Chapter Twenty-Four Her

Chapter Twenty-Four Her

Present Day

Detective Sessions’s gaze traveled from me to the greenhouse sink and back again. “It looks like I’m an hour too late with

the search warrant.”

Elias winced. “I tried to call and text.”

That explained the buzzing in my pocket. Next time, I’d answer my damn cell. “I was cleaning.”

“I wonder why.”

From the smart-ass tone the detective didn’t expect an answer, but I tried to make one up anyway. “I read that before I can

plant anything in the greenhouse I needed to disinfect it. Something about mold and mildew.”

The explanation sounded somewhat plausible in my head. Not so much out loud. Elias frowned, so he wasn’t convinced.

His suit today was black. The red tie didn’t break up the bleakness. “Detective Sessions has a search warrant for the house,

the vehicles, and the grounds,” Elias said.

Of course. I knew this was coming but had hoped for a bit more time.

I’d removed the locks on the bedroom doors, though the police probably saw them the night Richmond died. That problem waited for me at some future time. I had enough to worry about right now without taking that on.

Any other sign of the battle that waged in the house should be gone. I even managed to get the threatening note off my bedroom

wall... mostly. It now was an undecipherable smear that showed up when the lights were off. That’s why I hung a picture

in front of it.

The detective walked down the aisle toward me. “I gave your attorney here a courtesy heads-up, which I now regret.”

Elias shook his head. “Come on, Nick. You were with me the whole time. You watched me try to call her.”

“Was that for show?” The detective stalked as if tracking down prey. His gaze scanned ceiling to floor, skimming along the

empty tables and benches. “Because this little scene looks like you’d already warned her to destroy evidence.”

Elias walked down the opposite side of the long middle table separating the room. “You sound paranoid. You know me better

than that.”

The detective finally reached me. Elias got there a second later. Water ran down the inside of my leg. If I moved it would

drip into my sneaker then onto the floor. A dead giveaway.

The detective pointed at the bucket. “What are you doing?”

This felt like a trap. I’d already mentioned cleaning. “Vacuuming.”

Elias sighed. “Addison, don’t.”

The detective seemed even less impressed with my sarcasm. “This isn’t a joke, Mrs. Dougherty. Your husband is dead.”

As if I didn’t know that. “I’m trying to take my mind off my grief. To keep my hands and mind busy.”

“Sure, you are.” The detective looked in the sink. “You look heartbroken.”

Apparently it was fine for the detective to dish out sarcasm.

“Nick, that’s enough.”

The detective looked on the floor around the sink before stepping back to the bench and the bucket. “Sorry, Elias. I can’t

hear you over the smell of bleach.”

Turned out the detective was pretty good at sarcasm. But the longer we stood there the wetter my pants got. The dizzier the

fumes made me. The chance of messing up, saying the wrong thing, making the wrong move, increased with every passing minute.

“I’m going to need you to step out of the greenhouse, Mrs. Dougherty.”

I regretted putting the wet shirt back on. “I should shower and—”

“You’re not to enter the house or walk around the yard until my people are done conducting the search.” The detective nodded

in Elias’s direction. “You can wait with your attorney or leave the premises, but the cars stay here.”

That didn’t leave many options. I picked up the bucket. “I’ll dump—”

“No.” The detective stopped me. “That stays here as well.”

He was serious about this. His belief I’d killed Richmond had become entrenched. He was all in. Even if I did succeed in destroying

all of the DNA evidence, which was doubtful, I couldn’t get around the presence of the bat. The detective or someone who worked

for him would stumble over the probable murder weapon. If they missed it, they should be fired.

“Once we’re done here, she’ll need to come in and answer questions,” Detective Sessions said.

Elias nodded. “We’ll see if you still want that once the search is complete.”

Oh, he would. But I did appreciate the thrust and parry these two were engaged in. Detective Sessions clearly thought he’d

gained the upper hand. Elias still didn’t back down. I was stuck in the middle with no obvious way out of this.

The person trying to frame me won this round. They’d gotten on the property weeks ago without breaking in, suggesting Richmond

knew them and welcomed them in. The killer had known about my bat and had time to go into my bedroom and take it on the day

Richmond died. That meant the killer didn’t bring a weapon with them, and the murder might not have been planned. After killing

Richmond, they’d hid the makeshift murder weapon where I would be compromised. And they’d accomplished all of that during

one of the few times I ventured out of the house during my fake marriage.

That amounted to a lot of well-thought-out and skilled moves. The series of events also suggested the real killer had been

on the property repeatedly. Gaining access, hanging around. Only a few people could pull that off. One of them was Elias.

The rest of the suspects had the last name of Dougherty or worked with Richmond.

“Addison?”

From the look on Elias’s face he’d called my name more than once.

“We need to go outside and let Detective Sessions and his people work.”

That was the last thing I wanted to do but I did it anyway. I got to the doorway of the greenhouse before the detective piped up again.

“Mrs. Dougherty?”

My feet sloshed around in my now-wet shoes. Had the wetness soaked through my sweater?

“Tell me again where you were around the time of your husband’s death.”

Not around. At the time. My alibi, and a good one. I was in Deer Park. An hour away. “Olympic Diner. Getting lost in a plate

of french fries. Why?”

“And you’d been there before. Several times.”

Not a question, which hinted at a potential problem.

“What are you after here, Nick?” Elias asked.

“I’m trying to firm up the alibi she gave on the scene.”

The “scene” being the house on the day Richmond was killed. I’d driven home, walked in, and saw Richmond in a pool of red

at the bottom of the stairs. Blood streaked across the floor. Sprayed on the walls. I almost bolted.

That’s what I’d done the last time I was in a room with a dead body, and I’d paid for that choice every day since. This time

I stayed and called for an ambulance.

The detective stared at me, clearly expecting an actual answer. Since Elias didn’t shut the conversation down, I repeated

the alibi I’d provided that day. “Richmond said he had work to do, so I went for a drive and stopped at the diner.”

Out of habit, paid cash. I was depending on the memory of the waitress and security camera footage to corroborate my presence.

The detective smiled. “We’ll talk soon.”

“What was that about?” Elias asked as the two of us crossed the yard on the way back to the house.

“I’m not sure.” The possibilities swirled in my head.

“I’m guessing they’re going to find something incriminating in this greenhouse search?”

“Yes.” But I was more concerned about what the detective already knew about the diner and how that intel would kick my ass.