While both Meg and Connor had a number of questions for her, Kristin was first to get a word in.
“Is it true? Is Nicole really dead?” Kristin asked.
Concern was all over her face. Although, it was hard to tell if Kristin was being genuine or if she was just putting on an act. That was one of the mysteries the sleuths were eager to solve.
“Unfortunately,” Connor replied.
Kristin seemed baffled. “Who would do something like this?”
“That’s what we intend to find out.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Kristin asked.
“That’s where you come in.”
Shock came to Kristin’s face. “Me?”
Connor nodded.
Kristin was still at a loss. “Why would you think that I know what happened here?”
“Ms. Zeller, we’re trying to get all the information we can. To do that, we’re going to need you to answer a few questions as honestly as you can,” Connor said.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m still not sure why you want to talk to me.”
He stared deep into her eyes. “This will be a lot easier if you are cooperative.”
“I am cooperating. I’m just confused.”
“Ms. Zeller, please just let us get to our questions.”
Kristin relented. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“From what we understand, you quit your job here yesterday,” Connor said.
Kristin’s mood drastically shifted. She was no longer concerned about Nicole. Instead, she was worried about herself. “Wait a minute. You don’t think I’m a suspect, do you?”
“You have to admit, it does seem curious that you quit your job one day then your boss is found murdered the next,” Connor said.
She thought the detective was making far too big of a leap. “That’s purely coincidental.”
“You can see how that would be difficult for us to believe,” Connor replied.
“Not to me. One has nothing to do with the other.”
“Why did you quit your job here exactly?”
“Things just weren’t working out,” Kristin said.
That explanation was way too vague for the detective.
“Why weren’t they working out?” Connor asked.
Kristin couldn’t change the subject fast enough. “You should be talking to Paul. He was the one dating Nicole.”
Meg stepped in. “He was?”
Kristin nodded.
What an interesting detail. Meg would file that for later use. That being said, there were plenty of other questions left to ask Kristin.
“Back to you,” Meg said. “You still haven’t answered our question.”
Kristin shrugged her shoulders. “Which one?”
“Why wasn’t your job working out?”
“What can I say? It was a dead-end job.”
Meg arched her eyebrows. “That’s some interesting phrasing.”
“It’s an unfortunate expression. I was being overworked and underpaid. You know how it is sometimes.”
“Do you have another job lined up?”
“I have a few leads,” Kristin replied.
“So that’s a no, then?” Meg asked.
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to get a job offer in the next week or so.”
Kristin’s sudden decision to leave her position still seemed foolish to Meg.
“If you didn’t have another job lined up, then why were you so quick to quit working for Dr. Miller and Dr. Conway?” Meg asked.
“With the long hours and hard work I put in here every day, I didn’t have enough time or energy to send out resumes and go on interviews for another job unless I had already quit working here,” Kristin replied.
To Meg, the explanation still seemed half-baked, but Connor had another question that he was eager to ask Kristin.
“Where were you last night?” Connor said.
Kristin threw up her hands. “What are you wasting your time with me for? I told you. You need to talk to Paul—”
Connor interrupted her. “Ms. Zeller, answer the question.”
Kristin realized that she wouldn’t be able to squirm her way out of this. “I was at home looking for a new job.”
“Were you alone?” Connor asked.
Kristin nodded. “Yes.”
“So you didn’t come back here last night, then?”
Kristin shook her head. “No.”
“It’s a shame you don’t have anyone who can prove that,” Connor said.
“What are you talking about? I don’t need anyone who can prove it. I was at home,” Kristin replied.
Connor remained skeptical. “Here’s the problem. If you truly were alone, it gives you no verifiable alibi for the time of the murder.”
Kristin became frantic. “I didn’t do this.”
“So you say.”
Kristin put her hands on her hips. “I answered your questions. Now I want to go home.”
“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that quite yet.”
Kristin groaned. “What else do you want from me?”
“We have a few more things to ask you.”
“What more could you possibly want to know?”
Connor didn’t hesitate to keep digging. “You said Paul and Nicole were dating.”
Kristin nodded. “Yes.”
“Were they having any problems?”
“Probably.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“I mean, all couples argue, right? So why would they be any different?” Kristin replied.
“You don’t have any specifics, though?” Connor asked.
Kristin hesitated before answering then shook her head. “No.”
Meg brought up a different topic. “Do you know anyone else who might have wanted to kill Nicole? One of her patients? Ex-patients?”
Kristin had an immediate answer to that question. “I can think of a few.”
Meg’s eyes widened. “We need names.”
Two names rolled right off of Kristin’s lips. “Justin Webster and Rebecca Tate come to mind.”
“Why them?” Meg asked.
“Rebecca Tate was having relationship problems. Her boyfriend didn’t respect her, so Nicole encouraged her to stand up for herself. Rebecca took the doctor’s advice only to have things go sideways on her.”
“How so?”
“Instead of respecting her wishes, Rebecca’s boyfriend broke up with her. Rebecca, in turn, blamed Nicole for the breakup.”
“Of course. Why blame your boyfriend when you can blame your therapist?” Meg said.
“That happens more than you think,” Kristin replied.
“How did you know all that about Rebecca?”
“She told me one day in the waiting room.”
Connor zeroed in on the other name that Kristin had provided. “What’s Justin Webster’s story?”
“He’s a shy guy. Totally awkward around women. The guy was like a turtle hiding in his shell when he was sitting in the waiting room sometimes,” Kristin said.
Connor listened intently. “Okay.”
“He was completely different with Dr. Conway, though. He believed that the doctor was the only woman who really listened to him, who truly understood him. Justin tried to make a move on the doctor. She turned him down. Instead of being deterred, he just kept trying harder. Finally, he became so obsessed with the doctor that she couldn’t take it. She ended up dropping him as a patient.”
“So she completely cut him off?” Connor asked.
Kristin nodded.
“How did he take it?” he asked.
“Not well. Justin came into the office one day ranting and raving, saying that it wasn’t fair what the doctor had done to him. That the doctor had led him on.”
“Then what happened?” Connor asked.
“I had to get Dr. Miller to forcibly remove Justin from the building,” Kristin replied.
“Did he ever come back after that?” Connor said.
Kristin shook her head.
“When was this?”
“About a month ago.”
Connor let all that information sink in, then he took a deep breath. “We’ll definitely be paying Justin a visit.”
Meg nodded. “Yeah.”
Connor turned his attention back to Kristin. “Is that all?”
“That I can think of,” Kristin replied. “Can I go now?”
Connor and Meg both fired a few more questions at Kristin, but her answers didn’t provide any further insights. Realizing that he had gotten all of the information that he could out of the suspect, Connor let Kristin go.
Chapter Ten
Meg and Connor never thought they would be compelled to speak with Paul so soon after their last interview with him, but with the information Kristin had provided, the sleuths would be remiss in their investigative duties if they didn’t make Paul’s dark-blue, two-story, Victorian-style house their next stop. The doctor looked incredibly surprised to see the investigators again and was not thrilled to have them standing on his front doorstep.
“What are you both doing here?” Paul asked.
Connor didn’t hesitate to get right to the heart of the matter. “Dr. Miller, why didn’t you tell us before that you and Nicole were dating?”
Paul’s mouth hung open. As he began to formulate a response, Connor fired a warning at him.
“And don’t try to lie to us. We know the truth. Kristin Zeller told us as much,” Connor said.
Paul made his displeasure known about the aforementioned receptionist. “I would take everything Kristin said to you with a grain of salt.”
“Are you calling her a liar?” Connor asked.
Paul was not shy about throwing his former coworker under the bus. “I’m just saying that she has it out to get me.”
Connor grew curious. “Why is that?”
Paul sneered. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Why don’t you tell us?” Meg suggested.
Paul scoffed. “I should have guessed that she wouldn’t tell you. Kristin has a thing for me. I don’t feel the same way about her. So when she made a pass at me and I turned her advances down, she didn’t take my rejection well. Her mood only soured further when she found out that Nicole and I were together.”
Meg and Connor took a moment to process what Paul had just told them.
“Is that so?” Meg asked.
“I guess she just happened to omit that part, huh?” Paul said.
Connor nodded. “She did.”
Paul raised his eyebrows. “What a curious omission for her to have made.”
“I don’t disagree,” Connor replied. “That being said, we have some additional questions for you.”
Paul was eager to push the focus off of himself. “Weren’t you listening to me? You’re talking to the wrong person here. You really need to talk to Kristin again.”
“We will. When we’re done with you,” Connor said.
“Now about you,” Meg added.
“I told you—” Paul started saying.
Meg sensed that another excuse was coming. Instead of listening to his spin, she tried to keep things on point. “You told us you didn’t have anyone to verify your alibi. But we’re here just as much about what you didn’t say. Now are you going to lie to us and pretend that you and Nicole weren’t dating, or are you going to tell us the truth?”
Thankfully, Paul didn’t deny that he had been romantically involved with Nicole. “Yes. We were dating.”
“Yet you insist that you should not be a suspect in this case,” Meg said.
Paul defended his assertion. “Because I shouldn’t. Our relationship was going well. I had no reason to want her dead.”
Meg made an interesting counterpoint. “You already lied to us once, so why should we believe you now?”
“Because I’m telling you the truth.”
Connor inserted himself back into the conversation. “Dr. Miller, in the investigative world, the truth is what you can prove. And you can’t prove a thing.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Paul replied.
The doctor clearly wanted the investigators to leave, but that wasn’t going to happen. Especially not after Meg peered into Paul’s living room and saw something that stuck out to her.
She addressed the open beer bottle that was sitting on his coffee table. “It’s a little early for a drink, isn’t it?”
“I needed a little something to take the edge off. Give me a break. I just lost my girlfriend,” Paul replied.
As Meg focused in on the beer bottle, her mind flashed back to the conversation she’d had with Nicole in the donut shop the day before. One comment that Nicole had made really stood out to Meg. Nicole had said that it was difficult to love someone who loved the bottle more than her.
At first, Meg had believed that Nicole had been referring to her ex-boyfriend, Steven Gilroy. Perhaps she had been referring to Paul instead. There was one way to find out.
“Did you and Nicole ever argue about your drinking?” Meg asked.
Paul was quick and concise with his answer. “No.”
Meg stared him down. “Are you lying to us?”
Paul was vehement with his denial. “No.”
The longer Meg peered into Paul’s eyes, the more she disagreed with his answer.
“Why don’t I believe you?” Meg asked.
Paul shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s not my problem if you don’t believe me.”
Another question popped into Meg’s mind. “If you and Nicole were on such good terms, why did you just leave her at the office last night when your big plans for the evening were to come home and read a journal?”
“She had a lot of work to do. I decided to give her some privacy.”
Meg scrunched her nose. “You couldn’t have stayed late and waited for her to finish up? I mean, you had separate offices. Why couldn’t you have just read this psychology journal of yours in your office?”
“Like I said, she liked privacy. Besides, I already told you, I was here at the time of her murder.”
Meg gave him a critical look. “Uh-huh.”
Paul lost control of his temper. “You know what? I don’t have to explain myself to you anymore. If you have any other questions for me, you can talk to my lawyer.”
Meg and Connor were now more suspicious of Paul than ever, but without any hard evidence pinning him to the murder, there wasn’t much Connor could do right then but let Paul go.
Chapter Eleven
Meg and Connor knew exactly where their next stop would be. Unfortunately, when they arrived at Kristin Zeller’s rental townhome, she wasn’t home. Even more, her car wasn’t parked out front, either. Meg got a foreboding feeling in her gut. She knew better than to ignore her instincts.
Meg excused herself to check around back, although she wasn’t expecting to get better results knocking on the back door. Really, she had only gone back there in order to get the privacy she needed to be able to cast a locator spell. She knew that she had very little time to work with, so she had to make the best of this.
Meg closed her eyes, focused on her chanting, then cast the locator spell which pinpointed Kristin’s exact whereabouts. It turned out that Meg’s instincts had been spot-on. Trouble was afoot. The locator spell had placed Kristin on the outskirts of town.
That left Meg in a sticky situation. Even though she knew Kristin’s location, she couldn’t just relay that information to Connor in a truthful manner without letting her secret identity as a witch slip out.
As she had promised her mother that she wouldn’t let anyone, not even Connor, know about her witch powers, Meg had to think of a different way to force Connor into action. Luckily, an idea came to her.
Meg dashed back to the front of the rental townhome where she met up with Connor.
“Any luck?” Connor asked.
Meg shook her head. “No. She’s not here.”
“It sure doesn
’t look like it.”
“If I had to guess, I’ll bet she made a run for it.”
Connor considered her theory. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
“If I had a crush on my boss’s boyfriend and had no verifiable alibi for her murder, that’s what I would do,” Meg said.
Connor couldn’t disagree with that. “It wouldn’t hurt to put out an all-points bulletin.”
“It sure wouldn’t.”
“I’ll get some deputies on it,” Connor said.
Chapter Twelve
While Meg and Connor waited to get a hit on the all-points bulletin that had been put out on Kristin Zeller, the investigators paid a visit to Nicole’s ex-boyfriend. Steven Gilroy was a bearded, long-haired man in his late thirties with a muscular frame and a grumpy disposition.
He was surly that afternoon as he answered the door to his brown stucco rental townhome.
“What do you want?” Steven asked.
Connor held up his police badge. “Mr. Gilroy, we need to ask you some questions.”
After seeing Connor’s credentials, Steven didn’t put up an argument. At the same time, his mood remained sour. When Connor revealed that Nicole had been murdered, he became tense when Meg had expected him to be sad.
When Connor got done revealing the news of Nicole’s death, Steven gave him a perplexing reply.
“I don’t know why you’re coming to me,” Steven said.
Steven didn’t seem to realize that playing dumb wasn’t going to help him.
Connor spelled things out for Steven. “You are her ex-boyfriend. Do you know how often crimes like this are committed by jilted significant others?”
“I’m not jilted.”
Connor stared him down. “You’re not?”
Steven shook his head. “We broke up a while ago.”
Connor corrected him. “You mean she broke up with you.”
Steven remained dismissive. “It was still a while ago.”
“Are you saying you are over her?” Connor asked.
Steven gave another low-key reply. “Relationships end. It’s just life.”
Steven was definitely playing the part of a man who had gotten over his ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately, his answers rang false to Meg. When Nicole had broken up with him, she had told Meg at the donut shop that he had quite a temper. Was he just doing a good job of hiding it? Meg was determined to find out.
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