Trespassing(88)

He squints at me but rubs a thumb over my fingers in what I perceive as encouragement to continue.

“And I know now that our marriage was a lie. I know he had these secrets, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to let him close to me last night, but it felt good to have him there. Despite all the evidence around me that I never really knew him, that he obviously didn’t respect the institution of marriage, I was happy to have him there. But a second later, I was waking up, and he was gone again. So it couldn’t have happened. Right?”

He shrugs a little. “I guess we can talk about that instead.”

“I’m not avoiding the subject. I’m trying to tell you how crazy things have been.”

“You should have told me what you knew.”

“If I’d known what was going to happen between us last night, I absolutely would have. But it all happened so fast.”

“You’re a person of interest in his disappearance.”

I give a reluctant nod.

The heat of his hands radiate into me. “Spouses usually are.”

There’s a tickly sensation in my nose, and my eyes begin to tear up. God, can I get through just one day without feeling as if I’ll forever be fragmented?

“You’re right,” I say. “I should’ve told you. But whatever happened to Micah . . . I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Christian presses his lips together and sort of nods.

“Still . . . a girl keeps wearing her wedding ring, and her husband’s not dead . . . it’s got to mean something. We were on the beach and—”

“I can’t take it off.”

“I understand. I just wish you’d told me.”

“No. I mean it won’t come off.”

“Mommy!”

Instantly on my feet, I quickly realize we’re not alone.





Chapter 47

“Veronica.” Lake County Detective Jason Guidry—flanked by Officer Laughlin and two other Key West PD officers I don’t recognize—stands a few feet away, hands in pockets, as if he teleported there. “Got a minute?”

Elizabella flies off the porch and into my arms. “Daddy came,” she whispers in the hollow between my shoulder and neck. “He came. He came.”

“Bella . . . what?” I try to look at her, but her face is buried against me. “What did you say, baby?”

“No, no, no. Down.”

Guidry clears his throat. “Looks like you’ve been keeping busy.”

“I’ve been doing some work on the house,” I begin. But then I realize the detective is nodding at my neighbor, insinuating my extracurricular activities might concern another man.

Christian extends a hand. “Chris Renwick.”

The detective meets him in a handshake.

“He was feeding the cat for Tasha,” I begin, but I quickly shut up. Maybe it looks even worse that I was just holding hands with a guy I met a few weeks ago. Even Papa Hemingway is giving me the stink eye.

“I need to speak with you alone.” Guidry flips open his pocket-size notebook.

“I’ll, uh . . .” Christian thumbs toward his house. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”

The cops and I move toward the porch. Instinctually, I opt to enter the house. It’s better to keep whatever is about to happen out of the public eye. I lower Bella to the floor.

She kisses me on the cheek and sits down at her table of art supplies in the family room. Representatives of the KWPD help themselves to seats on the wicker sofa and begin making small talk with my daughter, who does not reply.

“So it must be pretty bad, if you came all the way here.” I must be channeling Claudette Winters’s inner hostess because I fill a glass with ice, then water, and place it in front of the detective, who looks beyond warm in his long pants and collared shirt.

“You came all the way here,” Guidry counters.

“That’s what I mean. I came because it was bad.” Papa Hemingway/James Brolin nudges me with his nose. “So what happened?”

“We treated your husband’s car with luminol. Do you know what that is? It’s an agent used to detect the presence of blood at a crime scene. We spray the scene with luminol, and if there’s any blood, even if the crime scene has been cleaned, it glows blue.”

I raise a brow.

“Your husband’s car lit up like the Fourth of July.”

“So there was blood in the car.”

“There’s indication of it, yes.”

“Was it his?”

“We don’t know yet. But if it is, it might explain why the license plates were switched on the cars: it’s easier to see a license plate than a VIN. We’re looking for Illinois plates I FLY 3, and we find the car more easily than searching for a long line of tiny numbers on the dash. So we found the plate but on a car reported stolen. Whoever switched the plates needed to buy some time. A delay in connecting the scene to your husband might be beneficial to whoever might have killed him.”

The wind is temporarily knocked out of me. So he might be dead. “Okay.” I glance at my daughter—I don’t want her to hear this—but she’s happily coloring.

“But certain things can also give us false positives, such as excessive cigarette smoke in an enclosed space, and a car would certainly qualify. So while the tests are being done, and before I definitively go on thinking it’s blood . . . Have you ever known your husband to be a smoker, Veronica?”