Page 25 of Deadly Sins: Lust

At the moment, the only thing Irealizedwas that I was getting nowhere, and he was becoming increasingly fidgety. “Can I show you something?”

“I have to go. Dress rehearsal is in a couple hours, and they need these bouquet thingies. I don’t know what I’m doing talking to you anyway.”

“I do. You cared for Marissa, and there’s some small part of you that feels unsettled about the way she died. Right?”

He unlocked the car with the key fob, ducked his head inside, and set the sack on the passenger seat.

I held a photo I’d snapped of the brown string in front of him. “Have you ever seen this before?”

He glanced at me like I was a lunatic and then looked at the photo and said, “Hard to even see what this is.”

“Close as I can tell, it’s string from a piece of clothing, or a necklace, or a bracelet, maybe.”

He shrugged. “No idea.”

He backed out of the parking stall, and I stood there, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop him this time.

“I messed that up,” I said.

“You did great,” Maddie said. “He didn’t say much, but he did talk.”

“He knows something. Something important. And I didn’t do a good enough job of getting it out of him. I feel like the truth is right in front of me, but I still don’t see it.”

“What do you want to do now?”

I needed to process everything I’d heard and seen so far—every conversation, every bit of evidence, every motive, starting at the beginning.

I decided to return to the beginning, to where it all began—the lagoon. We crossed the street and headed down the walking path.

A car pulled alongside. Shawn was back. He put his window down. “Where did you get that photo?”

“I can’t say,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Then tell me where those fibers were found.”

“They were caught on the back of the dress Marissa was wearing when she died, and that night, she’d been wearing a red dress, which was made of an entirely different fabric than these fibers. Do you recognize it?”

“Show it to me again.”

I showed him. He zoomed in, scanning the photo for a time, and then he swallowed hard. “It can’t be. She wouldn’t have. Howcouldshe?”

“Who are you talking about, Shawn?”

“This is such a mess ... such a total mess. I loved Marissa.”

“You used to be in a relationship together. Of course you did.”

“That’s the thing ... we weren’t together.”

“I don’t follow,” I said. “She told Nick you left notes on her car after the breakup.”

“She lied to protect herself. I didn’t write those notes. It wasn’t me.”

“Then who was it? Do you know?”

“I wanted to believe it was an accident, but now ... now I don’t know what to think. I should have been there, should have protected her. But how could I have known?”

I leaned inside his car window. “Protect her now, Shawn. Give her the justice she deserves.”