“It’ll be all right,” he assured me.
But I couldn’t have disagreed more, and my body began to shake with pent up nerves. I even dropped my car keys. I was sure he could see how scared I was when he handed them back and my open palm trembled like an Aspen leaf in the wind.
“I can’t do this, Sean.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I mean, I can’t do it alone.”
“You’re not. I’ll be right behind you,” he said with a nod toward his car parked three spots behind mine.
That did nothing to appease me, and the first of my tears started to fall. I swiped them away and shook my head as I stared at the pavement between my feet.
“I’m sorry, it’s just… It’s all too much. Everything… I can’t take this anymore.” I swallowed hard and looked up into the warmth of Sean’s penetrating gaze. “I need you, Sean. With me, I mean. I know how it might make things look with the media and all, but…” I left it unfinished, and with a nod, glanced around at whoever might be watching, then back at Sean. “I need you. Please…come with me. Take me home.”
His expression softened, and the tiniest of smiles pulled up at one corner of his mouth.
“All right. I can do that,” he whispered. “But I’ll drive.”
Another tear rolled down my cheek, this time in gratitude. Without thinking who might be surveilling us, Sean wiped it away with the pad of his thumb and left a soft kiss in its place.
“Come on,” he said and walked me around the front of my Beemer, opened the passenger door, and lent me a hand inside before closing it.
A moment later, he was tucked into the driver’s seat, where he held out his hand for my car keys. He started the engine, and when we pulled from the curb, we both noticed a dark-colored van on the other side of the street, with a long camera lens pointed straight at us.
“Shit,” Sean swore.
While I understood his frustration, I’d become used to the intrusion. The media had been hounding me for two weeks already, since the day Declan and Aurelia’s bodies were discovered. But up until today, they hadn’t had a clue of my involvement with Sean. Now, it was open season, and we were little more than prey. I sensed Sean growing anxious even before I saw his shoulders bunch up and his jaw tic. I peered at him and could only guess what he was thinking and feeling, but I knew it wasn’t good.
“You don’t trust me, do you?” I asked, knowing he had every reason not to.
He shook his head. “I don’t know who to trust right now, to be honest. What I do know is, I’m feeling an awful lot like a scapegoat these days.”
“Not from me!”
“I didn’t say you, Eden.”
“But you’re thinking it, aren’t you?”
His fingers tightened around the wheel. “I’m thinking a lot’s happened since I met you.”
My mouth dropped open. “Hey, you pursued me, Sean.”
“Yes,” he said, his brow knotted. “And it’s mighty convenient that your cheating husband and best friend are now dead.”
I placed a hand to my chest. “You think I’m setting you up,” I stated rather than asked.
He shook his head and glanced at me. “No, not you,” he said, both his voice and expression earnest.
“Then who?” I asked.
He focused back on the road, his mouth a thin line. “That girl. The one in the photo. I think she’s behind this. And I think I know who she is.”
Before Sean could elaborate on who he thought the girl in the photo was, he’d already turned down my street and was nearly at my house. He slowed the car to a crawl as reporters and photographers crept closer. Soon, we were surrounded and couldn’t even turn into my driveway. Flashbulbs pulsed all around, while video camera lights blasted through my tinted windows like solar flares. Hands pounded against the glass and body of the car as a dozen or so news reporters screamed questions over each other, calling my name again and again, with Sean’s thrown in every now and then. Sean honked the horn and waved them aside.
“Get outta the way!” he yelled.
But they refused to let us through…until the Medina Police intervened and separated the crowd down the middle, pushing everyone to either side of the car.
Sean inched through the narrow gap in the front hedge, and I prayed the police would hold the media back from there, but they were quickly overwhelmed, and the crowd surged after us in our wake. Sean tried to race down the narrow drive, but more police officers were stationed along its length, and we had to slow back to a snail’s pace once again. By the time we stopped near the garage, the mob had regained the car, and we were quickly surrounded again.
Neither of us made a move to get out. As the throng continued to yell and tap at the glass, we both turned from our windows and looked at each other.
“Forget being vultures. These assholes are hyenas,” Sean complained.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Sean sighed with a shrug. “What we came here to do, I guess.”
“I don’t feel safe stepping out into that pack of wolves.”
“Me neither, but…what choice do we have?”
“We can leave.”
Sean shook his head. “Then it’ll look like we’re running.”
I surveyed the crush of media. “Might be a better option at this point.”
Sean cupped my face and stroked his thumb along my cheek. “We’re innocent, Eden. Just keep your chin up, your shoulders back, and remember that. It’s all that matters.” He leaned over the center console and pulled me in for a gentle kiss, damn the consequences of the crowd outside.
It was a fleeting moment, ten seconds of reprieve, and I fell so hard into it—the feel of his lips, the warmth of his protective presence—I didn’t want to give it up, but Sean pulled back and focused out the window behind me.
“There’s your friend,” he said with a nod.
I glanced over my shoulder, and there he was, Detective Reed, pushing the mob back from my car door and ordering them up the driveway with a sweep of his arms.
“Great,” I moaned and turned back to Sean. “You sure about this?”
A solemn nod. “I am.”
“All right. Here goes nothing,” I said and took a bolstering breath.
When I opened the car door, the crowd surged toward me, and Reed’s efforts to hold them back proved futile. With microphones pointed at my face, they screamed even louder than before.
“Mrs. Ross, did you kill your husband?”
“Eden, did your lover murder your best friend?”
“When did you find out they were having an affair?”
“How long have you been carrying on with a grad student?”
I turned from one side to the other, trying to duck through and away from the throng, but they just pressed closer, voices screaming, cameras clicking, bulbs flashing, and spotlights bright in my face.
“All right, that’s enough. Back off!” Detective Reed ordered.
He pulled me into his chest while he snapped his fingers, and five seconds later, the crowd parted as two uniformed Seattle Police officers forced their way through with their batons braced, hand to elbow, across their chests.
“Sean?” I called out as I peered back over my shoulder and searched for him in the crowd. He was fighting his own army as he climbed from the car. But his eyes were pinned on me, nonetheless.
“Later, Mr. Bennett,” Reed shouted. “I need a word alone with Mrs. Ross first.”
With one last reassuring nod and comforting smile from Sean, I was swept along the walkway and up to my front door. With Detective Reed at my back, I dug for my keys, then opened the door and barreled into the house. Behind me, Reed secured the lock.
I turned back to him and pointed toward the front door. “I want those people out of here! This is private property. Get them out now!”
With a nod, Reed barked an order into his police radio. “Move ‘em out to the street.” He slipped his radio back into his raincoat pocket
and caught my eye. “Sorry, Mrs. Ross. Guess they got a little excited when they saw you two together. In the future, you, um…might want to refrain from flaunting your relationship.”
“I’m not flaunting anything, Detective, and I’ve every right to be with whomever I choose.”
He held his hands up. “Yes, ma’am, you do. I’m just trying to save you some heartache, is all. The media, well, they don’t exactly care whether they’re reporting the truth or not. ‘Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission,’ and all that.”
I arched a brow and crossed my arms over my chest, hoping that was response enough.
“Mind if I take a seat?” he asked.
With a tip of my head, I stepped to the side and raised my arm, allowing Detective Reed farther into my home. He sat down in the center of the family room sofa while I perched along the edge of a side chair, and, with my hands folded in my lap, I dove right in.
“What’s this I hear about a body found in the woods?” I asked.
Reed held up a hand. “Now hold on there, Mrs. Ross—”
“Do you have any idea who it is?” I pressed.
“We’ve only just begun to investigate that one, so I can’t elaborate. I’m here to get you caught up on your husband’s case, share a little information, get your take on things.”
I pressed my lips together, but relented with a nod. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” he said and pulled out his phone, tapping away until he was ready. Then he looked up and met my gaze. “So…Mrs. Ross, I seemed to recall you telling Commander Shermer back at the station that your husband didn’t use your home security camera app.”
“DropCam,” I clarified.
“Yes, that. Well…seems he did actually. Seems he kept recordings, too, or, at least, those from the night before he was murdered, all showing Mr. Bennett coming or going from the premises. So…would appear Mr. Ross knew…or at least suspected something was going on between you and young Mr. Bennett.”
I worked hard to keep my composure, to show his words had no effect whatsoever, when, in reality, they felt like a sucker-punch to the gut. Declan had known about Sean. When he came home unexpectedly that night, he already knew. When he teased me about the bed being messed up, he already knew. And when he tried to seduce me, he already knew. That bastard! If he wasn’t dead already, I’d be tempted to kill him again myself. Then I pondered what Declan knowing might mean exactly.
“Where did you find these recordings?” I asked.
“Mr. Ross kept a backup on his computer at work, but nothing attached to the account, which would explain why you weren’t aware. Must’ve paid some IT guy under the table for that one.”
“And was it encrypted or otherwise secure?”
“Minimally. Which is strange for a hedge fund manager, I would think.”
I snorted. “Yeah, so would I.”
“There’s something else. On the night of, you suggested your husband had been using Viagra.”
“Yes. I caught them once, Declan and Aurelia, and I saw a prescription bottle, and a bunch of those blue pills had spilled out. I knew what they were used for.”
“But Mr. Ross didn’t have a legal prescription. We found a vial with a different name written by a physician who happened to have an account with your husband’s firm.”
I rolled my eyes. “One big happy boy’s club, eh, Detective?”
He nodded, but his brow was drawn low, as if he were confused.
“Mr. Ross also had propranolol in his system, the same beta-blocker we found in a search of Mr. Bennett’s residence, one he stole from his stepfather and allegedly used to treat occasional anxiety. Now, Viagra is a beta-blocker, as well, so using two at once is risky and likely caused a dangerous, if not deadly drop in his blood pressure. Even more suspect were high levels of Ambien, which I know you have a prescription for. But most surprising of all was the presence of the metabolite succinic acid in conjunction with choline, which, I’m told, are the remnants of a drug called sux or succinylcholine, a powerful but otherwise undetectable muscle relaxant that undoubtedly paralyzed your husband and, ultimately, stopped his breathing. Depending on the administration, the combination of all these substances would have surely sent your husband’s body into a tailspin, and, in the end, there was significant brain damage from highly elevated intracranial pressure, and his damaged heart stopped.”
I shook my head, overwhelmed by the scope of information, let alone the technical aspect of it all. “I don’t understand what all that means, Detective.”
“Well, as you know, he was painfully restrained, endured a beating, electrical shock and all that, but…more than anything…Mr. Ross was medically tortured, and he suffered greatly. Now, I know—regardless of your feelings for your husband and Ms. Wylde—that you were home at the time of the murders. Your son verified as much, as did your husband’s time-stamped security camera footage. I feel pretty solid about your alibi and lack of involvement, but…”
“But what, Detective?”
“Well, makes me wonder who could’ve hated Mr. Ross so much to want to inflict that kind of extreme suffering. And, considering your own relationship with Mr. Bennett—”
“Whoa, stop right there,” I said with my hand up. “You’re mistaken if you think Sean had anything to do with it. He’s kind, loving, even competes in triathlons with his paralyzed baby brother. He’s certainly not the type of monster who’d torture and kill in cold blood, Detective. And while Sean might’ve resented Declan for what he did to me, he didn’t hate him. For God’s sake, he never even met him.”
“But he did see him, though, didn’t he, Mrs. Ross? With you here at your home that night before? He admitted as much. Said he ran off afterwards, collapsed in those woods right over there where that body was found, which leads me to believe he saw something that upset him.”
I felt the blood in my head rush to my stomach, which now felt like it had sunk to my feet.
“Did Mr. Bennett tell you about his memory lapses from that night?” Reed asked.
“No. What…what lapses?” I replied, afraid to hear the answer.
“He can’t account for two significant periods of time. The first shortly after he left here, the same time Ms. Wylde expired. And the second some hours later, during which your husband was killed.”
I sat there with my hands still folded and my face a blank slate, terrified of what it would show if I allowed it.
“Have you ever suspected Mr. Bennett of lying to you about anything else?”
“No, Sean hasn’t lied,” I argued, knowing full well he had.
Reed rocked his head from side to side. “A lie of omission is still a lie, Mrs. Ross. And I suspect it’s not the first time, is it?”
I dropped my gaze and studied my fingernails.
“Mrs. Ross, I don’t believe you had anything to do with these murders, but if you aren’t forthright with me and answer all my questions honestly, I won’t be able to determine who did, and, by the bodies now piling up, that could mean you’re in significant danger. So I’ll ask again. Have you ever caught Mr. Bennett lying to you?”
“Um…well…just…just once. He kept his true identity from me the second time we met. Before that, he followed and chatted with me on Twitter, using his real name, but when he showed up at one of my book signings, he told me his name was Daniel. Which, of course, it is, his middle name, but…he deliberately kept his association with me on Twitter to himself. I only found out later when he showed up at my school to pick-up his little brother and Robbie referred to him by name.”
“And did Mr. Bennett know you, the author, were the same woman who ran his brother’s school?”
“No. He swore he didn’t know beforehand.”
“And you believe him?” Reed asked.
My mouth flapped about for a moment before I could find the right words. “Well, I…I have no reason not to, Detective.”
“Really?” He paused, palms up. “Well, I’ll tell ya, Mrs. Ross,
all things considered, I’m not sure you know Mr. Bennett nearly as well as you think you do.”
I raised my chin and crossed my arms, not so much out of defiance or stubbornness, but out of fear. Because I couldn’t help but think Detective Reed was right. Which meant I was beginning to doubt Sean’s innocence after all.
I stood next to Eden’s car and watched Reed escort her into the house. She peered over her shoulder at me, her brow angled as if pleading me to whisk her away. But I couldn’t. We’d come this far; we had to see it through.
A large part of the crowd had followed Eden and Reed, but as soon as they were safely inside, the crowd turned back and joined their colleagues, who’d clustered around me. They pressed in so tight, I could barely even get the car door closed. Camera lenses and microphones were shoved in my face, while the reporters behind them called out my name and shouted question after question.
I couldn’t hear myself think and was quickly losing patience. I elbowed and jabbed them away as lights flashed rapid-fire, blinding me for several moments at a time. With spots clouding my vision, I held out my hands and thrust at the rowdy mob, only to lose my balance and stumble. Luckily, someone caught me before I fell to the pavement. It was the beautiful female detective I first saw questioning Ian Ross at the police station. She’d pushed her way through and now stood in front of me, her hands at my elbows to steady me.
“Mr. Bennett,” she hollered over the crowd. “I’m Lieutenant Sienna Monroe. I’m relieved to see you and Mrs. Ross. We’re going to clear this crowd soon, but let me escort you to a quieter spot so we can talk.”
I simply nodded, unwilling to even try to be heard over the bellowing crush of media. With the assistance of a Seattle uniform, Lieutenant Monroe ushered me to the side of the house closest to the wooded wetland, where bright lights glared from deep within its heart. Angry at the unchecked chaos, I shirked free of Monroe’s grasp. Back on the driveway, the remaining cops formed a line, surrounded the press corps, and herded them up the driveway, through the tight gap in the tall hedge and back out onto the narrow street, where they swarmed like bees who’d lost their queen.
Stirred Page 27
