Dedicated to @MissRosa01. She's a sweety just like Daisy from her book My badboy roommate :)

Song: Denmark + Winter - Every Breath You take

"I think you should stop talking right now," Nathan said standing up. Before Natasha could respond, the door opened and David walked in.

"It's a little too late for that Detective," he said as he walked over to them. "You've already violated my client's rights."

"Your client understood very well that she had the right to remain silent but chose to speak anyway in spite of the reminder I gave her of this. Furthermore, I did not question her. She said everything of her own volition, again, in spite of my insistence that she remain silent," Nathan countered.

David narrowed his eyes at him and without looking away asked, "Is this true Natasha?"

"Yes," she whispered and David looked at her in disbelief.

"Why?"

"I'm going to give you a few minutes to talk to your client in private and then the real questioning begins," Nathan said then he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Why would you talk to the police without an attorney?" David asked taking the seat that Nathan had previously been occupying.

Natasha shrugged."I have nothing to hide and I trust Nathan." 

"I see this is what you mother was talking about," David said quirking an eyebrow.

"What?"

"This blind faith you put in someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart."

Natasha ignored the statement and instead asked. "Is mum here with you?"

David shifted in his seat before saying, "I couldn't reach her but I did leave her a message to tell her what's going on. I'm sure she'll be here as soon as she gets it."

Natasha nodded and took a deep breath. "Guess you want to hear how I ended up here?"

"Well if the Detective didn't have to ask, I didn't think your own uncle would have to either." David folded his hands over his chest and leaned back in his seat.

Natasha rolled his eyes at him then told him the whole story, just as she had told Nathan.

"You're sure it was grandma's knife?" he asked frowning as he leaned forward on the desk .

"Positive," Natasha nodded.

"And you touched it because..."

"I got scared okay! When I saw that it was grandma's knife I knew that the whole thing was a set up so I thought maybe if I take the knife and hide it, there would be no way of pinning me to the murder," Natasha said, tears filling her eyes.

"Dammit Natasha! That just makes you look guiltier!" David yelled.

"I know!" Natasha shouted back. "I got scared and I panicked and I wasn't thinking straight. I thought I would be gone by the time anyone came but then Nathan and his partner showed up before I could leave."

David held his head in his hands deep in thought. Natasha waited patiently to hear what he would say and when he finally raised his head, she saw a look of steely resolve in his eyes.

"When they ask you why you took the knife out of the body you'll tell them you panicked when you saw all the blood and you thought you could stop the bleeding if you took the knife out and bandaged the wound."

Natasha stared at him. "They aren't going to buy that."

"Make sure you sell it hard enough that they will," David said firmly and Natasha threw her hands up in the air in frustration.

"You're asking me to lie to the cops!"

"Wouldn't be the first time," David said pointedly. "If you don't do as I say, you're going to end up in jail for a long time for a crime you didn't even commit. Do you want that?"

"I don't, but..."

"Good," David interjected.

Natasha huffed in exasperation. "What if they make me take a lie detector test?"

"You let me worry about that. I have some calls to make. Sit tight and don't talk to anyone until I'm back."

Natasha buried her head in her hands while David went to find Nathan, only lifting it again when she heard them walk back in. David took the seat next to her this time and Nathan and Michael sat on the other end of the wooden desk, notebooks and tape recorders ready.

"Please recount the events leading up to our discovery of you in Mr Macmillan Bandieer's office holding the murder weapon," Michael said curtly.

Natasha told her story for the third time and Nathan listened intently even though he'd heard it already, trying to pick up on any irregularities.

"Can you  give us an approximate time for the calls and texts between you and Macmillan and the time you arrived at his office?" Michael asked.

Natasha searched her mind for any memory of a time. "I think Elle left my house around 5 and that's when I switched on my phone and saw the message from Mac. So I called him a couple of times but he didn't answer. Then I got a text from him so I'd say that was all between 5 and 5.15. I drove straight to his office which would take me almost 10 minutes so I think I got there close to 5.30." 

"Why did you remove the knife from the victim's body?" Nathan asked  while Michael scribbled down the time estimations she'd given them.

Natasha moved her hands from the table and laced them together on her thighs so they wouldn't see them shaking before she answered, "I thought it would help him. I was going to try and bandage the wound to stop the bleeding."

"Just to be clear, are you saying he was still alive when you went in there?" Michael asked.

"Honestly I don't know. There was so much blood and I wasn't thinking straight," she replied.

"You didn't check for a pulse?" 

"She's studying law not medicine," David cut in, earning a glare from Michael.

"And yet she thought she could patch up a stab wound," he remarked.

"My first thought when I saw the knife sticking out of his body was that it was hurting him and causing blood loss which was probably the cause of his paleness. So I removed it to help him. I didn't think of checking for a pulse or anything. I thought he was probably unconscious from all the blood loss," Natasha said before the two men could go for each others throats.

"At what point did you realize the knife belonged to your grandmother?" Nathan asked. His face showed no emotion whatsoever and Natasha couldn't tell if he believed anything she was saying.

"After I pulled it out and took a closer look," Natasha replied looking him straight in the eye. Nathan stared at her silently, trying to see through her impassive gaze until Michael nudged him and pointed at the door. They left the room to talk in private outside.

"Please tell me you're not falling for any of that," Michael said the minute they closed the door.

"A lot of things about this just don't make sense," Nathan said looking in through the one way mirror as Natasha and David awaited their return.

"Right?" Michael agreed. "There's no way she didn't see that Macmillan was dead before she pulled out that knife. My guess would be she killed him then tried to take the murder weapon with her but before she could make it out, we got there."

"But then, what's her motive? Macmillan had agreed to testify against his brother for Natasha. It doesn't make sense that she would kill him," Nathan argued.

Michael considered this as he too looked in on the room. "Maybe he changed his mind and when he told her that she got upset and killed him."

"That might be true because Macmillan didn't show up at the meeting arranged by Natasha's lawyer regarding the abuse case." Nathan frowned. "But we can't prove that."

"Everything about this is suspicious though," Michael said. "Jake down from I.T said the security cameras at H.B Media were all turned off at the same time on orders from Macmillan himself which is the same time he ordered all his staff to leave the building. So there's no way of knowing who went in or out of that building after 4 p.m."

"Strange," Nathan mused. "Maybe Natasha is telling the truth. I've had a theory that Max has been trying to frame her for his father's murder. What if he's doing the same now?"

"Okay, I'll bite. Tell me more about your theory," Michael said.

"Macmillan was a key witness to Max's abuse of Natasha. Now that he's dead, there's barely anything holding that case together so Max wins, Natasha loses. Max made sure all fingers point to Natasha by using her knife with her fingerprints on it to murder his brother."

"Two problems with that," Michael said shaking his head. "How did he get into Natasha's house to get the knife? And secondly, how did he get out of jail long enough to kill his brother, text Natasha from Macmillan's phone and then return to his cell?"

Nathan thought he hadn't heard right. "What did you just say?"

"Max is in a jail cell right now. Apparently a messenger arrived with an arrest warrant signed by Judge Edith Hall and Max was immediately picked up by Luke. He's been in that cell since this afternoon," Michael explained.

"Why didn't I know about this?" Nathan asked puzzled, to which Michael only shrugged. "He still has the most to gain from Macmillan's death and even if he was in prison at the time, someone else could have done the dirty deed for him, just like with Henry. Add the fact that he recently found out he's not a Bandieer and things don't really look good for him."

"Whoa. Back up a bit there." 

"Yeah. Max isn't a Bandieer. Hello motive," Nathan said.

"But what about what Natasha just said about the knife? You know that's a lie right?" Michael urged.

"The only things tying Natasha to this murder are the knife which belongs to her which we found in her hand and the fact that she was at the crime scene. It could be that she was at the wrong place at the wrong time," Nathan mused.

"Then why is she lying if she's innocent?" his partner argued.

Nathan shook his head. "What about the texts?"

"The only way to prove she actually got that text is by checking her phone. I can't imagine she would lie about something so easy to check up on unless she left her phone at home on purpose so she could text it from Macmillan's phone which is now missing." Michael paused. "But then that would require her being in two places at once if she indeed called him and then got a text from him."

Nathan felt like banging his head into a wall. Nothing about this case was proving to be at all understandable. "Does Lydia have a time of death yet? That's our best shot at figuring all this out."

"I tried asking her and she threw a scalpel at me." Michael shuddered. "Goodness knows where that's been." 

Nathan laughed, in spite of everything going on. "You went in there without a mask or a hair net didn't you?"

Michael made an annoyed face at him. "She hates me ."

Nathan checked his watch before taking a last glance at Natasha. "I'll go talk to Lydia. Question Natasha again and see if any of her answers change."

***

Nathan knocked on the lab door as per Lydia's boldly written instructions on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Not Michael. You can put the sharp instruments away," Nathan called back.

The metal door slid open, revealing a petite woman in her 30's dressed in a light green lab coat, a hair net and a mask.

"You know the drill," she said, pointing at a cupboard by the door before returning to typing at her computer.

Nathan took a hair net, mask, gloves and a disposable lab coat and put them on before approaching her.

"I see your partner got scared to come back," she smirked.

"Can you blame him? You assaulted the guy," Nathan laughed. "Probably not a good idea seeing how you work in a police station."

"My 5 year old son follows instructions better than him!" Lydia complained. "You're here about our friend back there?" She nodded in the direction of Macmillan's body laid out on a metal table behind them.

"The case is all kinds of crazy. A time of death would really help," Nathan said as he watched her type.

"I'm still doing tests but from what I have so far, he's been dead for at least 3 hours."

"Are you sure?" 

Lydia shrugged. "Given that rigor mortis occurs 3 to 6 hours after death and the victim is exhibiting clear signs of it in his jaw and neck, I would say it's highly likely."

"Great. Please let me know if you find anything else."

Nathan headed back to the interrogation room. Natasha looked like she wanted to cry, David and Michael looked ready to kill each other. 

"How do you manage to piss everyone off?" Nathan asked him once the two of them were outside.

Michael rolled his eyes. "They're the ones who piss me off."

"Anyway Lydia says from what she can see, Macmillan's been dead for at least 3 hours which would put time of death around 4 p.m. We need to get Natasha's phone and bring in Danielle to confirm her alibi," Nathan informed him.

"Please don't tell me this girl is walking out of here again," Michael groaned.

Nathan ignored him. "I'll call Danielle since you clearly aren't capable of proper human interaction. Get someone to keep Natasha and David occupied once I get Danielle's number."

Natasha gave him Danielle's number and he left to make the call without filling them in on his latest findings. He asked Danielle to come down to the station, omitting the fact that Natasha was currently in holding.

"I got here as fast as I could," Danielle said as Nathan led her to his office.

"That's okay Miss Pierre. Please take a seat."

"Thank you and you can call me Elle. You said this was about Natasha? Is she okay?"

Nathan considered his answer before replying her. "Natasha's missing."

"What?" Danielle exclaimed. 

"We've been unable to reach her for a while so I just wanted to know when was the last time you saw her today." Nathan maintained a grim expression on his face.

"I was with her from mid-day to 5 p.m which is when I knock off and I left her in the house waiting for her mother," Danielle replied. "Oh God, do you think she was kidnapped or something?"

"I'm sure we'll find her Elle. Thank you so much for your help. We'll be in touch if we get any other news." Nathan asked one of the junior officers to take Danielle's statement while he returned to the interrogation room. He found Michael pacing outside.

"Well?"

"I don't think Natasha did it. Her alibi checks out. She was nowhere near H.B media before 5 p.m," Nathan told him.

"Dammit!" Michael kicked at the door startling the room's current occupants.

"Someone clearly tried to frame Natasha for this. Now I'm sure that the killer texted Natasha to lure her there and since that phone is now missing, it's highly likely that they have it. We'll have to try and track it."

"I'll get started on that," Michael said already walking away.

Nathan told Natasha that they weren't charging her with murder as yet but she would have to face consequences of tampering with evidence although in the meantime, she was free to go home. David drove her back home and Nathan followed behind them with another police officer to collect Natasha's phone as evidence. 

David left immediately to attend to another client after dropping her off so Natasha had to ask Nathan to drive her back to her car where it was still parked at H.B media after she gave up her phone.

When they reached the building, Nathan walked with her to the car. The building had already been sealed off as a crime scene. 

"You left it unlocked?" Nathan asked surprised when she simply opened her car door.

"I was distracted when I came here. Thanks for the ride," Natasha said facing him while she stood in the open door way.

"Stay out of trouble," Nathan advised and Natasha nodded wearily before turning to climb onto the driver's seat. Something on the seat made her pause in shock until Nathan tried to peer over her shoulder. She scrambled onto the seat and rushed to close the door. She rolled down the window and gave Nathan a reassuring smile.

"What's wrong?" he asked puzzled at her odd behavior.

"Nothing, just tired. Thanks again!" She drove off before he could say anything else, leaving him staring after her in shock.

Natasha drove until she was sure she was far enough away from Nathan's route back to the police station then she pulled over. She retrieved the object that had caused her so much panic from the floor where she'd tossed it to keep Nathan from seeing it.

She vaguely recognized the long, slim, black phone and her suspicions were confirmed when she opened the email and text message inboxes and saw who the messages were all addressed to. She was, without a doubt, holding Macmillan's "missing" phone.

***

Thank you for the lovely wishes. I traveled well and I'm feeling much better. And for my gif for the chapter (yeah that addiction is still there lol):