She woke, heart pounding, covered in sweat. The clock said 4:21 a.m. Next to her, Ben reached out and pulled her to his chest. “Was it the dream?”
“Yes,” she whispered, closing her eyes and burying her face into his chest. “You were there this time. In the crowd.”
“I am here,” he said into her hair. “I’m here.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE NEXT MORNING, she awakened to her cell phone ringing from the sitting room. She rolled over. Ben was sound asleep, snoring. Stumbling, bleary eyed, she headed for the sound, rummaging in her purse until she found her phone. It was Genevieve. What time was it? Almost ten o’clock. Had she overslept for work, she thought, panicky for a moment? It was Friday morning. No, she didn’t need to be on set until eleven o’clock. She would get showered and dressed quickly.
“You all right?” asked Bella.
“No. Something terrible.” Genevieve’s normally smooth and centered voice was broken and shaky.
“What’s the matter?”
“Tiffany was found dead this morning in her hotel room. Strangled.”
Bella collapsed onto the couch. “Murdered?”
“That’s what they’re saying. The county police are all over the hotel. Somehow the press already knows too. They’ve arrived in droves, like the locusts they are. I don’t know how they know so fast.”
“Holy shit.” Her mind was turning. Ben. Was Ben the last person to see her alive? Except, of course, for the murderer. Next, she thought of Sabrina. Poor sweet Sabrina. “Did Sabrina find her?”
“Yes. When she went to check on her. This morning at like seven. Oh, Bella, it’s so awful. Richard said Sabrina howled like a dying animal when they pronounced her dead.”
Ben had arrived home a little after midnight. It entered then, the slippery smoke of suspicion. He’d been gone for an hour with nothing to explain his absence but a tale of a drunken, sick girl in a hotel room. Thoughts of deception danced and tossed about her mind like voices in a dark room during the moments before dawn. How well do you know him? they said. Are his laughing eyes only deception wrapped in a pretty package? Might his heart be black, his temper a flame easily sparked into violence, his strong hands capable of murder and lovemaking on the same night?
No, no, no, she cried out silently to the voices lurking in the dusty, dim corners. He’s a man to be trusted. A good man. A kind man. Trust your instincts, her mother always told her.
“Bella, are you there?”
“Yes. I’m here. Trying to get my mind around this.”
“I know. It’s such a terrible thing.”
“Gennie, Ben took her home last night. By himself. He didn’t get home until midnight. He said she was vomiting and he didn’t want to leave her alone.”
“Home?”
“Here home. Drake’s. I was waiting for him. To talk about things.”
“Oh.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” She got up from the couch and tiptoed over to the bedroom. Ben was still asleep, snoring softly.
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, then, Gennie’s voice clear and sure. “Honey, there’s no way Ben had anything to do with this.”
“But it looks bad. Doesn’t it?”
Again, there was a moment of hesitation from the other end of the phone. “Yes. It does.”
Suddenly, she remembered Sabrina’s confession from the night before. Did Tiffany’s death have something to do with debt? Was she into something bad? And the men following her in the bar parking lot? Who were they? Had they gotten to her in her room?
“Gennie, Sabrina told me last night Tiffany’s broke. What if those men Ben saw in the parking lot had something to do with this?”
“Like she owed them money or something?”
Her phone beeped. It was another call, this time from Drake. “Gennie, I have to go.”
Drake’s voice sounded alarmed. “Where are you?”
“In the guesthouse. With Ben.”
“Oh.” A split-second pause, and then, “The police are coming up the driveway. It’s about Tiffany Archer. They want to question Ben.”
“Crap.” Just then she heard the sound of a car approaching. She went to the window. It was indeed a police car coming up Drake’s long drive. “I have to wake up Ben.”
***
Bella sat on the side of the bed and shook Ben’s shoulder. “You have to wake up.”
He opened his eyes and then broke into a wide smile. “Good morning, beautiful.”
“The cops are here.”
He sat up, his face turning from sleepy to shock in an instant; there was a flicker of something else too. Something she couldn’t decipher. “What? Why? Is everyone okay?”
“Tiffany Archer’s been murdered.”
The color drained completely from his face. “Murdered?”
“Sabrina found her this morning.”
“Oh, God. They’re sure it’s murder? Did she choke?”
“No, strangled. According to the police.”
“Strangled?” He put his face in his hands, speaking through his fingers. “I stayed with her to make sure she didn’t choke on her own vomit and then she’s strangled? How can this be?”
“Ben, did people see you go into the lodge last night? I mean, with her?”
He looked at her with a blank expression. “What do you mean?” Then, clearly realizing what she meant, his eyes grew big. “You mean I’m the last person who saw her alive?”
“I mean, you were alone with her in her room and in the morning she’s dead.”
He didn’t say anything. His pale face turned green. “Yeah, she couldn’t find her room key. I had to get another one. There were several attendants on duty, giving me the whole once over for being with a drunk actress in the middle of the night. I had this ridiculous urge to defend myself, like, ‘Hey my girl’s waiting for me at home, not this pitiful thing.’ Anyway, they were still on duty when they saw me leave an hour later.”
She took his hand. “Just tell them the truth. Every detail you can remember.”
“I will. Of course.”
Bella dressed in the jeans and sweater she’d discarded the night before. At the window, she saw two detectives dressed in suits get out of a police car. “I’ll go inside the house and tell them you’re here.”
But Ben had already gotten out of bed and was pulling on a pair of jeans. “I’ll go with you.” Shirtless, he took both her hands in his. “Bella, you know I would never hurt anyone, right?”
“Of course. Don’t be ridiculous.”
His eyes searched her face. “You think I’m in trouble here?”
“No. They’ll interview you and see there’s no way you did this. No motive, for one thing.”
“Right. Sure.” He paused, pulling a blue T-shirt over his head. “But you have to admit, it looks bad. You know, me being in her room alone.”
“I should never have let you go alone.”
He pulled her into an embrace. “This isn’t your fault. Anyway, the truth is I had nothing to do with it. Surely that’ll be obvious to them.”
She nodded, kissing him and holding him close for a moment. “It’ll be fine.” But inside she wasn’t so sure. He was right. This did not look good.
***
The detectives were from Echo Grove, a larger town to the north of River Valley, according to the markings on their car. They were making their way across the driveway to the guesthouse when Ben and Bella came out the door. The weather was damp and gray, the clouds close. A cold wind had come up during the night. Bella shivered and pulled her raincoat tighter.
“Benjamin Fleck?” asked the shorter of the two detectives. He was middle-aged and plump. The other was younger with hair the color of carrots.
“That’s right,” answered Ben.
“Bella Webber?”
Her voice shook when she answered. “Yes.”
“We need you both to come down to the station. Answer a few questions for us about Tiffany Arc
her.”
“Both of us?” asked Bella.
“Yes. We’re interviewing everyone who spent the last several hours with her. From what we gather, that includes everyone who sat with her at the bar last night.”
Everyone? That meant Stefan and Genevieve. This was going to be in all the papers. Neither of them needed this kind of publicity. Graham would be having an absolute fit about his movie right now. She almost felt sorry for him, knowing how this kind of thing, so out of control of his own power, would make him insane. But that was a fleeting thought. Mostly she was worried about Ben. The good news was that they would all have the same story. Stefan and Gennie would tell the truth as they remembered it.
Behind them, Annie and Drake came out of the house, putting on coats. Her brother had his cell phone in his hand, his face eerily calm whereas Annie was visibly shaking.
“I called my attorney in Seattle,” said Drake to both of them. “He recommended two defense attorneys.”
“If you need them,” said Annie, mouth trembling, her eyes darting to the detectives. “You’re just asking questions, right? No one’s being accused of anything?”
“That’s right, Mrs. Webber. Just gathering information about the victim’s last hours.”
“Do we follow you, then?” asked Ben.
“No. We’d like you both to get in the car.”
Now Bella started to shake. Riding in the backseat of a cop car was not how she wanted to spend the morning. It was supposed to be spent making up Gennie’s face, not down at the station answering questions.
“I’ll call Peter Ball, too,” said Drake to Ben. Peter Ball was a detective with the Seattle Force, assigned three and a half years ago to Drake’s wife and daughter’s murder case. The two men had become close during the horrific months that followed their deaths, both because of Peter’s careful and detailed work on the case and his genuine humanity and sensitivity. No one could unravel something and put it back together like Peter Ball. Bella shivered. If Drake was calling attorneys and Peter, it meant he was worried. And that made her even more afraid.
CHAPTER SIX
THE COP WITH CARROT HAIR interviewed Bella at the police station in Echo Grove. The room was windowless and held only a simple table and two chairs. He sat across from her, his gaze both intense and unflinching, taking notes on a yellow tablet. They’d been together an hour already. She was hungry and the lack-of-caffeine headache was starting, faint still, like the air right before a thunderstorm. So far he’d asked her to tell him as accurately as possible everything she could remember about last night and she’d answered as honestly as she could.
“What is the nature of your relationship with Ben Fleck?”
She returned his gaze, unflinching. “We’re sleeping together.”
“Is this a purely physical relationship?”
“How is that relevant to anything?”
He shrugged, his hazel eyes cold. “I ask the questions here.”
She flushed, hot suddenly. How was her relationship with Ben a factor in anything? Regardless, despite her inclination to sass him, she knew for her sake and Ben’s she had to play nice. “We’re newly together. My brother’s known him forever, though.”
“And you were with him in the early part of this morning?”
“Correct. We’re both staying at my brother’s house. I left him at the bar around eleven. He returned to the house shortly after midnight.”
“Are you sure about this?”
Bella felt dampness at the base of her neck where her curls brushed the collar of her blouse. She put her fingers there, fluffing her curls, trying to remain calm. “Yes.” Just tell the truth. “I’d fallen asleep and looked at the clock when he came in.”
“And did you ask him what took him so long to return?”
“Yes.”
“And?” Carrot Cop raised his eyebrows and spoke to her in a voice dripping with disdain.
“Tiffany was throwing up and he didn’t want to leave her to die in her own vomit.”
“You really think a man like Ben Fleck held her hair while she puked for an hour?”
“Yes. He saw Tiffany was in trouble and shouldn’t drive so he stopped to help. That’s the kind of man he is. I’m quite certain he did hold her hair.” She put her fingers against her lips, watching him. There was a trace of meanness in his demeanor he didn’t bother to disguise with professionalism. He was a small man and unattractive, with eyes that bulged and one of those mouths where his gums showed over large teeth every time he grimaced. And that awful orange hair? He’d probably been tormented as a child and decided to be a cop so he could become the bully rather than the bullied.
He looked down at his notes for a moment before meeting her gaze, tapping his pen on the table. “How well do you know him, if, in your words, you’re newly together?”
“I just do.” She hesitated. How did one explain to a man like this one about a man like Ben Fleck? She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. “Surely you can imagine he’d be in a rush to make it back to me. It took a kind man to stay and take care of a girl he barely knew.”
“Miss Webber, Miss Archer was raped before she was strangled.”
The pain in her head surged then. She stared at Carrot Cop, her thoughts too jumbled to respond.
“Miss Webber?”
“If that’s the case, it means someone else was in her room after Ben.”
“How can you be so sure about that?”
“A DNA test will prove it wasn’t Ben. That’s simple enough.” She crossed her legs under the table, feeling the soreness from being with a man after a long time without sex. There was no way Ben had raped Tiffany. She felt hopeful suddenly. A DNA test would absolve him. Surely Carrot Cop knew this? “Can I get a Diet Coke? My head feels like it’s going to explode.”
“In a minute. I have a few more questions. Was Mr. Fleck acting strangely when he arrived home?”
“No. He was tired, that’s all.”
“And did you have sex?”
“Again, how is this relevant to Tiffany?”
“Again, I ask the questions. You answer them.” He spoke to her as if she were a dull-witted child.
She stifled her first response, which was to say, yeah, dirty, hot sex the likes of which you will never have, but instead she said only, “Yes.”
Carrot Cop got up from the table and headed toward the door. “Hold on. I’ll get you that soda.”
Halleluiah. Caffeine. Bella went to the window, looking down at the street below. Echo Grove was another sleepy town, thirty minutes north of River Valley but part of the same county. It was nestled in a valley as well, big in comparison to River Valley’s population of 1,420, with a population of just over 15,000. Neither of the two towns was prepared for the momentous size of this story, she thought. The number of people from the press that would invade these quiet communities would be unfathomable. She could only imagine what ridiculous theories the tabloids would invent. Bella thought of the film. Would Graham and Richard continue production?
It was unlikely Richard or Graham would want to stop filming. Tiffany had only filmed one scene in the time they’d spent on the movie thus far. With only two days’ worth of work, she could easily be replaced. This was Hollywood. Famous one minute, dead the next. No one would care but the fans. As Hitchcock used to say, the actors and actresses were just talent, interchangeable on any given day in Hollywood.
Carrot Cop walked back in and set a can of Diet Coke on the table. “I think we’re done here but we still have some questions for your boyfriend. You can wait in the lobby.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
BELLA SAT ON A BENCH in the hallway of the station while they kept Ben for several more hours. Around three o’clock in the afternoon he was released from questioning. His usually clean-shaven face was scruffy and his eyes blood-shot. “They wouldn’t give me anything to eat. I feel weak,” he said, falling into her arms.
“I got something for you.” She guided
him onto the bench and then rummaged inside her bag for the cheese and turkey sandwich she’d bought for him from the vending machine. “Was it awful?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” He bit into the sandwich, chewing quickly before taking another bite. “They kept going over the same stuff again and again, like they were trying to trip me up.”
He finished the sandwich in five bites. “Thanks for this. How are we getting home?”
“Drake and Annie are on their way.”
He turned to her, taking her hand. “How long did they question you?”
“A couple of hours. Several intense hours.”
“Bella, I’m scared. They think I did this.”
“It’s all right.” She lowered her voice. “Listen, did they tell you she was raped?”
“What? No.” He looked startled and then a look of comprehension crossed his face. “They were trying to get me to admit to that. They asked me a dozen times if I’d slept with her. I told them there was no way that girl was capable of having sex the way she was when I left her. She was totally out of it. Not to mention it’s not exactly sexy to get puked on.” His eyes darted to her face. “You know I didn’t do this, right?”
“Of course I do.” She put her hand on his knee. “But this is good news. Because they’ll be able to do a DNA test and prove it isn’t your sperm.”
Something like relief crossed his face. “You’re right. And that’ll clear me.” He paused. “I guess. There are still ways they could pin it on me though. These small town cops scare me and I have the distinct feeling they’re crooked.”
“I agree. I didn’t want to say it out loud but I’m afraid you’re right.” She rose from the bench and started pacing. “You said Tiffany was talking crazy in the car. Do you remember what she said?”
He looked at her. “Yeah. I told the cops this too. She was talking about some married guy she was sleeping with. I got the impression she was talking about the director.”
Bella felt shock, right in the middle of her chest. “That’s impossible. Richard’s a family guy. He and his wife have like a million kids, all adopted. He’s not the type to sleep with one of his actresses. Especially not one like Tiffany.”
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