t exactly faithful to him. Kami said that they’ve turned off her cable and she was close to having the utilities stopped at her house. She needed money, Max, badly, especially having no insurance and a baby on the way. If she knew that he changed the will, she could speculate he changed it in her favor. She was smug before the reading, she thought she’d come out on top. But also she knew if she had the baby and he demanded a DNA test, she would lose everything she worked for. Which would mean she’d need him dead to collect before the truth came out.”