Page 34 of What the Wife Knew

“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.

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