“Thanks for that, SSA Winters. You just sabotaged hours of patient progress. The suspect has barely said a word since she arrived—” Good “—and I was finally getting her to open up.”

Torgerson was young to be a full detective, and not even a little intimidated by his gold shield. Ambitious. Confident in her own abilities. Not what he was hoping for.

“My apologies, Detective Torgerson,” Eban said evenly. “I’m surprised your suspect hadn’t already lawyered up.”

He held the detective’s gaze. He’d told Darby, over and over, not to say a damn thing until either he, or the attorney Haley Cramer was arranging, arrived on scene. This detective had obviously ignored Darby’s request for a lawyer which meant Torgerson was the one who had the issue with procedure. Not him.

The detective looked away. “We were just chatting.”

Eban smiled. Darby was under arrest and the two were not friends. “Chatting?” He raised the inflection of his voice in a friendly questioning manner as he mirrored the last word.

“She called us from the scene but now claims she can’t remember anything that happened. She’s obviously lying.”

“Lying?”

The detective sat on the edge of a table. “Yeah. She cleaned up the scene before she called us and freaked out when we spotted blood on her clothes.”

“Blood?”

“We can’t say for certain it came from the victim yet, but we took her clothes for analysis.”

Eban clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms. The idea of Darby being forced to strip down in front of a stranger. Alone and scared…

A tall, blond, well-dressed white man entered the room on the other side of the window. Eban and the detective both watched as he introduced himself to Darby.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Torgerson muttered under her breath.

“Who is he?” asked Eban, hoping he knew.

“A lawyer.” Detective Torgerson’s lips pinched in annoyance. “A high-priced shark based out of Anchorage. I didn’t think O’Roarke could afford an attorney like him. I figured she’d pull a newbie from the public defender’s office.”

And be easy pickings for another shark, but this one wearing a badge. Thank goodness Darby had rich friends, and what that said about the justice system Eban didn’t like to think about.

From the way Torgerson stared at the attorney, Eban figured they’d clashed before.

“You two know each other?” Eban should feel guilty for wanting to undermine this detective who was simply doing her job, except he did not believe Darby would kill anyone except in self-defense. However, if the police found out what Darby had endured last summer, they might twist the events to suit themselves. Hell, if he didn’t know Darby as intimately as he did, if this was his case, she’d be his prime suspect. She’d done everything except confess.

And he wasn’t about to let her do that.

“We crossed paths a few years ago.” Torgerson eyed him and her expression closed down. She wasn’t about to reveal her secrets any more than he would reveal his. “What is your interest in my case?”