The Note (Unsolved Mysteries Book 1), Kim Knight [love letters to the dead txt] 📗

a hand on the knob, then paused a moment. Her shoulders sagged, rolling forward. A grieving expression masked her face, and she let out a calming breath, preparing for her role. Once in character, she made her way out to Detective Dunne and McDonald.

5

One Step Ahead

Detective Dunne

One hour later, back at the police station, Dunne and McDonald sat opposite of Chelsea in the interview room.

Dunne pressed record on the audio device and double checked the cameras were rolling.

“This is Detective Dunne, present with me is Detective McDonald. This interview is being carried out in Interview Room One.” He paused a moment. “For the purpose of this recording, please confirm your name.”

“Chelsea Jackson.”

“Date of birth, Miss Jackson.” Dunne glanced at her.

“Twentieth of March 1983.”

“Chelsea, as mentioned, this interview is part of an enquiry into the death of your late boyfriend, Mr. Patel—”

“I understand. Can we just get this over with? I’ve got nothing to hide. I’ve always wanted to find his murderer.”

“Fair enough.” Dunne reached for the remote control on the table. “Take a look at this.” He pressed play and watched Chelsea’s reaction closely.

A red blush rose up her neck and touched her cheeks. Her eyes moved over the screen, then she sucked in a gasp as if in shock. For a second, a deep frown covered her lips and a perfectly arched brow cocked toward the screen. The vulnerable, innocent girl look she wore vanished, replaced by a poker face. Her chest rose and fell deeply, she narrowed her eyes and stared off into space, averting her eyes from the screen.

Dunne loved this part, when a suspect realised he was one step ahead of them. He took full advantage and tried to break her down further.

“Chelsea, you okay?” He asked.

Sarcasm dripped from his response, “looks like a pretty intimate moment you were having there, but that’s not Tony is it?”

Dunne noticed her energy shift from the grief-stricken girlfriend to pissed off—it was tangible. He focused in on Chelsea for a moment as she stared off into space and avoided his eye contact. Visibly he noticed her try to control her breathing. He watched the muscles of her jaws twitch, then she grinded her teeth together.

Images of her and an unknown man in a car moved over the screen. In the visual scene, Chelsea’s head dipped low into the man’s lap. He moved his focus from the video back to her, Chelsea rolled her eyes and exhaled a long sigh.

Dunne adjusted his chair to lean back. There was no mistake over what was taking place in the recording. The camera became unsteady as it zoomed in slightly, and the man in the car grabbed a handful of Chelsea’s hair, pulling her head up from his lap, then kissed her. Once the kiss ended, Chelsea straddled the man’s lap. Dunne shifted his eyes from the scene back to Chelsea.

She let out yet another frustrated breath, then drummed the already worn wooden table with her manicured fingernails.

“Switch it off,” she said, “I’ve seen enough.”

Dunne let the video play on for a moment longer and observed her while she fidgeted in her chair, she stopped drumming her nails on the table. Instead, she chewed the skin around her nails. A habit he thought was disgusting but recognised as a tell-tale sign she was about to break. He wrinkled his nose, then moved his gaze over her further, and noticed her right leg bounced up and down, he felt the vibration against the table.

“I said, switch it off!” Chelsea’s voice bellowed around the small interview room,

“where the hell did you get that?”

Dunne ignored her question. He flipped open his notepad to check his notes. McDonald paused the tape and took over the interview.

“Chelsea, for the purpose of the tape recording,” McDonald pointed to the screen, “can you confirm who that is in the video footage?”

Dunne watched her closely he noted that, Chelsea shifted her pinched-up expression from the screen, over to face him. She sat upright, chewed the inside of her lip, then moved her gaze back and forth between him and McDonald, as if she tried to read them. Dunne remained emotionless on purpose. His poker face gave nothing away.

To Dunne as he took a back seat and let his partner call the shots, it appeared that her brain was ticking. She straightened her back, opened her mouth as if to talk then closed it.

“Well, let me explain,” she started, “that was me. And . . . he, uhm . . . that’s a f-friend of mine.”

“A friend?”

McDonald questioned as he rose an eyebrow in her direction. “Chelsea, according to the date of this recording you were in a relationship with Tony Patel. He turned up dead three days later.”

Dunne bit his lip in anticipation of her excuses as he noticed Chelsea fiddle with the hem on the sleeve of her jacket across the table. She twisted the material tightly around her fingers.

“Yes, we were together.”

She responded as she blushed then looked away from McDonald’s intense gaze.

“Chelsea, in your own words what took place in that car between you and this man?” McDonald continued.

“We had sex, okay. Yes! We had sex.”

“So, who is he?”

“A friend.”

“Name?”

“Why what does this have to do with anything? You need to focus on finding Tony’s murderer not who I had a two second fling with!”

Dunne glanced at his partner, McDonald’s ice blue eyes were trained on Chelsea, “name, please Chelsea.” He pushed on and ignored her comments.

“Lance Duncan, he owns a garage near my office. One day my car broke down and we got talking.”

Dunne noted down the name and returned his glance to Chelsea. “You mean you were more than friends, by the looks of it?” Dunne nodded in the direction of the frozen video clip on the screen showing Chelsea straddling the man. Chelsea shifted in her chair nervously, every move she made Dunne scrutinised.

“Yes. You could say so.”

“How long were you seeing Lance?” Dunne asked.

She glanced back at the screen.

He noticed the hesitation in