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My gaze lands on another picture.
Jeff Holmes, undergrad, sitting on the steps of his fraternity at the University of Minnesota.
Sigma Chi.
My gut tightens because I knew it. I was an idiot to not see it the first time, but we didn’t have the cufflink, or the Lexus sighting, and somewhere in the back of my mind, maybe we didn’t even dig into the alibi—I don’t want to know where we screwed up.
I just know we did.
I turn, my eyes hard on Jeff. “You went to Sigma Chi.”
He nods, his gaze hitting the picture.
I take a step toward him. “Did
you know Gretta was pregnant?”
His mouth opens, and he looks at Karen, then back to me. “What?”
Of course, I don’t know she was pregnant, not for sure, but just in case— “She visited an abortion clinic the morning of her death. And you knew it. Because you were waiting for her in the Lulu’s parking lot. Probably saw her coming down the street from the clinic. And maybe she saw you and because your wife had been giving her money, she was probably relieved to see you, hoping you’d shown up to help her, to rescue her…except, were you?”
Jeff is just standing there, his mouth closed, his Adam’s apple dropping in his throat.
I know guilt when I see it. “You went to see her, didn’t you? What, to tell her to come home? Or maybe…maybe you gave her money to have that abortion.” I haven’t mentioned the twenty dollar bill in her grip.
His breath hiccups, and I don’t care. I take a step toward him. “Why did she run away from home, Jeff? You said it was because you two fought over her boyfriend. But was it really because she didn’t feel safe? Maybe…because you were the father of her child?”
I should have expected the right hook, given the dark look in the man’s eyes. The punch is flimsy at best.
It barely stings, and I step back, ready to round on him.
But he roars and leaps on me, and suddenly, I’m back peddling and slamming into the glass coffee table.
The thing shatters, and Jeff is on top of me.
I let him have another lick because I can’t figure out a way to get him off me without tearing myself to shreds.
Then Burke is on him, pulling him up.
I find my feet and he breaks away from Burke and comes at me again. This time, I bat his hand away, the wimpy golfer that he is, grab his other arm, twist him around and in a second, he’s against a wall, his arms behind him, in cuffs.
“No!”
Karen might have been screaming this entire time, but I haven’t heard her until now. She is crying and shouting as she rushes Jeff.
Burke catches her. “Calm down. He’s not under arrest—”
“Yes he is,” I say. “He attacked me—”
“It wasn’t him!” Karen is trying to unlock Burke’s arms from around her waist. “It wasn’t him at Lulu’s—it was me!”
Everyone stills as we look at her.
“I didn’t kill my daughter! But I did go there to plead with her to talk to me. To come home and let us…let us help her.” She’s crying now and gone is the woman of poise. Her headband is torn free, her eyes blackened, mascara running down her face. “She called me to meet her, but she never showed up. And I didn’t want Jeff to know—”
“I knew.” His voice is quiet and for the first time, I see a man broken, a man beyond the golf shirt, the perfect hair, the million-dollar home. “I knew you were visiting her.”
“How?” Karen’s eyes fill.
