by Cate Holahan
“But—”
Gabby shot her a silencing look. “You know what also doesn’t taste like anything? Date-rape drugs. I spent the morning with a woman barely two years older than you that went to the same party and was slipped something. She woke up in bed next to a man old enough to be her father.”
Derrick pointed a finger at Kayla’s face. “Like that man you were talking to. Do you realize how fortunate you are that I came when I did, and even luckier that Zoe’s mom peeked in on you all at midnight—after the woman finished a long shift at the restaurant and probably could have gone straight to bed.” He shifted his attention to Gabby. “Violet called me frantic, asking if they were here. I didn’t want to worry you at work, so I started calling all of Kayla’s friends and driving around. At twelve thirty or so, I remembered that we have the Find My iPhone app and tracked her cell.”
Derrick kept staring at her, awaiting praise for his detective work. Gabby didn’t feel like applauding. He should have called her. If Kayla had thought to disable her location sharing, Gabby could have found the party in other ways: asking dispatch about noise complaints or directing the patrol officers to look out for a line of cars. She could have called all the taxi services in town and asked if there was a common address where many people were being dropped off.
“I’m sorry about that girl, Mom. It’s awful.” Kayla paused, letting the sentences resonate for a moment before following up with the inevitable but. “I know not to take drinks from—”
“Don’t tell me what you think you know or don’t know about people. The folks you know have been vetted by your father and I. You don’t know anything about judging character and protecting yourself. All it takes is one guy that seems nice and helpful to bring you back a plastic cup of something that ‘barely tastes alcoholic.’ You know the man that you were talking to? The blond Tom Brady–looking one.”
Kayla shot her father an annoyed, betrayed look, like he’d blabbed about the man’s appearance. “I said Chris Hemswor—”
Gabby flung a hand toward the wall, beyond which lay Interrogation One. “He’s a murder suspect.”
Kayla shifted her full focus to her father, silently appealing for him to speak on her behalf. Derrick’s tight jaw warned against pulling him into her defense. “I’m sure he’s not a psycho killer,” she mumbled.
Gabby straightened. “You think I’m joking? Why do you think I asked your father to bring you here to the station in the middle of a homicide investigation, huh? I need you both to look at that man and confirm he was the one you were speaking with last night.” Gabby whirled on Derrick. “The one that you punched.”
Her husband looked at her like a defense attorney surprised in court by an unknown witness. He pulled his bottom lip beneath his top teeth. “The man was chatting up our sixteen-year-old.”
“No excuse,” Gabby snapped. “You could have gotten her, Zoe, and Katie out of there without a fight. If it’s this man, then he’s a big guy, Derrick. He could have had a weapon. He could have had friends at the party. You didn’t know.”
Derrick rubbed his forehead. “I saw red, honey.”
Gabby could sympathize, but being overcome with anger wasn’t an assault defense. “We’ll talk later.” She gestured toward the door. “In the meantime, I need you two to look at this man and verify that he’s the guy from last night. If he is, I’ll need you both to give a statement to one of the officers on duty.”
Kayla headed to the open door, trying to make amends for her disobedience by following directions without delay. Derrick pushed the chair back and stood, towering over Gabby’s slight form. The size difference didn’t lessen her desire to sock him in the arm for putting himself at unnecessary risk and not calling her. It also didn’t stop her from wrapping her arms around his hard torso and squeezing. He’d performed a parent’s primary function, saving their baby from suffering the consequences of naïve stupidity.
He patted her head as she held on to his torso, burying her face in his ribs. “It’s okay,” he said. “It didn’t happen.”
She sniffed as she broke away. “When did you leave the party?”
Derrick pushed in her chair and rounded the desk. “A little after one. I was thinking of calling the cops, and the renter came over to talk me out of it.”
“Near bald? Surfer? Green eyes?”
“Sounds right.” Derrick held the top of the chair, leaning forward so that his height wasn’t so intimidating. “The guy made an announcement that the cops were on the way. That seemed to shut everything down. Lots of people left around the same time we did.”
“What about the man you hit?”
Derrick winced at the repeated mention of his assault. “He left right after the punch.”
“What time?”
“Maybe ten minutes earlier, around one o’clock.” Derrick scratched his bushy eyebrow. “I didn’t really think about how large he was when I hit him. You’re right that he could have gone a couple rounds with me. Guess it’s good that he just put up his hands and started apologizing.”
Gabby ushered them both into the hallway toward Interrogation One. Instead of pulling back the door to where she’d left Ben to stew for the past ninety minutes, she opened the neighboring observation room. The closet-sized space wasn’t big enough for the three of them, plus the uniformed officer sitting inside behind the computer screen, looking painfully young and even more painfully bored. Detective DeMarco would be finishing up his individual interviews. Officer Kelly was probably watching everyone else.
Gabby gave Patrolman Phillips the two-second explanation of why her husband and daughter needed to identify Ben through the one-way window without delving into the particulars of the fight. She waved Kayla in first, leaving Derrick outside so that his recollection wouldn’t be influenced.
“Is this the man?”
Kayla craned her neck toward the window. Ben sat at the desk, staring at what would appear to be a mirror for him, without seeming to focus on anything reflected in it. His eyes were less red and the swelling on his lip had turned a dark purple. Gabby tried to see him not as a suspect but through the eyes of her teenage daughter. He had leading-man looks. Gabby could imagine a bunch of older girls at the party trying to talk to him. Her daughter was competitive. Even though Kayla couldn’t have wanted anything to actually happen between her and a forty-year-old, she’d probably been flattered to have him flirting. His attention would have proved to any of the older girls present just how much Kayla could hold her own.
“That’s him,” Kayla said. “He told me that his name was Ben.”
“How long were you talking to him?”
Kayla gave her a guilty look. “A while. Maybe thirty minutes.”
Gabby cleared her throat. “And what time did he leave?”
“As soon as Dad …” Kayla glanced at the uniformed officer.
Gabby circled her hand, urging Kayla to spit it out. “It’ll all end up on the record.”
Kayla’s shoulders rounded. The prospect of causing legal trouble for her father had finally made her appreciate the seriousness of her actions. “As soon as Dad hit him. We got home at twenty-five after one, and he’d left earlier. So maybe one o’clock or one ten?”
“And his clothes?”
Kayla’s unlined brow raised in confusion. “Huh?”
“Were his clothes dry?”
“Yeah. Why does that—”
Gabby cut off her question with an instruction to wait outside and bring in her dad. Derrick’s large body overwhelmed the small room. The temperature ticked up a couple degrees as he examined the man through the glass. “It’s him.” He looked down at Gabby, an unreadable mix of emotion in his brown eyes. “He killed his wife?”
Gabby stopped herself from responding—even though she knew the answer was no. Susan had seen Rachel, alive, on the jetty around 12 AM, after witnessing Ben’s return from the beach. There wouldn’t have been time for him to kill his wife, change into dry clothing, find the party, a
nd then casually chat up her teenage daughter before getting into a fight with her husband. And the forensic expert was sure Rachel had died before one AM.
She gestured with her chin to the uniformed officer behind her husband, signaling that she couldn’t tell Derrick anything official about the case, especially now that he’d become a part of it. A skilled defense attorney could use any information Derrick possessed against her, arguing that she’d wanted to avoid an assault charge against her husband, leading her to pin the murder on Ben. From this point forward, she’d have to be careful not to share any details of the murder investigation.
She told the patrolman to take Kayla’s and Derrick’s statements, a job that visibly brightened the young man’s blank expression. No one liked staring at a suspect in an empty room for hours. “Thanks for everything, honey.” She hugged her husband. “I’ll see you whenever I can get out of here.”
The end of her day couldn’t come soon enough. Gabby was acutely aware of her exhaustion. She’d run out at eleven the prior night to investigate the DUI and had been working on adrenaline and indignation for the fifteen hours since—and she was no closer to solving either case. Ben, her prime suspect in Rachel’s murder, had a solid alibi. And Mariel’s rapist had multiple people attesting to her apparent consent.
Gabby leaned against the door to Interrogation One as she watched Officer Phillips lead her husband and daughter toward a private area where they could provide official statements. She stifled a face-swallowing yawn as they exited the room of cubicles and then turned around to face her next task: letting Ben go.
She opened the door and called his name from the jamb, prevented from entering by regret. She’d treated him like the murder suspect that his injuries and actions had suggested. He hadn’t deserved any of it. “Your alibi checked out,” she said. “You’re free to go.”
Ben rose from the table. His beaten posture as he shuffled toward the exit negated his handsomeness. He looked ill and aging, an “after” picture of a washed-up celebrity.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Gabby’s sympathy had the opposite effect of what she’d desired. Ben’s face twisted in pain.
“I have to tell my kids now,” he said. “I need to head to their camps.”
The tears from Gabby’s earlier encounter with Kayla returned. She’d been trained not to touch suspects. But her human instincts had existed before the academy. She patted Ben’s arm. “Can you think of anyone that would have wanted to hurt your wife?”
Ben sucked in air, suppressing his sobs. “I’ve been thinking about nothing else the entire time I’ve been in here. All I can come up with is this case that Rachel was working on. It was big, involving the death of a young boy. I could tell that it was worrying her, but she wouldn’t divulge any details beyond what I just told you.” He rubbed the corner of his right eye. “Not talking about work was unusual for her. Rachel always felt like attorney–client privilege didn’t extend to telling significant others. She’d usually talk my ear off about whatever she’d been working on.” Ben chuckled, the laughter sounded like crying. “Maybe someone was angry about the case. I know her personal Gmail account and password, though not her work one. You can go through it, maybe?”
Gabby didn’t know if the information would prove helpful, but she lacked any other leads. She pulled out her notepad and took down Rachel’s login and password information. Afterward, she escorted Ben to the station exit, wishing him luck with his children.
Each step back to her office felt heavier than the last. By the time she reached the door, her legs were wobbling beneath her weight. She slumped into her chair, pulled up a Gmail page, and logged into Rachel’s private account.
The first three emails were all unread direct mailers for online stores that Rachel must have frequented. 10% OFF THE SUMMER’S HOTTEST DRESSES. SHOES. SHOES. SHOES! DON’T MISS THIS SALE! Gabby was about to close the page when she recognized a name in the list of unread messages. Susan Ahmadi had sent her friend something at 12:15 AM. In the subject line were three words: ABOUT THURSDAY NIGHT …
Gabby clicked on the message, expecting to see photos of Susan and Rachel socializing. One line of bolded, all-caps text dominated the screen.
STAY AWAY FROM MY HUSBAND.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE DAY OF
Jenny’s tailbone throbbed atop the thin carpet in the back of the SUV. She peeled her spine from the hard surface, propped herself up on her elbows, and surveyed her surroundings: tan leather walls, gray tinted windows, a low dome ceiling. The Suburban’s third row had folded flat with the press of a button, creating a bed long and wide enough for her and Ben to lie beside one another, albeit with Ben’s head poking between the second-row bucket seats. She grimaced as she pictured William and Chloe in the car, their camp suitcases piled where she reclined. She’d slept with their dad. And she’d done it before.
The first time had been in more respectable surroundings, though only slightly. Jenny could still remember Ben’s home office that day six months earlier. He’d converted a screened porch off his kitchen into a permanent writer’s room, complete with a desk, a couch, and books piled in every possible cranny. The room overlooked the backyard. That afternoon, it had been flooded with white light reflecting off the recent snow. The glow had intoxicated her as she’d knelt beside Ben’s bare legs, rubbing his knee with antiseptic.
She’d decided to give him a cortisone injection, free of charge—a thank-you for letting Ally sleep over the prior night, despite Rachel being away at a conference. Louis had been growing increasingly testy, and Jenny had asked Ben to watch Ally, hoping that a kid-free evening would dial down the building pressure.
Instead, it had pulled the lid off. She and Louis had experienced their worst fight in over a year. Louis had accused her of ignoring him in favor of gallivanting among her admirers, and when she’d countered that she’d been working off their mortgage, he’d cracked the back of her head against a wall. She’d locked herself in the guest room for the remainder of that night, ignoring Louis’s sporadic apologies and pleas to talk things out “rationally,” reemerging only when she’d been sure he’d left for his hospital rounds. All the usual day-after emotions had filled her heart: rage, betrayal, hurt, fear. But she’d felt something new that morning, too—a burning desire to get even.
Given Louis’s dislike of the boy toy next door, lavishing attention on Ben had seemed the perfect act of passive aggression. She’d stopped at the pharmacy and then gone to the house armed with a syringe, iodine, a tube of lidocaine, and a bottle filled with a gummy white corticosteroid solution. Ben had answered the door, looking ruggedly handsome in a T-shirt and jeans, the silver-flecked scruff of a shaveless week shining on his jaw. Seeing him, Jenny had felt a queasy mix of attraction poisoned with her latent fury. It had bubbled in her gut and blurted from her mouth in the form of gross flirtation. “I brought a thank-you present,” she’d said, shaking a clear plastic bag containing the medications and all- too-obvious inch-and-a-half-long needle. “So, drop your pants.”
Ben had suggested they move to his office, and Jenny had trailed him through the kitchen, still messed with syrup-streaked plates and an unplugged, unwashed waffle iron. He’d entered the office and then stood in the center with his hands shoved in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “So, um, do you want any water or anything first? I guess I probably should have offered when we were in the kitchen.”
Jenny had interpreted the jittery body language and hesitant speech as nervousness about the injection. “I know it looks big. But, I swear, it’s just a little prick. You’ll barely feel a thing.”
Ben had responded with the same awkward sexual humor she’d displayed at the door. “I said something like that to Rachel once. Now we have two kids.”
The resulting laughter had shattered some of the tension in the chilly room. He’d gone to the couch, unbuttoned his pants, and shimmied them down to his ankles, exposing his knees and blue boxer briefs. Jenny had instructed
him to sit and then knelt between his legs to rub iodine over the arthritic knee. She’d told him to relax, pulled out the needle, filled it with the necessary mix of painkiller and joint filler, and then inserted its long nose into the thin space behind his patella. “In a few days,” she’d said, popping her equipment back into the plastic bag, “that knee should feel all better.”
“Thanks.” Ben had winced, as though the shot had hurt more than she’d said. “And how about your head?”
She’d responded as if he’d revealed psychic powers, shooting upright and backing away.
“There’s a little blood in your hair.” Ben had given her a guilty smile. “I saw when you were kneeling.”
A pat to the back of her head had confirmed the bump and crusted hair. The prior night’s blow had hurt, but she hadn’t thought it bad enough to leave a visible injury. “I banged it on the …” She’d trailed off, unable to think of any piece of furniture high enough to be casually slammed by a skull.
“You don’t have to protect him,” Ben had said.
A better woman, Jenny thought, would have balked at the suggestion that anything was wrong with her husband or her marriage. She’d have feigned shock and stuttered something about Ben speaking out of turn. But she hadn’t felt up to playing the part of a good wife. Someone had finally spotted the suffering beneath her smiling mask.
Instead, she’d told him everything: how Louis’s jealousy over her success and notoriety led to arguments that occasionally became violent; how they’d unsuccessfully tried therapy several times; how she’d considered leaving but feared destroying Ally’s stable life and Louis using their daughter as a foot soldier in the resulting divorce battle.
Ben had listened to it all like a best friend, refusing to let her share the blame when she admitted to hitting Louis back, or sometimes baiting him so that she could get the violence over with on her terms. As she’d looked into Ben’s kind eyes, their blue so much deeper than Louis’s, she’d thought that Rachel must be the stupidest woman in the world not to realize how lucky she was to have him. Why couldn’t she have a man like this one? Jenny had asked herself as Ben thumbed a tear from her cheek and stroked her hair. Why, in fact, didn’t she?
