Page 84 of You Betrayed Me (The Cahills 3)

She had agreed to meet them at the station rather than at her apartment, and she now walked into the small conference room with Mendoza. After a quick introduction, she peeled out of a coat trimmed in faux fur and removed her sparkly knit cap. A blond ponytail fell to her shoulders. “Cold out there,” she said with a mock shudder as Rivers got to his feet.

“I’ll take those,” he said and, before she could argue, grabbed her coat and hat to hang them on a rack near the door, his back to the table where the women were getting seated and to the camera mounted high on the wall. As he appeared to smooth the wrinkles from the coat and stuff the cap into a pocket, he deftly slid his hand deeper into the opening to retrieve whatever he could find—in this case, a small lipstick tube that he folded into his hand unnoticed by either Mendoza or Russo or the camera’s wide eye.

Once back in his chair, he scooted his seat closer to the table, where, beneath the tabletop, he slipped the lipstick into his pocket.

“Would you like some coffee? Or a water?” Mendoza asked.

She replied, “Maybe a Diet Coke?”

Mendoza made a quick call and nodded as Rivers poured two cups of coffee from the carafe into mugs that had been left on a tray in the middle of the table.

Within minutes, a soft tap on the door announced the arrival of Dorrie Kahn, the rec

eptionist and senior secretary for the department. She swept in and, in her usual efficient if brusque manner, handed Mendoza a can of diet soda. “All we got is Pepsi,” she said with her perpetual scowl. In Dorrie’s world, there just weren’t any good days. “I’ve been trying to talk them into Coke forever, but the powers that be aren’t listening.” Lips pursed, she shot Rivers a sharp glance as if he were somehow to blame. “But then, do they ever?”

“Pepsi’s fine,” Sophia said.

Dorrie smiled tightly, then left the way she’d come, her high heels clicking loudly in the hallway outside the investigator’s room.

Mendoza passed the can to Sophia, who quickly cracked it open.

“I don’t really get the whole cola-war thing,” she said, smiling as she took a sip.

On the surface, Sophia seemed innocent enough. If she was nervous at being questioned by the cops, she hid it well.

“Let’s get started,” Mendoza said and ran through the preliminaries, typing onto an iPad, and taking notes despite the camera recording the whole interview. After having Sophia state her name, she asked, “What’s your address?”

She gave the address, then added, “It’s a studio. Cascadia Apartments.”

Mendoza asked, “So how long have you been in Riggs Crossing?”

“Six, no, it’s almost seven months now.”

“What brought you here?”

“Work. I mean it’s kinda crazy. I was living in Portland, and—”

“Oregon, right?” Rivers clarified, then took a sip of his coffee, which was tepid and weak. He set his cup aside.

“Yes, they’ve got that whole ‘keep Portland weird’ vibe going, and I liked the idea, and there was all the bicycling. It seemed cool, y’ know. But the rain. More like a constant drizzle. Y’know, the weird Portland thing got old after a while. So, I saw this job at a Christmas tree farm—well, actually a hostess position at the inn—and I thought it sounded like fun, a change of pace, and I especially love the winter season, y’know? So I applied.”

“How’d you find out about the job?” Mendoza asked.

“Online.” She said it as a matter of fact, as if that was the way things were done these days, and she was right.

“Is that where you met James Cahill?” Mendoza asked, glancing up from her screen at Sophia. “At work.”

“He personally interviewed me,” she said, nodding. “Personally.” Did her eyes shine a little bit more when she spoke of him? “I started the next week as a hostess, originally, but I ended up tending bar and working the desk at the hotel, as well as waitressing in the café out back during the busy season, just filling in wherever.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “I’ve also helped out in the office, for the tiny homes.”

“As a receptionist?” Mendoza asked.

“Well, yeah, and I took a couple of years of accounting in community college, so I can do more. I kinda do whatever’s needed, like bartending or table waiting.”

“A jill-of-all-trades?” Mendoza asked and took a sip from her cup.

She lifted a shoulder.

Rivers said, “You moved up pretty fast.”

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