To My First Love, With Regret (Libenia) Chapter 31

“Eve, it wasn’t me,” Ethan said from beside her. “I swear. Your father is setting me up—taking revenge, trying to pin this on me.”

Eve squeezed his hand tightly.

“Ethan, you don’t have to tell me that.”

I believe you.

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Three hours later, the transport van arrived in Cliffhaven.

Eve’s breath caught, as if she’d been thrown back into prison. Given that she might very well end up in a real one soon, this wasn’t just a metaphor.

The police station came into view—a place she’d never set foot in, despite living in Cliffhaven most of her life. As the van pulled into the rear parking lot, Eve held Ethan’s hand tightly, her eyes scanning the outside warily.

Her father might already be here.

But either the duke’s informants inside the station hadn’t reported yet, or something else was at play—she saw no familiar faces.

When the vehicle stopped, the officers from the front seats pulled Ethan out. Their hands, which had clung to each other like a lifeline for three hours, were forcibly pried apart.

A middle-aged detective in a trench coat opened Eve’s door. Cigarette dangling from his lips, he stared in her direction—but stubbed it out before the van had fully stopped and walked over.

“Take him to the interrogation room,” he ordered, looking at Ethan like a filthy criminal.

But then—

“My lady.”

Addressing Eve, he removed his felt hat out of respect and politely extended his hand. She had no mood for such treatment, but antagonizing the man apparently in charge of the investigation could hurt Ethan. She took his hand and stepped out.

“I want to hear what happened,” she demanded firmly. She couldn’t be rude—but she also couldn’t show how crushed she felt.

“What a remarkable coincidence! I was just about to say the same thing.”

The detective’s attempt at a wry joke made Eve tremble with outrage.

“We thought the young lady had been kidnapped.”

Her anger shifted targets. This was clearly her father’s doing. He’d lied because admitting his daughter had run off with a commoner would disgrace the family. Eve answered sharply:

“That’s not what happened.”

“Oh? So you went with him voluntarily…”

“You’re confusing who initiated it. I suggested spending the holiday in Lavinia.”

“Hmm…”

He rubbed his chin, studying her. That penetrating, assessing gaze was unpleasant.

“Oh, how rude of me—keeping a lady standing outside. Let’s go inside and talk more.”

Eve followed the detective—whose talk of politeness clashed spectacularly with his rough manners—into the station. Officers and detectives streamed past. Some recognized Eve and started whispering with the curiosity of onlookers.

“Have a seat.”

Her destination turned out to be the chief investigator’s private office. Eve thought she’d gotten lucky—at least it wasn’t an interrogation room. But then his next words made her smile bitterly.

“If you don’t want to speak, you may remain silent. However, anything you say will be recorded and may be used as evidence.”

“So you consider me an accomplice.”

“As an investigator, I’m obligated to consider all possibilities and conduct a thorough inquiry.”

“Listen to me. I don’t even know when or how Harry died.”

“This case has shaken the entire country. I’m sure the articles reached Lavinia…”

“I don’t know about that either. I left to forget worldly matters. I had no reason to follow newspapers or the radio.”

“Well then, allow me to fill you in. Around the time you arrived in Lavinia, Baron Langdon’s body was found in the White Cliff fields. According to testimony from the manor staff and the autopsy results, the estimated time of death is between ten p.m. and one a.m.”

Eve had entered Ethan’s room around ten. By the time he walked her back to the manor and returned, it was well past eleven.

“The cause of death was massive blood loss from a ruptured carotid artery. Put simply, someone stabbed his neck with something sharp, and he bled out.”

“I understand that much.”

“Right. The killer wasn’t a professional—they didn’t cut deep enough to sever the artery completely. If they had, blood would have gushed out like a fountain, and he would have died instantly.”

Eve couldn’t help but wince at the graphic description.

“Be that as it may, the victim’s bleeding wasn’t immediate. The problem is—he was drunk.”

According to the maid’s testimony, Harry had downed an entire bottle of hard liquor that night. The patient who was supposedly immobile after Ethan beat him had gotten drunk and wandered outside.

What a disgusting excuse for a man.

“Too drunk to think straight, the victim didn’t go home after the attack. He went the opposite direction—into the fields—and collapsed there. That’s where he bled out.”

The detective stared hard at Eve, then smirked and waved a hand.

“Just don’t tell me it was suicide.”

Eve could hear the stenographer in the corner scribbling furiously with her pencil. She answered clearly:

“I never said that.”

Though she had thought to herself that he’d brought it on himself—which was practically the same thing.

“So why do you think it was Ethan? Because Fairchild lives closest to the crime scene?”

“We followed the victim’s blood trail. It led to the lighthouse keeper’s house. Police dogs smelled blood in the backyard. Bloodstains were also found on the window and inside Ethan Fairchild’s room.”

Bloodstains?

Darkness flashed before her eyes, like a blow to the back of the head. Anyone would say the evidence pointed to Ethan as the killer. If Eve hadn’t been there herself, she wouldn’t have doubted it.

She forced down the momentary uncertainty with sheer will.

These are just circumstantial. Conjecture.

The detective said Harry had been stabbed with “something sharp.” He hadn’t specified whether it was a knife or an awl. That meant they didn’t know what the murder weapon was. They hadn’t found it.

“You’re accusing an honest young man with a bright future of murder based solely on circumstantial evidence and guesses.”

“Oh ho—’circumstantial evidence’! The young lady knows her terminology.”

He’s been looking down on me from the start. Eve gritted her teeth and stared back, but the anger of a Kentrell duke’s daughter wouldn’t protect her honor here.

“Then answer me this, as an experienced detective using logic. If we had killed Harry, why wouldn’t we have taken the time to destroy the evidence? And if we fled abroad after committing murder, why would we come back?”

The middle-aged detective rubbed his chin and let out a long hum.

“That’s exactly what I find suspicious.”

He admitted it. He found it odd too. Eve saw an opening.

“The answer is simple. We didn’t kill him. This is my father’s revenge.”

“Ah, I heard about what happened earlier that day.”

“You heard a fairy tale my father invented to make himself look good.”

“Be that as it may, that incident gives Ethan Fairchild a very real motive to kill Baron Langdon.”

Her chest tightened. Like a steel ring squeezing around her throat.

“Go outside and ask anyone in Cliffhaven. One out of three people here had a motive to kill Harry. You’re a policeman—don’t you know what kind of degenerate he was?”

The detective, who knew full well he’d run out of fingers and toes counting the cases involving Baron Langdon that had been buried by this very station, smirked crookedly.

“It seems the officers who used to help Harry dodge punishment are now involved in falsely accusing Ethan.”

At her accusation that they’d taken bribes and fabricated the blood evidence, the detective simply shook his head.

“My lady, if I were a man who groveled for the duke’s favor, I wouldn’t dare interrogate you. I’d respectfully send you home.”

He turned and opened one of the cabinets against the wall. He pulled out a file—a rather thick one.

“We also conducted an investigation in Kingsbridge. It turns out Ethan Fairchild was bullied longer and more persistently than others.”

This file—it’s about the bullying Ethan endured.

Good god. It’s so thick. Ethan… what kind of hell did you go through?

The thickness of the folder, which a moment ago had meant nothing, now weighed heavily on her heart.

“There are people who heard Ethan Fairchild mutter that he’d kill Baron Langdon.”

“So the aggressor can torment his victim, but the victim isn’t allowed to even be angry? Anyone would say something like that in a rage.”

“Are you saying you’ve heard Ethan Fairchild say he wanted to kill your brother?”