In Her Shadow

by Kristin Miller

  “Wow—Travis texted her the night before, too.” Patel slouches into the seat across from me and slurps his coffee. “Those two really couldn’t get enough of each other—on her wedding anniversary, no less.”

  I tell him about my conversation with the hostess, and then we review the phone records, the matching dates and times of the texts, and Joanna’s short, coded answers.

  “I know you’ve got your heart set on Michael Harris,” I say, chewing on my pen cap. “It’s a convenient conclusion to draw since the police were called to Ravenwood on a domestic violence call the evening of July fifteenth. But if Joanna and Travis went to Gary Danko’s the following night, he had to have been the last one to see her alive.”

  Patel shakes his head in disagreement. “I gave the Travis angle some thought yesterday, but the answer’s been in front of us the whole time. It’s Harris, Shaw. The thing that was holding you up before about the prescriptions being in Mandy’s name doesn’t matter anymore. Those pills belonged to Joanna, and Harris had access to them. Once toxicology comes back and proves large amounts were in her bloodstream, we’ll have a slam-dunk case. Won’t get clearer than that.”

  “But Joanna could’ve taken those pills herself. Maybe she was still recovering from the procedure and—”

  “If she was taking the pills on a regular schedule, why would there be so many left in the bottles? Why would she tuck them away in a place that’s hard to access?”

  “But if what you’re saying is true, that means Michael Harris had to have known those pills were there, in the back of that cabinet.”

  “Harris is a control freak. Of course he knew.”

  “And you don’t think he questioned why those pills were in someone else’s name?”

  At that, Patel scowls. “He might’ve, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll have enough. Big picture, Shaw, remember?”

  “It’s not about that,” I argue. “It’s about making sure all the pieces add up.”

  “That’s where you’re confused,” Patel says, hitching his chin at the cube in my hand. “This case isn’t like that toy you’re messing with. It doesn’t need to be finished, with every single thing lining up. That’s practically impossible for a case like this. As long as we have the outer edges done, the frame of it, the district attorney will handle the rest.”

  I’m thinking of the best way to argue with Patel when the door opens and Michael Harris strides in. He heads straight for my desk, a desperate gleam in his eye.

  “Mr. Harris, thanks for coming in,” Patel says, his long fingers gripping his coffee mug. “What’d you bring us?”

  “Proof that Travis killed my wife.”

  I shoot Patel a knowing look, but he doesn’t bite.

  “Well…” Patel says blandly. “Where is it?”

  “Here.” Harris points to his chest. “I’m the proof. I was with Travis and Colleen when he slipped up.”

  “Who slipped?” I ask, confused. “Travis?”

  “No, a waiter,” Michael insists, his eyes shifting from me to Patel and back again. “We were having lunch in the city together. The waiter thought he recognized Colleen. He thought she was Joanna because they went there together as a couple. Travis and my wife. They were having an affair. He’s your killer.”

  “This is the proof?” Patel asks mildly.

  “Well, yeah. I thought it’d be more convincing if I came in here and told you myself. So you could look in my eyes and see that I’m not making this up—it’s not in my head.” Harris’s face reddens. “Don’t you see? It’s him.”

  “We appreciate your input on the matter, and we’ll look into it.” Careful not to spill his coffee, Patel raps the bottom rim of his mug against the table, as a judge would strike a gavel. “But I’m glad you came in today. Because there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. By now we’re sure you’ve realized that the child your wife was carrying couldn’t have passed the age of viability before she was killed.”

  “Yes.” He’s staring at Patel. “I figured that.”

  “According to one of our sources,” Patel continues, “Joanna sought services from a women’s clinic in June. Were you aware of that?”

  “June? No. I had no idea. Do you know what kind of…service she received?”

  “We’re still investigating, Mr. Harris,” I say. “But we’re hopeful that the coroner’s report will shed light on that.”

  “When will it come in?” he asks. “When will you know?”

  “Soon,” Patel assures him. “You’ll be one of the first people to receive an update on our findings.”

  Does Harris have any idea what that means for him?

  “Thank you. I appreciate that. But before I go there’s something else—something I’ve been hesitant to show you, but I—I can’t keep it to myself any longer.”

  He slides his phone across my desk, and I quickly skim Joanna’s last text message.

  “Her sister and I put the timeline together and suspect she lost the baby in May. If that’s true, why’d she send me a text in July saying the baby wasn’t mine? Why’d she tell me that she was leaving to raise the baby with her lover? Why bother if she’d miscarried months before?”

  “We’ve already seen this,” I tell him. “And we came up with a few possibilities.”

  “She wanted to torture me?”

  “If she hated you that much, sure.” I go on, “Or it might’ve been to keep you from trying to win her back. Judging from her actions, Joanna was a woman who, when she made up her mind, didn’t want to hear others’ opinions. Maybe she decided she didn’t want to be with you any longer, and this was the nail in the coffin.”

  He massages his temples. “You have no idea.”

  “She wanted to end things on her terms. Clean break. No carnage. Maybe she felt you needed that kind of closure to move on.”

  “No carnage…” He shakes his head.

  “Or, there’s another option,” I offer, watching his expression carefully.

  Patel clears this throat loudly, and I know that the sound is meant to silence me. He’s giving a signal that I’m offering too much of my own opinion. If Harris is a possible murder suspect, I should keep these next suggestions to myself. But I’ve gone by the book with this investigation, and although we’ve had a few leads, I’m no closer to finding Joanna’s killer than I was the day we pulled her out of the mud. Karen would tell me that I need to trust my gut. So I’m ignoring the sound coming from Patel’s throat, and I’m taking my wife’s advice.

  “Joanna’s murderer could’ve sent the text from her phone so you wouldn’t try to contact her.” My gut jumps as if it knows I’ve just spoken the truth. “If you thought she had moved on and didn’t want to see you again, you wouldn’t file a missing person’s report. If no one thinks there’s been foul play, no one searches for the killer. He or she goes free. Might’ve been an excellent diversion technique.”

  “You’ve got quite an assortment of theories there,” Harris snaps. “Which one do you think is the truth?” His eyes are locked on mine.

  “Mr. Harris, at this moment, it’s impossible to know for certain.”

  “But what do you think?” he insists.

  “The final one,” I say, eyeing Patel. “I think those were the words of her killer.”

  He groans.

  “You’re going to look into Travis, aren’t you?” He looks up, his eyes glossed with tears. “I think—no, I know—he killed my wife. Please don’t rule him out.”

  “We’re not, Mr. Harris,” Patel says, getting to his feet. “We’re not ruling anyone out yet.”

  Including you. Those are the unspoken words, and I get the feeling Michael Harris knows it.

  “He’s paranoid,” Patel says as soon as Harris leaves the station.

 
“Of course he is,” I say. “He thinks we’re closing in on him.”

  “We are,” Patel says. “He’s sick, if you ask me. I don’t like that he’s getting shifty, telling us who we need to be looking at, what we need to be doing. We should’ve had him come in, put more pressure on him. We might’ve been able to crack him. I worry about that girlfriend of his—he could take it out on her.”

  “I’m telling you, Patel, there’s something else going on here. Something that doesn’t fit. Let me look into the neighbors a bit more. The chef, too. I don’t know that I trust a word out of his mouth.”

  Patel narrows his eyes over the rim of his giant mug. “When we get toxicology back, we’ll know for certain. But I’ll bet you a week’s salary that we’ll be arresting Michael Harris for murder before day’s end. For his new girlfriend’s sake, we can’t afford to waste any more time.”

  RACHAEL

  I’m sitting up in bed reading an entertainment magazine when Travis slams into the room and heads straight for the closet. He doesn’t say a word, but that’s not surprising. We haven’t talked much since last night, when he insisted on making a regal entrance at the Harris Financial party. It was tacky as hell to walk in like that. After all, we’d been disinvited. But Travis insisted we shouldn’t hide. We should show our faces proudly because we didn’t do anything wrong. Give me a break. What do we have to be proud of lately?

  “Where’ve you been?” I ask, flipping a page of my magazine. I try to keep my tone calm, but I hear its edge anyway.

  “I went for a drive. To clear my head.”

  I’m not buying any of his excuses. Not anymore. I can’t believe a word he says. If he lied to me about his affair with Joanna, he could be keeping anything from me. What else is lurking in the dark, waiting to rise up and ruin my life? Other affairs? Murder? I don’t want to think he had something to do with Joanna’s death, but he’s been odd lately. Jumpy and tense. He’s hiding things, like the lunch on Thursday with God-knows-who. And he’s too concerned about what I’m telling the police. Staying up later than usual to clean his gun, and rising earlier to head into the city.

  Things shift in the closet. Something thumps onto the floor. Hangers slide on the rod. More thumping. Now I’ve completely lost my place, damn it. Which celebrity wore the red carpet dress best? Oh, there it is. Sixty-two percent say she did. I disagree—I wouldn’t be caught dead in those gaudy shoes—but whatever.

  Travis groans, and then the sounds start over again. Shifting, thumping, sliding.

  I drop the magazine in my lap. “Travis, what are you doing?”

  “Packing bags.” He peers out from the closet. He looks tired, his eyes red and strained. “I was thinking we could get out of here for a week or two. You know, just the two of us. Escape all this madness and disappear. Put everything behind us for a while.”

  “Disappear? What about work?”

  “I was let go.”

  “What?” My voice kicks up an octave. “What do you mean you were let go?”

  “Michael fired me. Well, he didn’t. Bastard was too much of a coward to say it to my face. He had someone else relay the message.” He ducks back into the closet and comes out with two pieces of luggage: his black duffel and my Louis Vuitton. He throws them on the bed. “It’s fine, Rachael. I’ll find another job and take his clients with me when I go. It’s good timing, actually. Let’s just go.”

  “You know I can’t do that. I’d have to reschedule all of my appointments.”

  “Do it. I’ll drive, and you can make calls on the way.”

  I frown, slap the magazine closed. “On the way to where, exactly?”

  “I was thinking Napa.” Fishing his key ring out of his back pocket, he heads to the closet once more. The clink of the safe opening hits my ears. He emerges with his modified Glock and shoves it into his bag. “You enjoyed yourself the last time we visited. Remember that great bed-and-breakfast with a spa? You can drink wine, take a mud bath, read as many of those trashy magazines as you want.”

  “Why do we need a gun in Napa?”

  He jerks upright. “I come home to tell you that I’m whisking you away for a week of wine and pampering—what every woman dreams of—and you sound put out by it. Would it kill you to be thankful for once?”

  “I am—I guess a weekend in Napa sounds great—but what about the cost? If you don’t have a job, how are we going to afford a trip?”

  “Oh, here we go,” he says spitefully.

  I hover on the brink of saying what’s really on my mind. You’re running. It doesn’t look good. In fact, it makes him look guilty.

  “I just don’t know why you’re in such a rush,” I say instead.

  He stands at the foot of the bed, and his eyes go dark. “Have you been talking to the cops?”

  “What?” A chill creeps over my legs despite the blankets covering them. “No. Well, except for when they came to see me at work.”

  He measures me carefully, and when he speaks again, it’s nearly a whisper. “Have you noticed anyone following you?”

  I roll my eyes. “Travis—”

  “I’m being serious, Rachael. Look.”

  He stalks around the bed, snatches my arm, and drags me down the hall. I protest the entire way, trying to shake off his fierce grip. But he doesn’t stop. He’s gone mad. He charges down the stairs, and I stumble behind him, struggling not to fall and break my neck. The house is dark, thanks to the clouds that moved in this afternoon. Rain batters the glass. At least the terrible weather has driven away the reporters. No one occupies our lawn tonight.

  Downstairs, he pushes me against a window. From here, it looks as if we’re standing behind a waterfall. Heavy streams of water sluice down the glass, and the sound echoes through the house.

  Mouth against my ear, he says, “What do you see?”

  “Travis, I—”

  “What do you see?” he roars. His hands bite into me and I wince. “Look, damn it!”

  “I see Ravenwood with a few lights on inside. Michael’s car. Two news vans. The cypress grove.”

  “There,” he hisses, grinding his fingers into my hips. “Where the street bends by the trail, where Cypress intersects Beach, what do you see?”

  I squint, and barely make out the shape through the rush of water. “A car?”

  “It’s been following me all day.” Finally, he releases me. “It’s a blacked-out Lincoln. I’ve been paying attention. They’re not tailing Michael anymore. They’re on me.”

  “Are you sure? Why—why would they be following you?”

  “Because they must’ve discovered my relationship with Joanna went deeper than a few pointless texts.”

  Relationship. Not tryst, or stupid, regrettable fling. Relationship. Why does he talk about the affair so casually, as if it’s not a big deal, as if I’ve forgiven him? God, it burns me inside. I think about him cheating on me with her every day, yet if I bring it up, he’ll say I’m holding a grudge and destroying our marriage. He’s under the impression he can do whatever the hell he wants, and from one simple apology I’m supposed to forgive and forget.

  But it’s not that easy. I thought I could forgive him, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve never believed a confession erases all the sins someone has committed, even if that’s what my parents taught me.

  Maybe he doesn’t deserve my forgiveness.

  “Are you going to get a lawyer?” I ask, as I slip out of his embrace and head upstairs.

  “No. We’re going to leave.” He’s on my heels, one step behind me. “Finish packing. We’ll be out in thirty.”

  Cheeks flushing hot, I storm into the bedroom and peel open the flap of my bag. He’s packed it with enough clothes for the weekend: a couple of shirts, a skirt, a pair of flats, and a few pairs of underwear.

 
“If you’re innocent, you probably shouldn’t go anywhere,” I can’t resist saying.

  “What do you mean ‘if I’m innocent’? You think I killed Joanna?”

  “No, of course not,” I say, backing away from him. His face scares me. “It’ll look bad, that’s all. Murderers run when they’re guilty. You see it all the time on TV. It’s what tips the cops off that you’re the main suspect. Haven’t you ever watched a detective show?”

  “Damn it, Rachael, this isn’t a television show, this is our life.” He shoves a stack of underwear into his bag, followed by two pairs of shorts and a handful of socks. “We’re not running because we’re guilty. We’re an innocent married couple being victimized by the crazy amount of hype on our street, who desperately need a vacation to recharge our batteries. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

  But I’ve never known him to pack his gun when we take a vacation.

  “You’re right,” I answer, feeling myself become angry. “Of course you’re right. You always are.”

  “We’re going to Napa,” he snaps, chucking his shaving kit into the bag, “and that’s it. End of discussion.”

  A thought strikes me, sudden and conclusive: I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stay with him.

  A flare of contempt rises in my gut. “What if I don’t want to go with you?”

  “Jesus, we’re going on vacation, Rachael! It’s not like I’m dragging you to the desert. It’s fucking Napa. Why do you always make everything so damn difficult?” As he adjusts the sides of his bag, he mumbles, “Joanna wasn’t so difficult to please.”

  “What was that?”

  He glances up, his expression flat. “I said you couldn’t be more difficult to please.”

  But that wasn’t what he said. If I challenge him on it further, he’ll only deny it. We’ve been through this ritual so many times before. We’ll fight. The ruined evening will somehow end up being my fault. Then, by tomorrow morning, I’ll question whether I actually heard him say that bitch’s name in the first place.