The Trouble with Love

❝ it was over my head ❞

The guy at the desk looked up. "Who are you?"

"A family friend," I replied.

"He's on duty," the guy told me.

I smiled sweetly. "It'll be quick."

"I'll page him," he said, picking up the phone on his desk. "But he might not come."

"That's fine, thank you." I leaned against the desk, waiting. A couple moments later, Shawn walked through one of the doors. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could, he cut me off. "Wait; don't tell me, Ashton Sinclair, right?"

I nodded.

"You know I'm not on that case and can't give you any info, right?" Shawn said.

"Kaden's coming but he wants me wait for him in your office," I told him.

Shawn sighed, then turned and entered the pin for the door behind him. All the doors in the police station had pins and locks so people could only enter or leave with someone who knew the code or had the key. Of course, the only people who were supposed to know we're the officers and detectives.

I followed Shawn through the maze of hallways. He stopped in front of the door with his name on it and entered the pin. "I have to get back to work now. No snooping, alright?"

I nodded. He flicked on the light and looked around with a slightly uneasy expression, before shutting the door and walking away. I paced back and forth in his office for the next couple of minutes, unable to sit still.

Why would the police all of a sudden suspect Ashton? They had been going for Keira for the past week, with her confession and video footage. Ashton couldn't have been on the video as well, they would've taken him with Keira. What else could it have been that made him look guilty?

I froze.

The syringe in his car.

Except, how would they have found that? It wasn't like someone could've passed his car and just happened to see it, then call the police, the syringe had been hidden, and while a syringe was suspicious, it wouldn't cause someone to immediately call the police. Someone could've found it like I did, but I was pretty sure the only people Ashton drove around were his friends and they wouldn't try to get him arrested.

Or would they?

The police couldn't have found it all on their own, they would need a search warrant to search Ashton's car, and to get a search warrant they would need have a very strong lead pointing in his direction. An anonymous tip probably wouldn't be enough for that, especially not when Keira had been such a strong suspect, so that ruled out the person-seeing-it-and-calling-the-police theory.

The only thing that made sense was if someone in the Elite had turned him in after finding the syringe. But who would do that?

The first person that came to mind was, of course, Jacen. He had enough motives- he didn't like Ashton at all, and it was possible if the police starting focusing on Ashton as a suspect, they'd let Keira go. It was like a win-win for him. And while it may not be completely related, he did admit that he would be the one to kill me, so it wasn't like he wouldn't have the guts to do it.

Nathan and Skylar had probably ridden in his car as well, but I wasn't sure what to think about them, since they were both a little bit more uninvolved. Nathan was trying to figure out what was going, yeah, and his girlfriend was in jail, but I don't think he'd throw his brother under the bus to get him out.