“Who?”
“None of your business.”
He looked to Christian and the others. “Did I not just go over this with him? No? Okay.” With an exaggerated sigh, Brody pulled his phone from his pants’ pocket.
“W-who are you calling?”
“Detective Hansen.”
“You’re calling the cops?” Yorke’s brows shot up. “Why?”
“You don’t want to tell me the person’s name you were speaking with at the time of the shooting, I’m sure Hansen will be more than happy to oblige.”
Truth be told, Brody was livid Christian’s detective friend hadn’t passed that information along before now. Three breaths later, however, he understood why that was.
“You can ask him, but the detective won’t be able to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t know.”
“You keeping secrets from the police, Clay?” Jagger made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Not smart, my man. Not smart at all.”
“Perhaps that’s true, but I can assure you, the private conversation I had was just that. Private. It had nothing to do with the party, and it most definitely was not related to what happened to Aurora. Which is why I didn’t mention it to the detectives.”
“I don’t know, Brody.” Christian shot him a serious look. “Pretty sure omitting pertinent information from an official witness statement would be considered interfering with a police investigation. Of course, that would be up to the police and prosecutor to decide. Don’t you agree?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Brody tapped the phone’s screen—a locked screen he’d purposely kept out of Yorke’s line of sight—and put the device to his ear.
He knew the second he saw the first bead of sweat form on the entitled prick’s exfoliated forehead his bluff was going to work.
“I’m telling you, there’s no need to involve the police with this.”
Brody kept his unwavering stare locked on Yorke’s. “A woman is almost murdered at a party you hosted minutes after being seen with you on stage, and you just happened to sneak off to have a supposed private conversation with someone you refuse to name. You don’t think that’s something the cops would be interested in knowing?”
Christian went on to add, “A conversation that, by your own admission, you purposely left out in your statement to the police.”
“Please. I’m telling you the truth.”
“What did you tell the cops?” Liam spoke up from Brody’s right.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m assuming they asked where you were at the time of the shooting. What lie did you tell them so they wouldn’t know about this alleged mystery person you were meeting with?”
Those eyes bounced back and forth between Liam and Brody. “I-I told them I was taking care of an issue with the caterers.”
“So youdidlie.” Brody kept staring.
“Y-yes. But to the cops, not to you. And I know what you’re thinking, but—”
“You don’t have the slightest fucking clue what I’m thinking.”
York paused a beat before speaking again. And the words he chose were the exact wrong ones to say.
“I think I’d like you to leave.” An audible swallow. “Now.”
“Not until I have that name.”