“It isn’t like that, trust me.”
“So I guess it’s just a coincidence that the day I finally tell you to scram, she ends up dead. Christ, I should have listened to her. I should have confronted you on day one.”
She wonders wildly how things might have turned out had he done that. Would that have forced her to run away, or make her introduction sooner? Either way, Phoebe might still be alive. Jesse Bachmann too. “I swear to you, I didn’t do this.”
He takes a step toward her. “Then what did you want with my wife?” He gestures to Phoebe with a glance and a wave of his arm and shudders.
Nadia nearly blurts out the truth, but she isn’t sure this is the right time to milk him for sympathy. And there’s no hope of pressing him for the getaway cash she’d intended to demand from Phoebe, not without looking even guiltier. The tightrope she has to walk right now is in a high wind. Any wrong move, and it’s all over. “That’s a long story that we don’t have time for right now.”
“Tell me!” He advances even closer.
She holds the knife out to ward him away. Her hand is trembling a little, but she’s still confident she can use it if she has to. “Don’t you take another step.”
He throws another cautious glance at her weapon. “And she has a knife. What a coincidence. So is this where I end up joining my wife in the hereafter?”
“I never would have done anything to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt anyone!” She wishes she didn’t sound so defensive. It’s the fear at work, but also more than a little guilt and distrust. He’s pushing her onto the ropes, trying to break her down, but is he doing so because he’s genuinely innocent and afraid himself, or because he’s trying to deflect? Until she has a better idea, she has to keep him mostly in the dark. “Look, Phoebe and I had . . . mutual interests, okay? I’d been working up to introducing myself. Was actually planning to do it today, but someone killed her, and that’s all I know.”
He’s frowning at her. “Mutual interests? What sort of mutual interests? You actually know who she is?”
She nods. “Looks like we both have a lot of questions.”
“You’re also the stranger in my house standing over my dead wife!”
“Whom I found after watching you leave here in Hulk mode.”
He shakes his head. “I’m telling you, that’s impossible.”
“And yet, here we are.”
Neither of them speaks for a minute, pondering their impasse. Then he says, “So who let you into the house if she was . . . like this when you got here?”
“After you raved at me like a psycho, I went driving around for close to two hours before I decided to come back. I needed to see her. Speak to her. I knocked and rang the doorbell, but when she didn’t answer, I got a bad feeling in my gut, because she . . . you know, doesn’t go out much. I walked around back, to the patio. When I peeked through the doors, I saw her feet splayed out . . . so I came in. Found her like this.”
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “The door was just unlocked?”
“Yes.”
“And you saw no one else around?”
She shakes her head. “The only person I saw near your house this morning was you.”
“So why didn’t you just call the cops? That’s what anyone else would have done.” Her mouth goes a little dry. The truth definitely wouldn’t help her, so she says nothing. He nods, like he’s heard the basic run of her thoughts telepathically. “Right. Something tells me you’re the type to avoid cops when possible.”
“You didn’t exactly dive for your phone, either,” she says.
“I’m fixing that right now.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone.
“They’d arrest you first, you know.” She hopes she doesn’t sound too eager to dissuade him. “They always go after the husband. Always.”
“The evidence will speak for itself.” He doesn’t sound entirely convinced of that. He’s also no longer tapping on his phone screen, which is a relief.
“It’s screaming to me now that you did it, and I guarantee you they’d agree. You have the best motive. She’s rich. Also, your marriage was falling apart.”
He flinches. “How would you know that?”
She won’t mention the affair, unsure what emotion it might trigger, but she doesn’t really need to. “I was actually just bluffing, but your reaction pretty much said it all.”
He looks away, adequately chagrined. She continues. “You also had the most opportunity to do it, since you live here. And there’s the cut on your hand, the blood on your shirt.”
“I broke a coffee mug and cut myself! It’s my blood!”
“Doesn’t matter. They’ll say you cut yourself while stabbing her. And then there’s the witness. Me. I’ll tell them what I saw, a clearly distraught man speeding away from his house right around the time of his wife’s death, but not before stopping to threaten me.” It’s another bluff. She wouldn’t be within fifty miles of this place when the cops showed, but again, he doesn’t need to know that.
He’s visibly shrinking as she speaks, and it satisfies her greatly. But then something occurs to him, because he frowns and straightens his posture a little. “What about when I tell them you’ve been spying on our house for weeks? I’m sure they’ll find witnesses around the neighborhood to back that up. Phoebe even keeps . . . kept a logbook. I thought she was being ridiculous . . .” He bows his head and gives it a grim shake. “That’s on me now, for not believing her. But given that you don’t want to involve the cops, you must have something to hide, no matter what your so-called mutual interests were with Phoebe.” He looks at her a little more closely. “Why do you look so familiar, anyway?”
Nadia stiffens. It’s very possible he’s seen her picture in recent news, but she’d rather he didn’t make that connection at the moment, or see how desperate she is to avoid facing any police at all. This is why you should have just left the second you saw those splayed-out feet, foolish girl. Now here you are, trying to bargain with a likely killer. “Listen, we can go back and forth all day about who did this, but it’s not going to change the fact that we both are in a bind here. Would you agree?”
His jaw clenches like he’s reluctant to admit it, but nevertheless he says, “I guess so.”
“At best, they’ll have reason to arrest us both. Maybe they’ll eventually be able to exclude us as suspects, but is that something you want to take a chance on? This will be everywhere in the news too. Even if by some miracle they catch someone else for this, people will talk and they’ll dig, and it will live on through the internet forever.”
After a long moment, he cries, “God, this whole thing is so fucked!”
She doesn’t raise any objections about that. He paces a few times, keeping his head turned in an effort to avoid looking at Phoebe. Nadia says, “Look, maybe we should take this into the other room. I think we’d both find it a little, you know, easier to talk.”
He doesn’t respond verbally, but the relief that crosses his face is plain enough. She follows him into the sitting room adjacent to the kitchen, which is mercifully out of view of the body. The lighting is better in here, which allows her to see how bloodshot his eyes are. “So?” he asks. “What are we going to do?”
“So you now see this as a ‘we’ problem?” Nadia asks.
“Would you disagree?”
“No. Just making sure we’re on the same page.”
“Same page? I don’t even know what book this is. Will you at least tell me your name now that we’re considering being coconspirators?”
“Okay, fair enough. I’m Nadia.”
He studies her face for a moment, as though trying to determine whether that’s her real name, and then gives a resigned nod. “All right, Nadia. I’m Wyatt. But I guess you already knew that.”
She doesn’t tell him that she might have know
n it once but eventually forgot it. He’s never really been on her radar. Phoebe was always her priority. Nadia was just fine thinking of him only as “the husband.” She’s about to ask him if he wants to open with any suggestions on next steps when she notices his face working, like he’s trying to hold back tears. She realizes she’s still holding out her knife. Not as prominently as she was before, but enough to keep him at a safe distance. She lowers it fully to her side but doesn’t fold the blade back in yet or move any closer. Baby steps, at least until she’s sure he isn’t putting one over on her. “Do you need a moment?” she asks.
He closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths. “No. Just fighting off a little panic attack. I feel like my brain has been short-circuiting since I woke up this morning. Emotions all over the place.”
“I gathered that by the way you left.”
“We’d had a bad fight. Probably our worst one ever, and we’ve been having a lot of them lately.” He looks at her sharply. “But she was very much alive when I left. That was my biggest mistake, leaving. Of course at that moment, I thought it was the smart thing to do, because I was so angry. You always think you’re going to have a chance to go back and fix things.”
Doubts about his guilt begin creeping back in. At the very least, his regrets seem genuine, and she wants to ask what they fought about. After all, Phoebe was leading something of a double life. Of course, that also means there are more suspects to consider. Three of them, right across the street. With a little digging, she might be able to find out for sure. But to what end? Revealing who killed Phoebe won’t do a thing to alleviate Nadia’s Bachmann problem.
What she should be doing is getting out of town before all that catches up to her. Meanwhile, even if she helps hide the body, Phoebe will have to be reported missing. Wyatt can buy some time by saying she left town for a little while, but that won’t work forever. Eventually, someone somewhere is going to expect Phoebe Miller to show up for something, and when she doesn’t, the police will get involved. They’ll grill Wyatt, and then, to cover his own ass, he’ll put them on Nadia’s trail.
Of course, Phoebe was kind of a hermit. She didn’t have an outside job or even a Facebook page anymore. Aside from the neighbors across the street, how many people would even notice her missing? He could just fake her signatures for the occasional check or tax documents. Stick to email for everything else. A female voice might be needed for a phone conversation now and then, but . . .
Nadia nearly gasps as an idea blooms to life, but she’s not going to get her hopes up just yet. It’s way too good to be possible. It’s actually downright absurd, but therein lies its genius. “Does Phoebe have any close family who would miss her?”
He wipes at his eyes and shakes his head. “No. Her parents are both dead. All the other relatives are either distant or not really in contact.”
“What about her business or financial interests? Any lawyers, family trustees or busybodies, that sort of thing?”
Now he’s staring at her with guarded interest. “You’ve been spying on her for weeks, so I assume you know who she was.”
“Yes. I know she’s Daniel Noble’s daughter.” Nadia’s stomach sours a little as she thinks of how she’d been intending to use this knowledge to her advantage.
“She was an only child, so she received the bulk of the personal inheritance. The rest went into a trust for the few remaining aunts and cousins, who feed off of it like vultures. They’ve always kept their distance. And since you know who Daniel Noble is, then you’ve probably been paying attention to the news recently.”
Had she ever. “Yes. He was a rapist.” The words come out harsher than she intended.
He raises his eyebrows. “Not one to mince words, I see.”
“Should I have said ‘alleged’ rapist?”
“You’ll never catch me defending the man. Anyway, as you can imagine, I think anybody with ties to Daniel’s money is looking to keep a low profile right now. Phoebe was no exception.”
She nods. This is good. Very good. “What about her accountants and lawyers? Does she work closely with them? What about any side work for the company?”
“Around tax time, she might go into the accountant’s office to sign some documents, but that’s about it. She hasn’t worked in any real capacity for the company in years. What little correspondence she gets is all through email.”
“And since you’re her husband, you can act in her stead, correct?”
“That’s not how ultra-rich families operate. Outsiders are pretty well isolated from things, and my father-in-law was particularly keen on keeping me at arm’s length.”
“Why’s that?”
Wyatt shakes his head as if to say some other time. “I would have received a substantial chunk upon Phoebe’s death, but even then, I’m sure there are some ridiculous conditions in the will I don’t know about.”
This is another mark in Nadia’s favor, but she stops short of pumping her fist in triumph for now. There’s another important matter. “What about her friends?” She already knows about the two people Phoebe spent most of her time with lately, but he would likely have more insights on any others. She senses there won’t be much, though. Given that Phoebe had no social media accounts that Nadia could find, and rarely left the house for any other reason than to grocery shop, it stands to reason that all her other friendships have withered on the vine.
“Phoebe didn’t do friends. Getting her out of the house, especially in recent months, was like pulling teeth. I suspected some agoraphobia in addition to depression, but she refused to let me diagnose her or refer her to someone who could. I’m a therapist.” He sounds almost apologetic about it.
“She was friendly with the people who moved in across the street recently.” Nadia decides to leave out any mention of lover boy for now. One mess at a time. “The wife came over to visit a couple times a week during the day. Sometimes they went out together.”
He seems almost taken aback by that news, but then he shrugs and shakes his head. “I never noticed. We were barely speaking anymore these last weeks, and my head has been in a fog. She could have been running a drug and prostitution ring out of the garage for all I knew.”
He’s ticked all the boxes for her, and she’s nearly trembling with excitement. Phoebe was a hermit with no real social life, apart from the neighbors. They will be an issue, especially if one or all of them did have something to do with Phoebe’s death, but she can deal with them soon. The real beauty of her idea is it utilizes the one thing that brought Nadia all the way to Lake Forest in the first place.
“So I think I have a plan. You may not like it, but it’s the best chance we’ll have to buy ourselves all the time we need to get to the bottom of what really happened here.”
He inhales and squares his shoulders. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“By the end of the night, it will be like this never happened. We’re going to undo the murder and make Phoebe live again.”
CHAPTER 14
WYATT STARES AT her like she might have sprouted a second head, which isn’t all that far from what she has in mind. Then he shakes his head and looks down at his feet. “I got nothing.”
“It would be better if I showed you,” she says. “Do you mind if I go upstairs for a few minutes? You can come with me if you’re worried I might do something.”
“What do you need up there?”
She clears her throat. “To be honest, I’d like to clean myself up a little. Would it be okay if I changed into something of hers?”
He sighs and stands up. “Fine. I’ll come too. I don’t want to be alone down here.”
As they climb the staircase, Nadia takes a moment to admire the bold abstract paintings on the walls along the way. Phoebe clearly loved modern art, a sharp contrast to the classic Tudor exterior of the house. This seems to encapsulate the Phoebe she came to know, at least in her head,
over the last several weeks. Traditional and elegant on the outside but full of surprises.
“Are you ever going to tell me who you really are?” Wyatt asks when they’re nearly at the top.
“You’ll figure it out on your own soon enough.”
“That’s a little cryptic for my liking.”
She turns to him when they reach the landing. The big set of teak double doors at the end of the hallway can only be the master bedroom. How grand. “I just think if I simply told you, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.” She pauses before opening the doors. “Are you coming in with me?”
“You think I wouldn’t?”
She shakes her head. “I need the insurance as much as you do right now.”
The bedroom is nearly pitch-black thanks to the heavy curtains covering the windows. She fumbles blindly for the light switch for a few seconds, but Wyatt beats her to it. Bathed in clean LED, the room isn’t much cheerier. Walls the color of concrete. Metal and glass furnishings. Even the lap-pool-sized bed doesn’t feel at all cozy or inviting, thanks to the stark white bedding and the brushed steel bed frame. Plants or colorful fabrics would help soften the space, but it would still feel like a mausoleum. It’s interesting that Phoebe would have chosen such a spartan look for the most intimate room in her home.
She glances at Wyatt, who’s even more solemn than before. “Is it okay if I look in the closet for some clothes?”
He nods and points to another set of double doors. “You’ll find everything in there.”
When she opens the doors, she stops breathing for a few seconds and then lets the air out in a whoosh. “Wow. She sure loved to shop, didn’t she?”
“Not as much recently. But yes.” He sits down on the tufted leather ottoman at the end of the bed.
The place holding Phoebe’s wardrobe is about the same size as the living room in the house she grew up in. Hundreds of garments line the walls in three stacked rows clear to the vaulted ceiling, all of it organized by color. The entire back wall is devoted to shoes, countless pairs perfectly lined up in long rows, also to the ceiling. There’s an enormous island with drawers in the center. It’s bare on top, save for an iron and an empty laundry basket. A quick check of the drawers reveals stacks of bras and panties, all laid in flat, color-coded rows with retail precision. The one thing throwing off the balance is the big empty hole on the other side of the space, which is presumably where Wyatt once kept his clothes. All that’s left are a couple suits hanging in their dry-cleaning bags, and an old-looking winter coat. So he’s living in another room of the house, after all. Good thing they agreed to keep the cops away. This closet would’ve provided all the answers they needed about the strength of the Miller marriage.
The Other Mrs. Miller Page 14