Page 33 of What the Wife Knew

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 problemwaited 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—”

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