Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(90)

Realizing they’re going to stand here and watch her do it, Allison reaches into her pocket for her cell phone.

It isn’t there. She’s pretty sure it was in the pocket of her jeans when she’d taken them off; it must have fallen out, or maybe J.J. got to it.

Her heart sinks. What if her son is chewing on the phone? That can’t be healthy, right? Don’t cell phones give off some kind of electromagnetic field?

And just as disturbing—what if Randi’s been trying to reach her?

She’d have tried the house if she needed me, she reminds herself. The phone hasn’t rung at all since they’ve been here.

She picks up the receiver on the bedside table. About to punch in the Webers’ number, she realizes there’s no dial tone. Frowning, she presses the talk button a few times and listens again.

“Is there a problem, Mrs. MacKenna?”

“The phone is dead. It must not be charged,” she tells Captain Cleary.

“Isn’t that the charging base?”

“It is, but . . .” Simultaneously, she and the two men bend to see if the cord is plugged into the wall behind the table.

It is.

“I’ll take a look,” Captain Cleary says, holding his hand out for the receiver.

Allison gives it to him and watches him press the talk button as if somehow she’d been doing it wrong.

He listens, shakes his head, and hands it to Detective Patterson with a questioning look.

“I’ll be right back.” He leaves the room, carrying the phone.

Left alone with Captain Cleary, Allison is uncomfortable. She plays with the ruffle on the pillow sham, feeling his eyes on her. After a minute, she looks up.

“Where’s my husband?” she asks boldly.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. MacKenna, he’s fine.”

That doesn’t answer the question.

Frustrated, she rolls and unrolls the ruffled hem of the sham, wishing they could get on with the questioning.

But when Detective Patterson finally reappears in the doorway, he asks Captain Cleary to step out into the hall.

Allison strains to hear what they’re saying out there, but can’t make out a word. After a few minutes, they reappear, obviously ready to get down to business.

“Sorry about that,” Captain Cleary tells Allison. “It looks like there’s a problem with your telephone line. I’m sorry you won’t be able to make that call just yet. We’re having it checked out.”

“A problem with the phone line? What kind of problem?”

“Why don’t you tell us about Zoe Jennings?” Detective Patterson suggests.

Zoe Jennings. Yes. That’s why they’re here.

Until this moment, Allison has done her best not to dwell on the fresh horror—or her own role in any of this—but there’s no avoiding it now.

She clears her throat. Her mouth is so dry. She’d thrown up earlier, she remembers, and now her head is pounding and she’s probably dehydrated. She should have accepted the glass of water.

But they’re waiting for her reply, and she doesn’t want them to think she’s stalling.

“There’s not much to tell. I’m so sorry for what happened to her”—sorry doesn’t begin to cover how she feels about what happened to that poor woman—“but I just met her last night.”

“Tell us about that.”

Allison quickly recounts the condolence call.

In the aftermath of shocking, traumatic murder, she’s sick with guilt over her own alcohol-fueled reaction to Zoe and her brownies and, yes, her boobs. Not that that’s any of the cops’ business, and she doesn’t mention it, but still . . .

“So you weren’t friends?” Patterson asks.

“No. We’d just met,” she reiterates, anxiously twisting her wedding ring around and around her finger, wishing they’d just let her go.

“And what was your husband’s relationship with her?”

The way Captain Cleary speaks that word—“relationship”—causes Allison to look up sharply from her hands.

She holds back her knee-jerk answer—which would be that Mack certainly didn’t have a relationship with Zoe Jennings—knowing it might come across as defensive.

Defensive of Mack?

Or of myself?

Both. She resents the insinuation that her husband could possibly have been cheating on her with Zoe Jennings.

Wait a minute, Allison—think about that. Is that really what they’re implying? Or are you reading it that way because . . .

Because she herself suddenly doubts everything she once would have sworn was true about the man she married?

Randi’s words on that long-ago afternoon, words that struck a chord even at the time, drift back to her: We can never really be sure what’s going on in someone else’s head, even someone we think we know well . . .

“Mrs. MacKenna?”

She blinks. “I’m sorry . . . my husband and Zoe were former colleagues. That was their relationship.”

“So they were colleagues . . . friends?”

“Maybe back then, but I don’t think Mack had seen her in years.”

“You don’t think he had? You’re not sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure. He hadn’t. They just moved up here—the Jenningses—and they were at a party we went to about a month ago. Mack talked to Zoe there.”