CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"You did what?"

Sean, of course, is less than pleased that I don't follow his advice. We're talking in my bathroom again. The children are eating lunch, and I've excuses myself to shower as I don't get a chance to do so before my excursion into Genthod this morning.

"I informed the police of my suspicions," I reply. "I had to. They were going to rule his death a suicide and close the case."

"So bloody what?"

Now it's my turn to be surprised. "You can't be serious. What do you mean, so what?"

"I mean what I bloody said, Mary." His accent is thickening again. "Have you gone off your rocker, have you? What ye've done is announce to anyone who cares to look that ye're looking into this murder."

"I was careful," I insist. "I told Catherine that I was opening a Swiss Bank account."

"Where?"

"What do you mean, where?"

"Where did you open the bloody account, Mary? Did you go, perchance, to the bank nearest the police station where Detective Dubois has his office?"

Heat climbs my cheeks. "Well, I couldn't drive all over the country, could I?"

"Oh, for the love of… Mary, for God's sake. You are not a detective."

"And yet I've solved four murders thus far."

"We've solved three. You were told about the Deirdre McCoy murder."

"My point still stands."

"So does mine. If you want to be a detective, join the police force. Then you'll have people with guns to protect you. Right now, you have no one. For Christ's sake, Mary. How many times have you nearly been murdered? You must know that one of them's going to succeed one of these days, right?"

"Your concern is appreciated, Sean, but we'll save time if you accept that what happened has happened and focus on the future instead of the past."

"Cracking good advice coming from you," he snips. "You're the queen of leaving the past in the past."

I roll my eyes. "Excellent retort. You've scored a point. Now, can we get to the reason I've called you?"

He sighs. There's a great deal of reluctance in his voice when he asks, "Why?"

"I have a list of suspects I'd like you to look into."

"Isn't that why you've talked to Dubois?"

"Yes, but you can look into them free of politics and removed from the situation. I want as many eyes on this as possible."

"Of course, Commissioner," he says drily.

I ignore his sarcasm and get to the point. "At the top of the list is Catherine. She has shown no remorse for her husband's loss."

"Can I play Devil's Advocate and suggest that holding one's trophy husband in disdain is not necessarily an indication that one is a murderer?"

"I caught her sleeping with Hugo van Doren, Sean."

"Ah. Well, that is a little beyond the pale."

"Just a little," I say wryly. "And her coldness to her children… it's like she doesn't care for them at all. In fact, she doesn't care for anyone but herself. I don't think she even cares for Van Doren. She behaves like a narcissist."

"And this diagnosis comes from your many years of experience as a licensed psychologist?"

That stings a little. I had just begun medical school in pursuit of a degree in psychology when Annie disappeared, and I switched my focus to education. Despite the fact that I never achieved a degree in the field, I believe I have a solid understanding of the human mind. Sean knows this, and is clearly poking fun at me because he's irritated that I went to the police.

"You can be dismissive all you want," I tell him, "but I believe she is the most likely culprit in Frederick's death. It's very possible that Hugo is involved as well. Either he convinced her to kill Frederick so they could be together—"

"Or more likely she convinced him to kill Frederick and offered herself as the prize," Sean finishes. "It's a tale as old as time. All right. I'll see if I can dig up some dirt on them. Does the house have security footage?"

My eyes widen. I don't think about that before now.

" If it does," Sean says quickly, "I will look into it."

"How will you do that?"

"The technical jargon will take too long to explain, but the short answer is that I have experts I can contact who can obtain any footage uploaded to the servers of every major civilian security company in the world. They don't work for free, but since you've been so generous with my wages, I can happily pay for their services. What I really need from you is for you to not do any more work yourself."

I nod. "The second suspect—"

"Mary. I would like to hear you say, ‘Sean, I will not look at the security footage myself, because doing so would be incredibly foolish and place my life at risk, and I am an adult woman who is not a fool, so I won't engage in foolish activities.'"

I sigh. "The second suspect is—"

"For God's… fine. Christ, I wish I'd never opened my mouth. Just so you know, if you die, I will attend your funeral, and I will tell everyone that I warned you, and you were too stubborn to listen."

"Fine by me," I snap. "The second suspect , or third, I suppose, if we consider Catherine and Hugo to be separate, is Thomas Keller."

"The estate manager slash money launderer. That makes sense."

"Yes. Veronica Baines is clearly interested in him, so I suppose she could be a suspect as well."

"You don't sound too keen on her."

"She appeared genuinely devastated when he died. I suppose it could be an act, but in general, she seems too fragile to me to shoot a man in the head."

"She's thirty-three years old, Mary. She's not a little girl. Besides, plenty of killers show remorse after the fact."

"Do you believe she's more likely to be the killer than Thomas?"

"Honestly, yes, but I'll keep an eye on Thomas too. If his bank account—any of them—increases by a significant amount in the near future, then it could be because he was paid to off Frederick by some disgruntled associates."

I shiver. "Could you not say it like that?"

"Say what?"

"‘Off' him? It just sounds so…" I shiver again. "Cold."

Sean, thankfully, doesn't feel a need to apply his acerbic wit to that request. "Very well. I will look into the possibility that Thomas was paid to kill Frederick. Anyone else I should look at?"

I hesitate, unsure if I want to add this final person. After a moment, though, I decide to go with my gut. "Yes. Doctor Eleanor Strauss. She's the family therapist."

"Ah. You think she was blackmailing him with the records of their private sessions?"

I hesitate. "Yes." Sure. Why not?

I'm certainly not going to tell him that the real reason is that I just have a sense that she's evil and that I suspect that mostly because she is a member of a profession I despise.

It's a touch hypocritical that I despise therapists so. Prior to Annie's disappearance, I was studying to become one. Of course, that was before I understood how thoroughly evil most therapists are. It is a profession that attracts leeches and vipers, and I am grateful that I chose a different path before counting myself among them.

Sean continues, pulling me from my thoughts. "Hmm… That's a stretch, but it's not unheard of. I've been hired plenty of times to obtain someone's private mental health records as weapons against them."

I stiffen and gasp at that. Sean must hear my reaction because he says—a little testily—"Don't tell me you thought of me as a saint, Mary."

I didn't, but…

But I have a private medical history. Strauss obtained it somehow. I don't believe that Sean was the one who gave her that information, of course, but perhaps it was someone like him. The knowledge that private investigators could be out there prowling for evidence of my insanity is disturbing in the extreme.

And really, what a cruel thing to do to use someone's health against them. I suppose I understood that most of Sean's clients would be divorcees or spurned lovers who feel malice toward their targets, but still…

"Are you still there, Mary?"

"Yes, I'm here. I… no, I didn't think you were a saint, and I'll refrain from telling you what I think of that particular practice. Just see if Strauss could have been involved with the killing too."

"Anyone else?" he asks tiredly.

"No, that's everyone. Everyone I can think of so far, at least. I'll be in touch."

"I'm sure you will."

I hang up and place the phone on the counter. I look up at my reflection and cry out.

For a brief moment, when I look in the mirror, I see empty black holes where my eyes should be.

I blink, and my eyes have returned. They are wide and bloodshot and sit above dark, sagging bags. The stress of the past few days and the lack of sleep have impacted me more than I thought. I am not a young woman anymore.

I have been in the bathroom too long. I turn the shower off and quickly splash some water on my face, then apply enough makeup to make it appear that I've actually freshened up. I return downstairs just in time to see the children finishing lunch.

Their faces break my heart. Ethan is coming out of his shock, and the pain in his eyes makes him appear very much the little boy he still is. Olivia's lower lip trembles, and she also looks so small. The two of them are alone in a hurricane, and I've left them there.

It's time for me to do my job. I've put Dubois and Sean on the hunt for this murderer. It's time for me to focus on the children under my care.

I smile at them and say, "Come with me, children. We're going for a walk."

They look at me, a little surprised. I extend my hands and say firmly. "Yes. It'll be good for both of you. Trust me." I lower my voice and say, "Do not let yourself feel trapped in this house."

What I mean, of course, is that they should not let themselves feel trapped with their mother. I don't know if they understand that, but they both nod in recognition and take my hands. Outside, the air is cold and biting, but when both children inhale deeply and then relax as they breathe out, a real smile comes to my face for the first time since I found Frederick dead on his yacht.