by Trisha Grace
“Thanks for doing this.”
“For sending Hillary away?” He shrugged. “Any time.”
“For being considerate of my feelings.”
He leaned forward and gave her a peck on the forehead. “If I end up in jail, you’d better not break up with me.”
She laughed. “You’ll be fine. Samantha has solved over ninety-eight percent of her cases.”
“You have great faith in an ex-FBI agent. Keyword being ‘ex.’”
“I’m sure God put her onto this case for a reason.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Sarah shrugged. “If I’m not, I promise I won’t break up with you when you’re in prison.”
When the doorbell rang at Elena’s place, Sarah got up and opened the door before Elena had to. “Hey, Samantha,” Sarah said as she opened the door.
Elena had already told Keith and Sarah that Samantha would be coming over, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about other people tagging along.
Sarah smiled at the two other men in suits. “Hello.”
“You must be Sarah,” the older man in a black suit and light purple shirt said.
“Yes.”
“Detective Neal Hodge.” He glanced over to the younger man. “Detective Matthew Wilkes.”
“Hello.”
“Detectives,” Keith said from behind her. “Samantha didn’t tell us you were coming along.”
“I can see you’re already on friendly terms with them,” Detective Hodge said to Samantha. “Which was why I told her not to let you guys know we’d be here.”
Samantha kept a straight face and only smiled when Sarah met her gaze. “Shall we talk inside?”
Sarah and Keith nodded. Sarah held the door open while Keith led them into the living room.
“Where’s Elena?” Samantha asked.
“In her room,” Sarah answered and closed the door.
Samantha nodded and headed toward the couch along with Sarah.
“So, Miss Carter.” Detective Hodge adjusted his suit, shifting into a comfortable sitting position. “We haven’t had a chance to speak to you until now.”
“She was in a hotel room the whole night,” Keith said. “She had no idea what happened to Miriam. She had nothing to do with Miriam’s murder.”
“That was what she told Miss Levette.”
Sarah turned to Samantha, but she couldn’t read Samantha’s face. Shifting in her seat, she nodded. “I was in the hotel room the whole night.”
“Really?” Detective Hodge asked, and Sarah wanted to squirm in her seat.
She knew things were bad when Samantha’s chest rose while her gaze dropped to the floor. “At least I think I was.”
“So now it’s a you-think-you-were.”
Detective Wilkes flipped opened his notepad. “We have hotel surveillance showing you left the hotel at eight, and you didn’t return until ten.”
“And the hotel sheets were mysteriously stained with blood.”
Sarah looked down at her hand. “I cut my hand.”
“Where and how?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Another blackout?” Detective Hodge arched his brow. “If this is how the two of you are trying to cover up for each other, it isn’t going to work. We’ll find out where both of you were and what you were doing.”
“Is this an interrogation?”
Sarah looked over her shoulder at Elena who was coming down the stairs.
“I think Sarah and Keith have said all they want to. If you have any other questions, you can wait until Carlson gets here.” Elena sauntered toward them.
Detective Hodge smirked. “You can choose to do that. But once we get our hands on more evidence—”
“You can talk to Carlson then,” Keith interjected.
“Miss Carter, from what I’ve read about you, you’re just an elementary school teacher. I’m sure you never meant to get yourself caught up in this mess. I sure hope they won’t throw you under the bus when things get rough.” Detective Hodge stood.
“It’s a little insulting that you target me just because I’m an elementary school teacher. I may only be a teacher, but that doesn’t make me the weakest link.”
Samantha’s lips curled.
Detective Hodge shrugged. “Just a word of advice, Miss Carter. Miss Levette?” He cocked his head to the side.
Samantha turned to him. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. You’re right. I’m too chummy with them. It’s a conflict of interest. I’ll remove myself from being a consultant on this case.”
“After you’ve gotten all the information you need from us.”
“You were the one who suggested I step off the case. And from what you’ve said to them, it sounded like you’re just about to start your actual investigation.” Samantha smiled politely. “Good luck in solving the case.”
Detective Hodge nodded. “Let me remind you: if you’re hiding evidence for them, you’ll be charged as an accomplice.”
“I may not have been on the force as long as you have, but I do have a pretty good memory.”
“You know where the door is,” Elena said. “Make sure you close it behind you.”
Samantha gave the detectives a thin-lipped smile before they headed off. “Things don’t look good for you, Sarah.”
Keith shifted forward on the couch. “I don’t understand. I thought you said Miriam didn’t die of the stab wound. So why was Detective Hodge so focused on Sarah’s wound?”
“Because the unsub did stab Miriam in the end, and that unsub—”
“Unsub?” Keith asked.
“Unidentified subject,” Sarah said and Samantha grinned.
“Yeah. So that unsub might’ve cut himself or herself anyway.” Samantha extended her hand, palm up, toward Sarah, and Sarah put her hand onto Samantha’s palm. Samantha leaned forward, studying the wound. “I think whatever caused your wound is thicker than the knife that stabbed Miriam.”
“So she’s off the hook.”
“How did Miriam die?” Elena asked before Samantha could respond to Keith’s statement.
“Asphyxiation—strangled. There were bruises around her neck.” Samantha licked her lips. “And the hands weren’t too big. So Detective Hodge believes they could be yours.”
“Since you’re not working as consultant with the detectives, we’ll hire you,” Sarah said. “You’re a P.I. now, right?”
Samantha glanced between Sarah and Keith. “I’ve said it before: I don’t investigate to prove someone’s innocence.”
“That’s fine with us,” Sarah said and smiled. “We didn’t do it, so we just need you to find the truth.”
“You’re that sure even when both of you have memory lapses on the night Miriam was murdered?”
Sarah pursed her lips and hesitated. “Do you think Keith or I could’ve done it?”
“Could have? Of course both of you could have. Neither of you has a strong alibi.”
Sarah supposed she should’ve been offended, but she found herself appreciating Samantha’s candid and honest statement.
“How about this?” Elena came around the couch and sat on one of the seats that the detectives had vacated. “Anyone could’ve killed Miriam, right? The detectives seem to be homing in on Sarah and Keith. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Work from the angle that neither of them had anything to do with the case. If that doesn’t pan out, then do what you have to.”
Samantha didn’t say a word.
“Please, Samantha,” Sarah said. “You’ve said before that tunnel vision affects everyone. We’re not asking you to prove our innocence, just not apply the detectives’ tunnel vision to us. We’re asking to be treated fairly, that’s all.”
“Or you can just do it for your number one fan.” Keith grinned when Sarah turned to glare at him.
Samantha nodded after a moment. “Have you retrieved the bottle of water?” she asked Elena.
“My assistant sent that along with the envelop
e for the DNA sample.”
“I’d completely forgotten about that,” Keith said.
“What else do you need us to do?” Sarah asked.
“Let’s start by figuring out where you were the night Miriam was murdered.”
Chapter Sixteen
A month ago, Sarah had thought it was crazy for paparazzi to be chasing an elementary school teacher around. Now, said elementary school teacher was labeled as one of the suspects in the murder of Hollywood actress Miriam Ricci. So of course it made headlines.
“Stop reading the news. You can read it a hundred times, and you’ll just feel a hundred times worse,” Elena said with the cup of smoothie in her hand.
“Is that all you ever eat?”
Elena grinned. “I’m going to the gym. I don’t want to throw up on my trainer, who’d probably make me clean up the mess before putting me back to work.”
“I thought the studio was suspending work for now.”
“I’ll still have to fit into my clothes when filming resumes.” Elena shrugged. “Besides, I’m not much of a chef.”
“I can cook. I’ll cook dinner tonight if you want. I’ll head out to the grocery store later.”
“I don’t mind you cooking, but I don’t think you should head out today. Gina has already stocked up the fridge. I haven’t touched most of the stuff. If you need something else, call Gina. She’ll pick up whatever you need and bring it here.”
Sarah sighed.
“Still can’t figure out where you went after leaving the room?”
“Why, of all the nights, did the hotel have to do maintenance on their system that very night?” Sarah kneaded her neck. If the hotel hadn’t run their maintenance that night, the video cameras in the elevators and along the hallways would have told her where she went in her drunken state.
“At least you guys managed to draw a few conclusions from the few cameras that were actually working.” Elena gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Do you want me to wake your lazy boyfriend up?”
Sarah shook her head. “Let him sleep.”
“If he’s so insistent about staying, tell him I have more than one guest bedroom. He doesn’t have to sleep on the couch.”
Sarah’s lips parted into an embarrassed smile. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
“Don’t worry about it. Help yourself to the kitchen.”
“What time will you be back? I can make lunch for you, too. Samantha’s dropping by. We’ll probably be working from here today.”
“Lunch sounds good. But I’m on a pretty strict diet—until the filming is over, that is.”
“I’ll get the details from Gina.”
Elena nodded. “If it’s too troublesome, I’ll just buy something on the way home.”
“There’ll be lunch for you when you come back.”
“Okay.” Elena waved and headed out of the house.
Sarah set her phone aside and closed her eyes, just as Samantha had taught her. She recalled the last thing she could vividly remember: ordering dinner from her hotel room.
She imagined herself in the room, seated on the bed as she scanned through the channels on TV. She couldn’t remember what she saw on the screen. She wasn’t drunk then, but she wasn’t paying attention.
She did remember stopping on a channel showing how tennis balls were made.
Then the food came. Fish with vegetables and mashed potatoes, along with a wine glass and a bottle of wine stuck in a bucket of ice. She thanked and tipped the waiter, then settled in for dinner by the small desk in the hotel room.
Are you the kind who eats when you’re upset? Samantha’s voice rose in her head.
No. Sarah wasn’t the kind to eat when she was upset. She took a bite of the fish and downed the half a glass of wine she’d poured herself. The wine was gross—sour and bitter. She didn’t understand why people drank.
Then she poked at the mashed potatoes before taking another gulp of wine and hating it.
She couldn’t remember much after that.
Why would she leave the room?
Amid all the confusion, a scary answer had been growing louder since last night: she left to see Miriam.
It was logical to assume that she had. Miriam had just dropped a bombshell in her life, and Sarah was drunk. People did stupid things all the time while they were drunk.
“What are you thinking about?”
Sarah jumped.
“It’s just me.” Keith leaned forward and kissed her hair. “What were you so caught up in?”
“Have you ever done anything stupid while you were drunk?”
Keith laughed. “Oh yeah.”
“Like seriously stupid, something you regretted and still regret now.”
He cleared his throat and frowned. “Is this about your missing hours?”
She nodded.
“I knew you were worried after all the questions Samantha asked.”
“I’m worried because I don’t have the answers to her questions, especially her last question.”
“Is there any reason why you’d need to leave your room?”
“Yeah. There isn’t. I had everything I needed in the hotel room.” She took a deep breath. “Could I have gone to find Miriam? I only know a few places here. For me to head over to the studio would be perfectly reasonable.”
“Maybe you came to look for me. Maybe you came back here to find Elena.” Keith shifted his chair closer to hers. “This maybe game is never-ending, and you won’t find your answer that way either.”
She leaned back in the chair and groaned. “So where was I? What did I do?”
The doorbell rang, and they both turned toward the door.
“It must be Samantha. Why don’t you open the door? I’ll make breakfast.”
“We’ll just order something in.”
Sarah shook her head and headed over to the fridge. “Gina stocked up the fridge for me. And judging from all the smoothies Elena drinks, I think they’ll probably throw away the food if I don’t eat it.” She opened the fridge and took out a carton of free-range eggs while Keith went to open the door.
“I have a bit more information for you.” Samantha hurried into the kitchen and stopped in front of the kitchen island. “I went over to the hotel and had a chat with several of the staff members who were working that night.”
“And they know where I was?”
“Not exactly.”
Sarah threw the egg shells into the trash can. “Have you had breakfast? Eggs?”
Samantha blinked. “Yeah. Eggs are fine.” She pressed her hand along the length of the counter. “One of the staff saw you stumbling out with a bottle of wine. She didn’t see any blood on you or your hand then, and she noticed you holding onto your finger when you came back.”
Keith sighed. “How is that good news? The detectives will probably say this proves she went out and stabbed Miriam.”
“One—” Samantha lifted her index finger “—the staff was certain you were stumbling. I doubt Miriam would have had any trouble fighting you off. We need to get you to a doctor and take some photographs to prove you don’t have any scratches on yourself.” She paused. “You don’t have any scratches on yourself, right?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Good. So find a doctor and do that. Two: the staff said you got into a cab.”
Sarah pursed her lips. That sounded like more evidence against her. “I could’ve gotten into a cab and headed for the studio.”
“Point is: we don’t know. But the cab driver probably would. It wasn’t that late at night. I’m sure the cab driver would remember picking up a drunk woman around eight from the Four Seasons.”
“How are you going to find the driver?” Sarah asked. “Road cameras? I doubt the detectives will check them out for you.”
Samantha shrugged. “I’ll just head down to the taxi headquarters and ask. People are surprisingly helpful when you tell them it’s for a show and ask if they’d like to be on it.”
“I ju
st hope the answer isn’t me going to the studio.”
“The staff said you were back in slightly over an hour. I took a test drive from the hotel to the studio and back to the hotel. It took me around forty minutes.”
“So plenty of time for me to kill Miriam and get back to the hotel with a knife wound.”
“Don’t say that,” Keith said.
“I’m just saying what the detectives would think.”
Samantha nodded slowly. “But clarity is always good.”
Was it? Sarah wasn’t so sure that she wanted to find out about her missing time anymore.
“And I’ve been thinking. If you guys had nothing to do with her death, who would want her dead? I need to find a motive.” Samantha clapped her hands together. “So I’ll need access to her social media accounts. I’m sure you guys are friends or following each other and such, right?” she asked Keith.
He nodded and stood. “My phone’s on the couch.”
Sarah stacked the dishes on the table. All of them, except Samantha, had finished their lunch.
Samantha’s plate was pretty much untouched. She’d sat by the corner of the table, scanning through Miriam’s various social media accounts. She’d taken screenshots of the phone a few times. But if she’d found something important, she didn’t tell them.
The only time she’d said anything was when she realized everyone was staring at her, at what she was doing. She’d looked up, told them to ignore her, and gone right back to doing what she was doing.
So the rest of them talked and finished up their food.
Sarah glanced over at Samantha’s plate and decided to leave it there for her. She was about to bring the rest of the plates over to the sink when Elena stopped her.
“Leave them.”
“Here?”
Elena nodded. “I’ll do the dishes.”
“You know how?”
Elena laughed and turned to Keith. “How pathetic are you at chores?”
“I have a maid.”
“So do I.” Elena frowned. “Were you always rich?”
Sarah pushed the plates over to Keith. “Will you bring them over for me?” She gave Elena a slight head shake when she was sure Keith couldn’t see her.
