Janelle cursed her timing as she reached her driveway on her bike after running to the nearby convenience store for smokes. As soon as she rolled up the driveway, the police were right behind her. Her heart began to hammer in her chest—she knew it had something to do with Ramona.
She got off the bike just as a police officer stepped out of his cruiser.
"What now?" Janelle asked.
"We just want to talk," the officer said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "That's all. If you come with me now, I'll have you back home in less than half an hour."
"What has to be done at the station that can’t be handled right here?"
"Paperwork. I need a written statement from you. That's all. You're not in any trouble or under arrest."
"Statement about what?" Janelle opened the garage door. "Wasn't the interview from a few days ago enough? My husband and I were down at the station talking to a detective."
"We know. The detective forgot to get your statement in writing. He has a heavy caseload at the moment, and it slipped his mind."
Eyeing the officer suspiciously, Janelle wheeled her bike into the garage. "My husband won’t be home for a couple of hours."
"That's okay. Like I said, we'll have you back here in half an hour or less."
"Well, don’t you need a statement from him too?"
The officer nodded. "When you get back, you can tell him to call the precinct and see if his statement is needed or if just one of you filing will be enough. That decision isn’t up to me. The final call is up to the detective in charge of the McNeil case."
Janelle then noticed the other officer sitting in the cruiser. Hesitantly, she agreed to go with them, hoping to hell she wouldn’t regret it.
Once settled in the back seat, she asked, "Can I ask a question?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why do you need both me and my husband to give verbal and written statements about an accident that neither of us witnessed?"
The two officers exchanged a glance, but the one in the passenger seat remained silent, raising Janelle’s suspicions—and her fear.
"It’s just a common formality. We have strict procedures to follow. If there’s any more information, the detective on the case will surely provide it."
Janelle sat quietly, a bad feeling gnawing at her gut. The ride to the station seemed to take forever.
Once there, they led her down a short hall into a small, windowless room, much like the one she and Steven had been in during their previous interview. This room was deeper than it was wide, with two small tables and a few chairs. One table was at the back, and the other was against the side wall. They asked Janelle to sit at the table in the back.
She waited for what felt like an eternity. Home in half an hour or less, she thought sarcastically. Yeah, right.
Eventually, a detective entered the room, but it wasn’t the same one. This was a slim white man in his late 40s with a mustache and graying hair around his temples.
"Hello," he said, his tone professional.
"Hello. You’ve got some paperwork for me to fill out or sign?"
"Yeah," the detective said, taking a seat at the table against the side wall, barely a foot away from where Janelle sat.
Janelle shifted slightly.
Sensing her discomfort—exactly as he hoped and wanted—the detective turned toward her, closing the gap. "I’m Detective Gates. I was just wondering how well you knew Ramona McNeil."
Janelle tried to hide her annoyance. "As I’ve told you guys more than once—not well."
"You can’t think of anyone who would want to harm her?"
"No, I can’t. And again, I thought this was supposed to be an accident. Did something happen that my husband and I haven’t been told about?"
The detective dragged out his response. "Well..."
"Sir," Janelle interrupted, "I was told I was here just to sign some papers and be taken home afterward. My husband is at work and will be worried if he comes home and I’m not there."
"I understand. We’ll let you call home if things run late. I just wanted to know what else you could tell me." He edged closer.
Janelle scooted away. "I don’t understand your question."
"I just wonder if you might know more than you’re letting on."
Janelle’s eyes darkened. "And I wonder if you’re only questioning me because I’m Janelle Stone."
The detective didn’t miss the freakishly darkening eyes. "I’m questioning you because my experience tells me you’ve got something to hide, and I want to know what it is." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"Could you please get out of my personal space? You’re making me uncomfortable, and this isn’t going to get you what you want."
Detective Gates felt an unsettling chill run down his spine—something he had never experienced before with any female suspect. "You said she taunted you about your weight."
"Yeah, so? People have done that all my life. Do you want me to purger myself and lie and say I killed her for it?"
"Well, here’s what I think, Miss Stone." He leaned even closer.
Instead of scooting away, Janelle stuck her foot out and pushed the detective’s chair away from her.
Gates, too focused on getting a confession, didn’t question how someone smaller than him could push him back. "I think you got fed up with her insults and pushed her into the pool, knowing she couldn’t swim."
"That never happened."
The detective moved closer again.
Janelle pushed him back once more.
He exploded. "Don’t put your foot on this chair again!"
"Then stop hanging on me like a little pervert!" Janelle shouted.
Under different circumstances, the detective might have found that funny. But he was only getting angrier. "Janelle, you’re looking at years this time, and I mean years."
"I never touched the woman."
"You’re not looking at days, not even weeks."
"I said I never touched her!"
Gates got right in her face, and now he could see the fear in her eyes. "You’re looking at years. You’re going down this time. Hard."
They stared each other down for a long, tense minute. Then, in a flash, Janelle shot out of her chair and bolted past him. She flung the door open and sprinted down the hall, out of the building, Gates calling after her.
"Get back here!"
But Janelle kept running.
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