Page 60 of What We May Be

Chapter Sixteen

On his way back from the restroom, Sean checked the conference room for Tracy. Not seeing her there yet, he continued across the bullpen to Charlie’s office and watched from the open doorway as she moved the same file to three different stacks on her desk, opened and closed a different file three times, and clicked her pen at least twenty times. Only one reason he could figure for those jitters. “You’re still spooked about what you found at Beth’s place.”

Charlie froze for a half second, then carried on arranging files on her desk. “Sorry?”

He stepped the rest of the way into her office and sank into a visitor chair. “Those roses spooked you. You let go of that compost bin lid like it bit you, and you were restless the entire drive back to the station, missing gears and compulsively checking your rearview mirror.”

When she didn’t respond, he leaned forward and reached out, ceasing the futile rearranging. “It’s probably just a coincidence,” he lied.

“Does anything about this case feel like a coincidence to you?”

He didn’t lie to her a second time. “Did you know Beth Martin?”

She shook her head. “I also checked Dad’s and Cal’s old files. There’s nothing in there that mentions Beth.”

He squeezed her arm. “We’ll figure this out.”

“What if this isn’t just about Trevor?” She finally looked up and the fear in her eyes was unmistakable. “What if it goes further? What if it’s about my family? If Annie or Trevor…” Her voice wavered and cracked. “I can’t lose any more of my family, Sean.”

“It’s going to be fine.” He stretched to wipe away a renegade tear that had escaped her eye. He hadn’t stopped to think how much that tear cost her, how much she was holding in.

A soft knock on the door interrupted them, and Sean turned in his seat to find a blushing Rachel in the doorway. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, the blush intensifying. “Tracy’s here. In the conference room.”

Charlie cleared her throat. “We’ll be right there,” she said, voice free of its earlier trembling. She stood and circled the desk, but before she reached the door, Sean lightly took her wrist and turned her toward him. “It’s going to be fine.” He wiped away another tear.

“How can you know that?”

He curled his fingers around hers. “Because I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it that way.”

* * *

Sean and Charlie entered the conference room, and Tracy’s gaze shot to them. “Why am I here?”

She looked like hell. Elbow on the table, head in hand, her fingers drummed a quick rhythm against her unwashed hair. It wasn’t the skittish eyes, wringing hands, or nervous fidgeting Sean typically saw with guilty suspects. It was the tired, on edge, has-a-million-other-things-to-do fidgeting that he’d expect from an overworked wife who found her cheating husband brutally murdered.

His first clue they had the wrong woman.

Charlie approached with measured steps. “We need to ask you some questions.”

Tracy’s eyes blazed with barely contained fury. “I don’t have time for this. We’re short-staffed at the hospital, so I’m still working fourteen-hour shifts and trying to plan my husband’s funeral without the damn body because you haven’t released it yet, and I haven’t slept since—”

“You’re having trouble sleeping?” Sean asked.

Her incensed glare shot to him. “Of course I’m having trouble sleeping. What kind of a stupid question is that? Our house is a crime scene, I’m sleeping at the hospital, and every time I close my eyes, all I see is my husband butchered in our bed.”

Our.

Not my. Not his.

She hadn’t fully processed Julian’s death despite being the one who’d found the body. Not the language of a murderer.

His second clue they had the wrong woman.

He glanced at Charlie, and judging by the deepening divot between her brows, she’d caught the tell too. With a subtle double tap of his right toe, something they’d practiced in police academy, he indicated he wanted to take the lead. Charlie nodded, a small smile turning up one corner of her mouth. She retreated to the windowsill while he took the chair across from Tracy.

“Do you know Beth Martin?” he asked.

Tracy’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Why? Did that nosy bitch have something to do with this?”

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