Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(91)

“So he has seen her recently.”

“Just there. I’m sorry, I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

“He didn’t introduce you to her?”

“No.” But it wasn’t like that, she wants to add.

Like what, Mrs. MacKenna? Like your husband was trying to keep his mistress and his wife from getting to know each other?

Disgusted with the track her own thoughts have taken, Allison rubs her throbbing temples, wishing Mack were here, or that she could be wherever he is, just so that she’d feel reassured about their marriage.

His faithfulness has never been a question until now.

It still isn’t, dammit. Not in her mind.

She trusts her husband. She’s positive there was nothing going on between him and Zoe Jennings. He barely has time for her and the kids, let alone an affair.

Then again . . .

Isn’t that what cheating husbands do? Claim to be working late while they’re really—

Stop it! Just stop, Allison!

Mack isn’t capable of hurting her that way. Mack loves her and the kids and their lives together, and he would never jeopardize that. Whatever his faults are—hiding his feelings, not reaching out for help—he’s an honorable man incapable of telling a white lie. How can he possibly be living a huge one?

He can’t.

He isn’t.

“What about Phyllis Lewis?”

“What?” She frowns at Captain Cleary. “I have no idea if she knew Zoe Jennings.”

“No, I meant—what was her relationship with your husband?”

“Oh my God! This is nuts! They were neighbors! Friends! That’s all!”

So much for her resolve to play it cool.

“Why don’t you just come out and ask me if I think Mack had affairs with Phyllis and Zoe and killed them both?” she challenges. “Then I can tell you flat-out that that’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”

Jack Cleary’s reply is maddeningly calm. “Mrs. MacKenna, you understand why we have to ask these questions. Your husband called Nathan Jennings in the middle of the night, told him his car had broken down, and said to meet him off the Saw Mill River Parkway. And while Nathan Jennings was out of the house, looking in vain for his friend in need, someone who opportunistically knew he was out of the house came in and killed Zoe Jennings.”

“But Mack wasn’t even the one who made that call.”

“It came from this house,” Patterson points out, “and he was here at the time.”

“Do you know that for sure? What time it was? Because he got a bogus call on his own phone telling him to come over here.”

“And did you witness that call your husband received?”

She hesitates before admitting, “No. I was sleeping.”

“In the same room? The same bed? And you didn’t hear the phone ringing, or your husband talking on it?”

No, because I was passed out from drinking too much.

“I’ve always been a sound sleeper.” Even as the words come out of her mouth, she knows they sound lame, and she can tell by the looks on their faces that they agree. They think I’m covering for Mack. I’m making things worse for him. But if I admit that I was drunk, I’ll lose every last bit of credibility.

“So you don’t know for sure when the call came in,” Cleary asks, “or what was said?”

“No, but I’m sure if you check Mack’s phone, you’ll find it.”

Even as she says it—even if Cleary checks Mack’s phone—she knows it won’t prove anything. They’ll say he could have placed that call himself, to his own phone, to set up an alibi.

“How do you know that your husband didn’t call Nathan Jennings, Mrs. MacKenna?”

She clenches her jaw, not wanting to answer Patterson’s question, well aware that it won’t help matters.

“Mrs. MacKenna?”

“Because he told me.”

“You’re not a hundred percent sure of it.”

“I’m sure of it because Mack wouldn’t lie to me.”

“All right. But let’s say that he himself isn’t sure of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Has your husband ever exhibited any unusual behavior in the middle of the night?”

Her heart sinks. Do they know? Or are they guessing?

She told Ben about the sleepwalking on the way over to find Mack. Did Ben tell the detectives when they talked to him?

If he did, and she denies it now, they’ll know she’s lying about that, at least, and they’ll likely wonder what else she’s lying about. They’ll probably assume she’s trying to cover for Mack.

Am I?

She pictures him with the knife in his hand, and the vacant look in his eyes, and she remembers what Lynn said about sleepwalkers becoming aggressive and violent if startled awake.

Mack ate while he was asleep—if the missing food wasn’t evidence enough, his visible weight gain certainly was—and he didn’t remember a thing about it the next morning.

Is it so hard to believe that his nocturnal activities could have included other things—darker, uglier things—and Mack would have no memory of that, either?

Suddenly enveloped in a cold sweat, bile rising in her throat once again, Allison forces herself to think it through.