Eban made his expression and stance less intimidating. “Not like?” He knew what she was going to say but made himself move beyond the anger into a place where he could get answers.

“Not like she’ll need it in prison.”

Prison? Darby hadn’t even spent the night in jail yet and this woman had her locked up in prison.

“You’re friends?” he softened his tone.

“Yes, well, kind of. We both work in the Volcanology section at the Geophysical Institute. I only started this September and we have different supervisors, but we hang out with the same group of people.”

“You have a key?” He noticed she clutched one in her one hand.

She shook her head. “Davis and Stef—two other students from the Institute—live in this building and have a key to her place that they said I could borrow. Darby has a key to their place too.”

Good to know. “You want to come look for that book now?”

She licked her lips. Shook her head. “It’s okay. I’ll come back another time.”

“Actually, you won’t be able to without Darby’s explicit approval. I’m going to need that key.” He made sure his creds were visible when he made the request. “So, it’s now or never.” He was more interested in observing this woman’s behavior than letting her take anything.

She shook her head again and reluctantly handed over the key. “Davis and Stef are going to kill me.” She blanched at her words then backed away before turning and half jogging down the hallway to the stairs.

Eban went back to Darby’s apartment and added Lenny, Davis and Stef to his list of suspects. Inside, he gathered up the bags of Darby’s belongings. Did he have everything she might need? He had no idea, but they could buy anything he’d missed.

He made sure to lock the deadbolt so the apartment was secure when he left. He didn’t want anyone else wandering into her space and who knew when Darby would be back?

He checked the time. There was one more thing he wanted to do before he went back to the police department and picked up Darby. But he didn’t have a lot of time.

* * *

Darby sat in a jail cell that had a cot and a stainless-steel toilet with no seat. The room smelled like a public restroom. A camera was mounted on the wall. No matter how desperately she needed to pee the idea of strangers watching her use the facilities felt like yet another humiliation. An underscoring of a life spiraling out of control before crashing to rock bottom.

She rested her forehead in the palms of her hands and stared at the rubberized gray floor. At least she was alone.

How was this her existence now? She’d gone from beginning to find her place in the world again, to being arrested on suspicion of murder, read her rights, fingerprints taken and booked. Ironic that she thought she’d already lived through the worst nightmare imaginable. Apparently, there were layers to hell. She’d been naive to believe otherwise.