Familiar Foe √

16. Faraway

   
      It was bothersome how comfortable I had gotten in the Coker house. Not comfortable enough to stay back in the kitchen and make pancakes but to shower like I would in my own bathroom and collapse on the bed in the guestroom like I had been doing it for years, months at least.

Charles sounded exhausted when I called him. With Damola Coker out of the picture, he had continued his search for Mrs. Coker's Anthony Joshua. For some reason, that part of the case had become a mission for him, like a small piece of a large puzzle he had to find.

"I am running out of options here." He sighed.

"Let it be for a while? There are a lot more angles you can fixate on."

"Yeah, since you keep coming up with ridiculous theories."

"I thought you liked that about me."
He laughed gently.

"Of course I do. Did you talk to Sade?"

"I did and she said Theodore knows about the cameras."
He hummed.

"You know some of his neighbors said they saw him leave late that night. Did he know about the blades?"

"Shit." I facepalmed. "I didn't think to ask."

"Go ask her now."

"I don't want to tick her off. You haven't seen her face when she talks about him. Forgiving his promiscuity seems like the least she'd do for him."

"You think she'd forgive him for killing her mother?"

"I think she won't even believe it and she won't let us if she can."

"We need to talk to him."
I scoffed.

"Theodore Enun won't speak to us unless he absolutely has to, unless he has something to lose otherwise."

Charles groaned.

"I've never worked a case with a more difficult set of people."

He was in his rare dramatic moods but I couldn't disagree.

"There is just too much lies and friction to work through."

He laughed humorlessly.

"Exactly what I told Martha."

I backed up a bit.

"Oh. I thought you guys broke up."

"We did but it's not like I relocated. Anytime her brain touch, she shows up."

"Okay, cool."

He sighed.

"It's not like that, Kay."

"Not like what?"

"There is nothing going on with us, I'm even surprised there ever was."

"Makes two of us."

I didn't want to talk to him about his relationship and I didn't understand why he made it a point to rope me into the workings of every one of them. Sometimes I was grateful there weren't many. He might not have had as many exes as kehinde but his relationships didn't last any longer.

He blamed it on the job most of the time and I could totally understand, sometimes you got so involved that your personal life becomes secondary.

"What do you suggest we do about Theo?" He swerved the conversation away from his relationship.

"So now you want to go after the guy."

"It's not that I didn't consider the possibility. It's just that at that time you were being ruled by your emotions but now it seems logical."