She points a thumb behind her at the station building. “So are theirs, but your radio picked them up.”
I nod pensively. “The only thing that could be breached without a trace... With the right equipment capable of picking up the specific frequency,someonecould be eavesdropping.”
“Oh God.Heheard you and Marcus were leaving the house and planned his move. You see? I’m not crazy, Tristan. Every word I said is true. Butter—”
I put my index finger on my lips and blink three times. I’ve turned the radio off, but we can’t be too careful. “Guess who has easy access to such equipment.”
Her head whips toward the building and then back in my direction. She slumps down in her seat. “No, Tristan. No way.”
“You still think it’s a good idea to walk in there?”
CHAPTER 8
Birdie
I sit across from Jacob in the sterile interrogation room. The cold metal of the chair seeps through my clothes, a reminder of where I am and what is at stake.
Who am I looking at? The good man who promises a future of love and respect? The detective who has lost his trust in me and considers me a suspect again? The psychopathic killer hiding in plain sight whose hand I came all over last night?
The questions swirl in my mind, each one more terrifying than the last. Is Jacob TorrancetheButterfly Man like Tristan believes, playing some sick game with me? Or does he genuinely suspect me of murdering Saldana and Gia? I can’t read him. His face, a cold mask as steely as his eyes, gives nothing away. His gaze is as sharp as ever, yet devoid of any of the warmth he’s shown me in the past few days.
I’m a butterfly pinned under glass, unable to break free, observed from every angle, and he’s the catcher.
“Mrs. Abel,” he starts formally, intimacy scrubbed clean, and the name feels awkward coming from him, staring at a thin file in his hand. “When was the last time you saw your assistant?”
The day Saldana died. “March 5th.”
“She hasn’t been coming to work since?”
“She texted she was sick.”
“At what time?”
“I don’t know exactly…sometime in the evening. I can check my phone for the exact timing.”
He brings out a pen and a notepad from the pocket of his suit jacket and starts writing. “Evening of March 5th?”
“No. March 6th.”
“So she missed a full day of work without notice. Is this normal for her?”
I shake my head. “She never missed a day at work.”
“And how was your reaction to that sudden change in behavior?”
“I found it odd,” I lie. We had a fight that night. I totally expected she wouldn’t come to work the next day, perhaps not ever. “I texted and called her that morning, but she didn’t answer. Then at night, she texted she was sick…and she’d lost her phone. That was why she didn’t call in sick earlier.”
He pauses to read my face. “Did you make any contact with her after March 6th?”
“Of course. We were texting daily until a few days ago. I got worried so I asked my bodyguards to go check on her. They never found her home, though.”
He scribbles something on his notepad. “When she left your house on March 5th, was she upset about anything?”
Should I tell him about the shock in her eyes when she finally found out the truth about my husband, the man she loved and tried to steal from his wife, her boss and best friend, or the fight we had when she tried to spill my secrets to Tristan without my permission? “Saldana’s suicide. It shook us all.”
“Did it?” He can barely hide the scoff.
“Yes, Detective. Saldana stole from me, and I wanted her to pay the price, but not like that.” I wanted her to live through the shame, to watch her career fall apart in front of her eyes and feel the burn. But she was given an easy way out.
