John’s eyes grew hard. “He molested you?”
“He tried. He was so drunk, he couldn’t have molested a paper bag. But that wasn’t the worst of it.” She paused, not wanting to go on, not wanting to remember.
“What happened?”
“When I told my mother, she got angry. Not with him. With me. She said I was lying. She accused me of trying to make him feel unwelcome in her home.”
“So you ran away.”
“Yes.”
“To Sunny Vale Apartments. That’s how you knew that alley wasn’t a dead end.”
She nodded. “A woman let me live with her in exchange for paying a share of the rent and watching her kids while she worked.”
“And that’s where you met Kirkland.”
A flush rushed up her neck and pooled in her cheeks. “I was eighteen by then. He was nice to me. Acted interested in what I had to say. Made me feel like I mattered. That’s a powerful drug to a runaway who grew up without a father.”
“And he offered you a way out of Sunny Vale.”
“I don’t like to think about how weak I was. How impressed by Wingate.” She shook her head. “I ended up being more like my mother than I could have imagined.”
“You were a kid. You were desperate.”
“Maybe. His sister, Joyce, says I latched on to his money and didn’t let go.” She shook her head. “She was wrong. I couldn’t have cared less about the money. I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel loved. I wanted to feel like I mattered. And Wingate ended up giving me none of those things.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth about your marriage when we first met?”
She shook her head and kept her eyes focused on the pizza cooling and congealing in its box. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to see that look in your eyes.”
“What look?”
“The look of suspicion. As if you know what I’m all about and it’s spelled M-O-N-E-Y.”
He reached out a hand. Touching the point of her chin, he tilted her face back, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Do you see that look?”
“No. I guess not. What I see is worse. Pity.”
He exhaled through tense lips. “You make me feel a lot of things, Andrea. But pity isn’t one of them.”
She swallowed into a tight throat. She had to ask. She had to know. “What do I make you feel?”
“Surprise.”
“Surprise? I surprise you?” How could she surprise him? Every time he looked at her, she could have sworn he saw right through her.
“You’ve surprised me since I met you. But even more than that, you make me surprise myself.”
“How?”
He smoothed a damp tendril back from her cheek with his fingertips, the ghost of a touch sending goose bumps over her skin. His dark eyes drilled into her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve believed in anything. Or anyone. Not like I believe in you. I didn’t know I still had the capacity.”
She let his words seep into her like rain after a long drought. Afraid that if she thought, if she moved, they would dissipate into the air as if he’d never said them.
Trailing fingertips over her cheek, he tucked her hair behind her ear.
She turned her face into his hand, soaking in his warmth, his scent, his touch. A sigh escaped her lips. She was so tired. Tired of being afraid. Tired of trying to be strong. Tired of being alone.
He cupped the back of her neck with his hand and pulled her against his strong body.
She melted into him. Melted into his warmth and the safety of his arms. She couldn’t be strong anymore. She didn’t even want to. She wanted him to touch her, to kiss her, to hold her and never let her go.
The bleat of his cell phone slashed the air.
Andrea stilled. Reality flooded back, dousing the warmth.
He released her and took half a step back.
Cold air filled the space where his body had been. Chills raced up her arms.
Pulling his gaze from her, he reached for the cell phone on his belt. He punched the talk button and held the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
He paused, listening to the voice on the other end. “What is it, Al?”
Something had happened. She could hear it in his voice. She could feel it in the air.
“Fine. We’ll be there.” John’s voice rang hard as a steel hammer against stone. He punched the off button and met Andrea’s eyes. “We have to drive back to Madison tonight. The search dogs found your husband’s body.”
Chapter Eight
Apprehension crept up Andrea’s spine as she stepped from the car John had rented and stood at the base of the familiar cobblestone drive of Wingate Estate. The gates gaped open, the drive blocked only by a ribbon of yellow tape and two uniformed police officers. Ahead, through the skeletons of bare trees, red and blue lights from several police cars throbbed and swirled across the brick mansion and the frost-bitten gardens kneeling at its feet.
A car door slammed and John stepped to her side. His breath hung like smoke in the frigid air. “The dogs found him in the woods behind the house.”
Andrea nodded. It seemed strange talking about Wingate in this way. Unbelievable that he was dead, found lying in the woods where he used to hunt. “What happens now?”
“The detectives and crime scene techs have to take photographs and collect evidence before they move him. They won’t be able to do much of that until morning.” He studied her face as if trying to gauge whether or not she could take the news.
She raised her chin, but it was an empty gesture. Back in Chicago he’d said she was tough. But she didn’t feel tough now. Far from it. “The police think I did it, don’t they?”
John opened his mouth as if to deny her statement, then closed it before a word left his lips. He nodded. “The spouse is the automatic first suspect in cases like this.”
“With Win willing his entire estate to me, I imagine I make a better suspect than most.”
“Yes.”
“When they learn what Tonnie Bartell has to say, they’ll be ready to lock me up and throw away the key.”
He said nothing, his silence telling her all she needed to know.
She returned her gaze to the scene in front of them. From the look of the flashing lights and cars of varying colors, all the police in the state were gunning for her. “What will they do with me tonight?”
“They’ll probably take you to the Green Valley police station.”
“Green Valley—” Fear closed her throat.
“The Green Valley police won’t be the only ones present. I know the county detective on the case. You’ll be all right.”
She swallowed hard, trying to breathe. “What then? Will they arrest me?”
“Not unless they have evidence I don’t know about. More likely they’ll just want to ask you some questions.”
Her heart dropped. With the hole still gaping in her memory, she didn’t have a chance of standing up to questions. “How do I answer? I don’t remember everything that happened.”
“Just tell the truth, what you remember. And it wouldn’t hurt to have a lawyer present.”
“Won’t calling a lawyer make me look guilty? I don’t have anything to hide.”
“It doesn’t matter. You need legal protection.”
She bit her bottom lip.
She felt like running away, hiding in the cabin up north and not emerging until the police had found the real murderer. Until they focused their accusing stares and leading questions on someone else.
John ran a finger down her arm. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll be there for you. I’ll protect you.”
Warmth chased his touch, just as it had in the Chicago hotel room. It was nice thinking he’d be there for her, that she wasn’t alone anymore. But she had a sinking feeling it wasn’t as simple as he’d have her believe. “You can’t protect me and still do your job, can you?”
“No, he can’t.” A heavyset man in a wrinkled brown suit ducked under the yellow c
rime scene tape across the driveway and ambled toward them. The flashing red and blue lights reflected off his balding head, making him look like some sort of macabre clown. “I sure as hell hope he’s learned something from his past mistakes.”
John grimaced and let his hand fall to his side. “Andrea Kirkland, this is Detective Al Mylinski.”
The detective’s shrewd eyes sized her up. “Mrs. Kirkland, you will have plenty of opportunity to call a defense attorney to protect you, if that’s what you want. I’m a heavy believer in the Constitution. John must have forgotten that.”
John gave Mylinski an apologetic nod. “I’m sure you’ll be open-minded about this case, Al. I’m just not sure others will.”
Like Police Chief Gary Putnam and the rest of the Green Valley police department. A chill sank into Andrea’s bones. She looked toward the silhouettes moving in the flashing lights near the house. She had no doubt Chief Putnam was up there, looking for evidence against her. Setting her up for a murder charge would be just as effective as killing her, if he or one of the other Green Valley cops wanted to keep what she’d witnessed quiet. Once she was convicted for murdering Wingate herself, no one would believe what she’d seen, even if her memory returned.
“You have only to cooperate, Mrs. Kirkland, and everything will work out fine.”
Andrea swung her attention back to Detective Mylinski. She raised her chin and straightened her spine. “I’ll do whatever it takes to find the truth.”
The hum of an engine and a flash of headlights pulled into the mouth of the driveway. A late-model Mercedes stopped behind John’s car. One of the uniformed officers approached it. Bending, he talked softly to the people in the Mercedes.
The car’s passenger door flew open. “I don’t care what you say. I have a right to see him.” A woman’s screech cut the air like a knife through tender flesh.
Andrea would recognize that voice anywhere. “Joyce.” She glanced over her shoulder in time to see her sister-in-law, Joyce Pratt, crawling from the passenger seat. Her blond hair caught the headlights, its color as brassy as her voice.
Detective Mylinski stepped toward the woman and raised his hands to stop her rush up the driveway. “I’m sorry, ma’am. This is a crime scene. You can’t go beyond the tape.”
The woman slammed against his hands full force. She clawed at his arms, trying to push past him. “Let go of me. He’s my baby brother. I have a right to see him.”
“Sure you do. That’s why you can visit him at the morgue tomorrow.”
“The morgue. Oh God. The morgue.” She slumped against the detective. A sob shook her shoulders.
The driver’s door of the Mercedes opened and Joyce’s husband Melvin climbed out. A bookish-looking man whose only conversational skills seemed to be comprised of the words yes and dear, Melvin huddled behind his wife, pulling his oversized parka tighter around his shoulders. “It’s all right, dear.”
“All right?” Joyce turned her tear-filled fury on her husband. “Of course it’s not all right. They won’t let me see Wingate. They won’t even let me say goodbye.”
Detective Mylinski sighed. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am. But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
Joyce’s head snapped around, a belittling comment obviously poised on her lips. But before she could deliver the insult, her gaze latched onto Andrea. “You.”
Andrea braced herself for the tirade to come.
Joyce pointed a bony finger. “She’s the one you want. She’s the one who killed Wingate.”
Mylinski motioned to the uniformed officer behind Joyce. “Please take Mrs.—”
“I have a right to be here. More right than that gold-digging whore. She murdered my brother.”
Melvin placed a hand on her shoulder.
Joyce shoved it away. “Maybe I could have stopped her if I hadn’t been in Paris. If I’d been home, maybe I could have kept her from killing dear Wingate.” A sob spewed from her red-lined lips.
Mylinski grimaced and turned to the officer. “Take these fine people to the Green Valley police station. We’ll want to get statements from them.”
Joyce smoothed a hand over her hair. She smiled down her nose at Mylinski as if he were a servant who’d obeyed her orders. “You can bet I’ll tell you the truth. Unlike some people who only know how to lie, manipulate and steal.” She gave Andrea one last glare before following the officer, Melvin in her wake.
Andrea exhaled. Dealing with Joyce was always a chore. Dealing with her tonight was impossible.
“If you’ll come with me, Mrs. Kirkland, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” Detective Mylinski gestured to a brown sedan parked just inside the yellow tape.
Dread settled into her bones like the chill of approaching winter. She forced her feet to follow the detective. The only thing that kept her from bolting was John walking beside her.
A group of people gathered near the crime scene tape talking with the remaining officer. Andrea recognized Ruthie Banks’s slight build. Her pixie face was obscured by her parka’s wide hood, but nothing could hide the twist of contempt on her lips.
An older man stood next to her conversing with the officer, his arms crossed over an ample belly. Probably Ruthie’s father, the judge. Although Andrea had never met him, Wingate had supported him in the last election, and she knew Judge Banks’s reputation. Tough on crime. And criminals. If the police arrested her, Gerald Banks would probably love to preside over the trial. If for no other reason than to rid his neighborhood of the criminal scourge she represented.
“You killed him.” A soft voice filtered through the darkness.
Shivers sprinkled Andrea’s skin. She turned in the direction of the sound.
Her housekeeper, Marcella, stood behind her. She held a rosary in her work-roughened hands, the iridescent oyster-shell beads glowing red and blue with the flashing squad car lights. Eyes narrowed to brown slits, she stared at Andrea as if she were evil incarnate.
“I didn’t kill him, Marcella. I swear.”
Marcella shook her head as if refusing to hear her. She crossed herself. “May God forgive you, missus. Because I never will.”
John stepped between her and Marcella, as if trying to block her from the woman’s curse.
Mylinski opened the back door of his sedan. “Mrs. Kirkland?”
Almost grateful for the escape, Andrea ducked inside, trying not to think of Joyce’s accusations, trying not to see her neighbors’ glares or hear her housekeeper’s soft curse. She’d felt the stares and heard the whispers since the day she’d married Wingate. But that was nothing compared to this. Now they believed she was a murderer. A monster.
She looked up at John, catching a glimpse of him just before the detective’s body moved between them, and he slammed the car door, the sound as final as a life sentence.
She wrapped her arms around herself and held on. Only a few short hours ago, she’d been warm in John’s arms. Safe. But now she was alone again—more alone than she’d ever felt before. And it was worse because now she knew what she was missing.
JOHN SAT in the cubicle adjoining the interrogation room and peered through the one-way glass. Andrea huddled next to the small table, arms crossed over her chest. Chin held high, she stared at the glass with empty eyes.
John couldn’t tear his gaze away. She was such a mix between beauty and fight, vulnerability and toughness. She made him want to protect her and fight by her side all at once. Anything, as long as he was near her.
“You sure you want to watch this one, Ace? Or should I call one of the other ADAs?”
He glanced up at Mylinski. The detective watched him over a steaming foam cup, no doubt waiting for him to duck out gracefully.
Although it would be the smart way to go, he couldn’t take it. He’d promised Andrea he’d be there for her. And even if he couldn’t do much to protect her from behind the glass, he couldn’t abandon her. Not when he’d given his word. “Don’t bother calling the DA’s office, Al. But I w
ill take a cup of that sludge you like to call coffee.”
Mylinski shot him a dour look and went back out the door. A minute later, he returned with another foam cup and Gary Putnam on his heels.
Putnam gave John a nod so precise and snappy, it looked like a salute. “Cohen.”
John returned the nod. He hoped Putnam was planning to stay in the cubicle and observe. Andrea’s nerves were frayed as it was. The last thing she needed was to have one of Green Valley’s finest locked in a room with her firing questions. She still believed her call to the Green Valley police station had caused the black truck to show up. And for all he knew, she was right. Hell, for all he knew, the driver of the black truck could be Putnam himself. “Have a seat, Chief.”
The man gave his head a sharp shake. “I’ll stand.”
John looked to Mylinski to see which of them—or both—would interrogate Andrea. He held his breath.
Finally Mylinski set down his coffee. Picking up a thick file and cradling it in the crook of one beefy arm, he moved for the door.
John released the breath. A minor victory. He peered through the glass into the room where Andrea was sitting.
Mylinski ambled into the room. He laid the file on the table beside her and pulled a piece of paper from it. “Mrs. Kirkland, I just want you to know that you have the right to remain silent. If you give up this right, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”
Andrea sucked in a breath. “Are you arresting me?”
“No. I just want you to know your rights up front. You also have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed by the court. Do you understand these rights?”
Andrea nodded.
Mylinski slipped a sheet of paper from the file folder and slid it toward her across the desk. “Sign it, please.” He pulled a pen from his pocket and offered it to her.
Picking up the pen with shaking fingers, she signed at the bottom.
Detective Mylinski collected the pen and paper. After signing it and noting the time, he returned it to the file folder. Mylinski did things by the book, all right. John had always liked prosecuting cases the detective investigated for just that reason. Once Mylinski compiled enough evidence to levy charges, they would stick.
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