Page 42 of Crazy In Love (Secrets of Suburbi 3)

He laughed. "I'm not here to eat."

"Then why are you here?"

An awkward silence stretched between us. "Let me ask you a question, Ensley. You knew who I was when I first showed up on your doorstep."

That wasn't a question. "Everyone knows everyone around here."

"No. You were talking about my last case. Did you know either Violet Clark or Adeline Bell?"

I shook my

head.

"But you just said it yourself. Everyone knows everyone around here."

I remained perched in the doorway even though every instinct in my body was screaming at me to run. "Right. Of course I've heard of them. I saw them around town on occasion. At the grocery store or at the mall. But they both mostly kept to themselves."

"Do you mostly keep to yourself?"

I'd overheard Charlotte ask Adeline to her book club countless times. Adeline always refused. And Violet lived in the woods, far away from prying eyes. The two of them isolated themselves on purpose. I'd always wanted to fit in. "Not by choice."

"But you do keep mostly to yourself?"

"I'm not like them." The way he was looking at me made my heart race. He thought I was a monster. And he was right. But I wasn't a copy-cat serial killer. I was a kidnapper. That was it.

"Adeline lost a baby. Just like you."

I opened my mouth and then closed it again. What was his point? That didn't make us the same. There was no miscarriage club in town. "I didn't know that."

"Well, did you know that Detective Ben Jones woke up the other day?"

My heart started racing. I knew all about Ben Jones. He was the undercover detective working on Adeline Bell's case. He'd been in a coma for months. I'd followed all of it so closely on the news. What had happened to Ben was a tragedy. The whole town was rallied around him. But in reality? He was a damned fool. "Is he okay?"

"The doctors at the hospital said so. But I never got to see for myself. Because he went missing a few hours after he woke up."

"Missing?"

"Just like your husband, Ensley. Poof. Gone. The same day that your husband went missing. That's quite a coincidence, isn't it?"

My palms were starting to sweat. If I went for my taser now, it might slip. I couldn't risk it. "Yes."

He shook his head and took a few steps closer to me. "I don’t believe in coincidences."

Could he see me sweating? Could he tell that I was shaking? Was he trying to make me run? To trick me into making a wrong move? I tried not to flinch when he stepped even closer. "Then what do you believe in?"

"Justice." His eyes bore into mine.

I was wrong before. Detective Torres wasn't a bad detective. Sophia Tremblay should be his number one suspect. Yet...he was here. And I was pretty sure the only thing driving him was his intuition. Which was good. Because I was so freaking guilty. "Aren't there cameras in the hospital? Someone must have seen what happened to Ben. You can rule out coincidence by just looking at the footage."

"They were switched off in that wing of the hospital for maintenance. Can you believe it?"

"Yes."

He shook his head. "But that would be a coincidence. Ensley, we just talked about this. No. No, I think someone switched those cameras off on purpose. Someone planned it perfectly. The only question is...who."

"It wasn't me."

He folded his arms across his chest. "Huh. I never even considered you. But now that you mention it…" He just stared at me.

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