Page 78 of Noctis

“My name’s Rowan,” I said quickly as he started pressing buttons on his phone. “Rowan Hayes. Does that mean anything to you?”

Chapter Twenty-five

Rowan

The pause before Donald said anything was a long one. “Isla’s son?”

I nodded enthusiastically, my hands still raised.

“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing in my house.”

“I know.” There didn’t seem to be any way to play this except by telling the truth. “I can explain. Can we sit somewhere?”

“How did you get in? There was no sign of a break-in.”

Okay. I couldn’t tell the truth about everything. For obvious reasons. “The door was unlocked. I knocked, and when no one answered, I tried the handle and found that it opened. I shouldn’t have come in, but…”

Donald frowned. “I know I didn’t set the alarm because I wasn’t going to be out for long, but I could have sworn I locked the door.”

“You can’t have done. How else could I have gotten in?”

Donald pondered the question for quite some time, the two of us frozen in a strange tableau—him halfway up the stairs while I stood at the top. My arms had begun to ache, so I lowered them cautiously. Hopefully, I’d raised them for long enough that he believed I didn’t have a weapon.

Finally, Donald lowered one foot onto the step below. He jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Let’s go in there.”

I distinctly remembered seeing a knife block on the kitchen counter, but as a trespasser, I could hardly argue for a different room. The important thing was that he hadn’t called the police. How long that remained the case probably depended on what I had to say for myself. He kept his eyes on me while he backed down the rest of the stairs. I waited until he was no longer on them before making my descent, moving deliberately slowly.

By the time I reached the bottom, he was already in the kitchen. I eyed the front door with longing before concluding that running would be stupid, given that I’d already told him who I was.

He’d taken a seat at the kitchen table. I chose the one farthest away from him, and for a moment, we did nothing but stare at each other in silence.

“I’m sure you understand why I’m not offering you refreshments,” Donald said.

I nodded. “Yeah, there isn’t really a perfect drink for I came home and found you in my house when you shouldn’t have been.”

“No, I don’t suppose there is.” He studied me for a moment. “Do you have any ID? I’d prefer to know you are who you say you are.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet, extracting my driver’s license and sliding it across the table toward him.

Donald picked it up, studying it only long enough to check the name before passing it back across. His gaze fastened on the half-open kitchen drawer. “You were in here.” He turned back to face me. “What were you looking for?”

“A ring.”

His expression said it hadn’t been the answer he’d anticipated. “What sort of ring?”

“My mother’s wedding ring.”

“Why would I—?” He stopped before completing the sentence, realization dawning. “You think I had something to do with her death?”

My pulse fluttered, my sweatier than Donald’s now he’d gotten over the initial shock of finding me in his house. “I know the police arrested you.”

“They didn’t arrest me. They brought me in for questioning. There’s a world of difference between the two situations. When they realized I had nothing to hide and that I couldn’t tell them anything more than they already knew, they released me without charge.”

“There are plenty of criminals,” I said, “who get away with things every day.”

“There are,” Donald agreed. “But I’m not one of them? Do I look like a murderer?”

No. “There are plenty of murderers who don’t look like murderers.”