I didn’t cuff him. I went so far as to let him ride to the station with Travis on the promise it was kept quiet. If it came to light there was a trial and proper police procedure wasn’t followed—no matter how small the procedure—it could backfire on all of us.
When Casey arrived his eyes were red rimmed and raw, but he held his chin high as he followed us in.
We arranged his drug test to screen for Rohypnol. Then we bagged his tux while he changed into a pair of jeans, tee shirt, and hoodie Travis brought with them from his loft.
Travis went to the waiting area and I led Casey to an interview room. It held nothing but a table, four chairs, and a security camera in the corner. I pulled out a seat and indicated for him to sit down.
He just sat down when Gabriella opened the door and strode in. I took the seat beside him and she barely spared me a glance before focusing on Casey. “Casey Zachariah Daniels?”
He nodded.
“I’m Detective Valdez,” she told him, placing the folder on the table in front of her without sitting down. Gabriella chose to stand, casually putting her hands in her pockets as she watched Casey carefully. “I’m in charge of the Paterson case.”
I sat forward, interested to see how she would handle the interview. She started by reading him his rights and offering a lawyer.
“No,” he replied, staring her down. She didn’t blink. “I don’t want to waste time with a lawyer. Let’s get this over with.”
“Okay. Good. We’ll start with going over the events of yesterday, from the moment you woke until the last thing you can remember.”
Casey eyes flicked to mine and I read the silent question in them. “You can trust Detective Valdez.”
Clearing his throat, he ran through his day, Gabriella peppering him with questions along the way until he got to last night’s party.
“You and Grace argued,” she recounted, flicking through pages from the folder on the table. She ran her eyes over the report in front of her then cocked her head at Casey speculatively. “You got violent. Tell me, do you always get violent when you’re drunk?”
Casey slammed to his feet. “You bitch!”
“Hey!” My protective instincts kicked into gear and I planted a hand on Casey’s chest, shoving him back in his chair. His glare shifted from Gabriella to me. I held his eyes. “Not helping. Just answer the question.”
“Déjame manejar esto o salir!” Gabriella snapped at me. “Let me handle this or get out.”
I held up my hands, re-taking my seat with an arched brow. “Seguir adelante,” I replied with my small knowledge of Spanish, telling her to go ahead.
Nostrils flaring, she looked back at Casey, waiting.
“No. I don’t,” he replied, answering her question.
“So what were you arguing about that caused this … unusual reaction from you? She cheat on you? Steal? Lie? Threaten you?”
Casey drew a deep breath before facing Gabriella with expressionless eyes. I knew that look. Whatever was underneath it hurt like a sonofabitch. “That’s none of your business,” he told her.
Gabriella slapped her hands down hard on the table and jammed her face right in his. “Grace is now my business, comprende? You withholding information will only drag this process out!”
Casey’s jaw ticked. “Grace has cancer,” he bit out. “I only just found out.”
I closed my eyes. How many hits could one man take before he just couldn’t get up anymore? Did Henry know? Wasn’t that how their mother died?
“And that made you … angry?” Gabriella continued, inflecting her tone with incredulity.
“Yes. She lied to me about it. I only found out last night after talking on the phone with John, her best friend,” he explained.
“Even still, you don’t think your reaction was excessive?” She flicked through another page of her report and read out a small section. “He threatened to ‘rip my head off,’” she quoted, “says an eyewitness to your outside argument.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Casey growled, jerking angrily in his chair. “He was taking a photo of us arguing on his phone.”
I looked at Gabriella. “I would’ve threatened the guy too if I’d seen him do that.”
Her gaze went from me back to Casey and she shrugged. “I probably would’ve bypassed the threat and just gone straight for the punch myself.” I didn’t doubt her despite the casual delivery of her comment. I’d seen Gabriella in action from our training days on the mat. She was able to take out even the biggest guy in our class without breaking a sweat. Flicking over another page, she drew a deep breath. “So let’s go back to Morgan. You say she was at the bar?” She checked some of her scrawled notes, reading from them out loud as she spoke. “After having said to you that very same day, ‘I don’t take kindly to being backed into a corner,’ which came just before you backed her into that very same corner by giving her a two day ultimatum?”