The Stranger, Mark Ayre [microsoft ebook reader .TXT] 📗

The murder weapon was gone, but Abbie had no doubt Danny's killer had stabbed him repeatedly with some kind of blade.

Not a pleasant way to go.

Forcing herself away from the body, Abbie returned to the stunned Eddie. With little of value to say, she instead rolled out a cliche.

"I'm so sorry for your loss."

Hadn't she said the same to Jess yesterday? Here was a man who had not so long ago lost his baby. Now his baby brother. Abbie wished she couldn't imagine his pain, but she was one of the few people who could say, I know how you must be feeling, and mean it.

Unlike with Jess, Abbie would not use her past to connect with Eddie.

Which left her with precious little idea what to say.

"The police are on their way," was what she went for. "Maybe we should get you downstairs. Get you a drink or something. I know this is hard—"

She touched his arm, and he jerked away. With his pale skin, wide eyes and the trembling finger he raised to point at her, it was as though he'd seen his brother's ghost rather than the living Abbie.

Before he spoke, she knew what he was going to say. Planning to head him off, she spoke his name, but he cut her up.

"You did this," he said. "You killed my brother."

She spoke his name again. Before she could say another word, Eddie released the most awful, guttural cry of pain and fury.

And attacked.

Seven

Eddie’s attack was blind, wild. It took no effort for Abbie to step aside, grab his arm, and use his momentum to discard him.

Had he been an enemy, or merely someone who had pissed her off, as had Danny the previous evening, she would have spun him into the desk. Possibly smashing his face into the solid wood for good measure.

As he was a grieving brother and kind man, Abbie didn’t want to hurt Eddie. Instead of the desk, she swung him towards the bed, allowing him to land on his back and bounce. No pain. For either of them.

Of course, this method did nothing to prevent Eddie coming again. Immediately, he started to rise. Because he was lying and she standing above him, it was easy for Abbie to position herself in such a way that, whenever he tried to rise, she could plant a palm in the centre of his chest and return him to the bed.

Like a rabid animal, he snapped and snarled every time she pushed him down. Unlike an animal, his eyes were wet from tears.

“Stop this,” she said, after his third attempt to rise. “You’ll do nothing but wear yourself out.”

“You killed him. I trusted you. I can’t believe I trusted you.”

“You want someone to blame. I get that. You know this wasn’t me. I was next door to you, and that spare bed of yours creaks something awful. Wasn’t too comfortable either, though I didn’t mention it. Didn’t want to seem ungrateful.”

His eyes burned with rage and grief. Abbie closed hers a moment, then sighed.

“This wasn’t me.”

“You called someone,” he said. “You did this.”

She shook her head. But what was the point? He would never believe her. All the progress she had made yesterday with Jess, gone in a second.

“I’m sorry about Danny,” she said. “I will find out who did this.”

This was indeed her intention. Not because she felt a strong need to avenge Danny but because she felt finding his killer would enable her to save Eddie’s life. And wasn’t that her primary goal? No. Her only goal.

Eddie didn’t want to hear it. Promising to find Danny’s killer was pointless when Eddie already believed he was looking at her. He made as though he was trying to rise then rolled, tumbling off the bed on the opposite side to where Danny lay. As Abbie turned, he rose and stumbled back.

“Please don’t attack me,” said Abbie. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But grief and rage are the enemies of reason. Had Abbie possessed both gun and sword, Eddie still would have attacked if given the time. Before he got the chance, a frightened Glenda appeared in the doorway.

“The police,” she said, sounding lost. “The police are outside.”

A bland room, lacking both colour and warmth. Featuring nothing other than a solid table and four chairs, two tubes of light fixed into the ceiling, and a sturdy door. There were no windows nor a mirror. Neither the fake kind, that allowed police officers to observe interviews from an adjacent room, nor the honest sort, within which Abbie might have checked the state of the bags under her eyes. Perhaps that she couldn't was for the best.

Abbie was not under arrest. She was, in police phraseology, A Person of Interest. There was no real reason to believe she had been involved in Danny's murder, other than that he had been killed in a room for which she was paying. Her case had not been helped by Eddie. Following Glenda's declaration, he had stormed outside. Abbie had followed, and when she appeared from the hotel, she'd heard Eddie gibbering about how Abbie had murdered his brother. Calm, collected, Abbie had presented herself to the police, explained that she had arrived with Eddie to find Danny dead, and offered to come to the station to answer any questions.

In separate cars, Abbie and Eddie had been driven to the local police station. There was no reason to believe Abbie had been involved in Danny's murder, yet she had been waiting to be questioned in this pokey room, alone, for over an hour. Frustrating, but expected. The police would be talking to Eddie, extracting from him every piece of information they could. Leaving Abbie was a precaution. If she was guilty, they hoped to give her time to become worked up and agitated. When they arrived and told her they had spoken to Eddie, they would leave a pause, hoping she would break down and confess