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“I will.” She hesitated a moment, then cleared her throat. “Do you think we’ll hear something about her funeral soon?”
Eloise closed her eyes and took a deep breath as a wave of grief washed over her and settled in her chest. It felt like her heart would collapse under the weight of it. “Probably.”
“I thought so.” Sarah sniffed and her voice was suddenly wet with tears. “I guess I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
It seemed impossible that the world would simply go on as it had been. Monday morning would come, and her coworkers would return to the office, all of them walking past the place where Kim had taken her last breath as they scurried toward the elevators and the day’s second cup of coffee.
“Everything okay?” Ethan asked when she hung up and wandered back into the kitchen. The pizza had arrived, and he was already setting slices out on plates for both of them.
“They’re okay. Nothing strange happened to them last night, so for now I guess we can assume that either the two things are unconnected or whoever it was is only after me.”
She bit into a slice of pizza and frowned. It was her usual from the pizza chain with a location closest to her house, but disappointing after their trip to Paula’s. Green olives. Who knew?
“He might be after them next,” Ethan said. “Just because he came for you first, doesn’t mean they’re safe.”
“I know but we don’t have any proof that this had anything to do with Kim and I couldn’t bring myself to make them worry any more than they already are.”
“I hate this. I’m not the kind of guy to sit around and wait for someone to make the next move, especially when something as important as your life might be on the line.”
“Oh.” Eloise set her pizza down, her stomach revolting at the sudden memory of Kim’s eyes, looking back at her unseeing. “I didn’t realize … Somehow I guess I thought maybe he could have been looking for something or trying to scare me. You think he actually might have wanted to …”
She couldn’t say it. The words died on her lips, fading away into nothing as the fear of it hung in the air so thick, she wondered if Ethan could feel it.
“It’s possible.” Ethan crossed the kitchen and put his arms around her. “We know he’s capable of killing and if he thinks you might be able to figure out who he is, he might be willing to do it again to protect himself.”
“And there’s nothing the police can do about it, because we have absolutely nothing to go on and no suspects.”
“Well, whoever it was, has to be close enough to her to know you were friends with her. They’d either have to already know where you live or have been around yesterday to follow you home.”
“That would narrow it down to people we work with,” Eloise said, quietly puzzling out the implications. “Or that he actually was waiting around there yesterday when I found her. I honestly don’t know which idea is more upsetting.”
“There’s not much we can do about it if it was someone that only knew Kim and followed you home, so let’s focus on the coworker idea and see if there’s anyone that might stand out. At the very least, it could be information to pass along to that detective.”
“I can try but it’s like I told the detective yesterday—I really have no idea who it could be. She didn’t have any enemies or rivals and she wasn’t the kind to get into any kind of trouble.”
“You’d be surprised what people hide,” Ethan said simply. He didn’t elaborate but it didn’t take much for her to read between the lines.
Everyone had secrets.
Even Kim.
And, Eloise realized, everyone was willing to cover for others under the right circumstances. She thought sadly of the pack of cigarettes she’d shoved in the drawer upstairs and the night Ethan had come to her, bleeding and desperate for her not to call the police.
She’d covered for both of them, taken their secrets and their explanations and tucked that information aside to protect them.
“Okay,” she agreed. “So, we assume she had secrets and she was covering up something for herself or someone else?”
“It could be that or it could be that she had stumbled onto someone else’s secret, and she’d decided not to keep quiet about it. What department did she work in?”
Eloise sighed, having already covered this ground with the detective and her friends. “Auditing but there’s no way for anyone to know she was the one going over their accounts.”
“Unless she went to them and told them what she’d found. If she thought she could convince them to come clean about whatever they’d done.”
“That does sound like something she might do.” Eloise considered it as she chewed, aware of Ethan’s eyes on her face as the seconds ticked by in silence. It was as though he was waiting for her to elaborate and she finished lamely, “Kim always believed the best in everyone. She wasn’t the kind to cause conflict but she would have wanted to give them the chance to do better.”
“So, maybe she found out someone was up to something and instead of taking the chance she was giving them, they killed her for it. If you had to guess, who would you think was capable of something like that?”
