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“I have to pick up my daughter soon.”
“I won’t take much of your time. We’re still looking for the woman who played tag with your husband on the freeway and the one that was at Tres Brisas when your husband and Mrs. Bellhard were there.”
Elizabeth hung onto the counter. “Any luck?” She wanted to press her hands together and wring the hell out of them but managed to hold herself back. Just.
“Some,” Thronson said. “Both women have been described by witnesses as blond, slim, midtwenties.”
“So you said.”
“We’re running on the theory that it’s the same woman.” Her gaze was mild, but Elizabeth felt the scrutiny beneath it.
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“I think it’s someone who knew your husband or Whitney Bellhard or both, and also knew of their love nest at Tres Brisas. I think she followed them down the freeway and, rather than playing a game of tag, she was purposely harassing them. I think she forced them off the freeway, and I think she meant to do it.”
Elizabeth could feel her knees begin to quiver and took one of the counter bar stools, half-falling into it.
“Do you know anyone who looks like that who would wish your husband and/or Whitney Bellhard harm?”
Elizabeth hesitated. Only practically every friend I have . . . “I think what you’re trying to say is that you think it’s me, but I was not anywhere near San Diego that day. I can’t prove my whereabouts, unless there’s a camera somewhere that I didn’t see, but I was here, in Irvine. That’s the truth.”
“Would you consent to a polygraph test?”
Lie detector. “Yes!” Elizabeth said emphatically. “Yes, I would. Set it up.”
The detective slowly nodded. Whether she found Elizabeth’s enthusiasm surprising, she couldn’t say.
“You told me that Peter Bellhard followed my husband and his wife to Tres Brisas,” she reminded the detective.
“That’s correct.”
“But you’re not looking at him as a . . . jealous spouse? It’s just this blond woman who looks like me?”
“We haven’t ruled anything out.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“We want to find this woman.” The detective seemed to want to say something more, but she pressed her lips together and kept it to herself.
Suddenly, Elizabeth felt the urge to tell her everything. Pour it all out. Let the chips fall where they may. She hadn’t been to Tres Brisas, nor had she been on the freeway to San Diego. But she had wished them all deadly harm.
“You have something to say?” Thronson asked, correctly interpreting what the look on Elizabeth’s face was telling her.
But Elizabeth froze, knowing how it would come off if she did start blurting out all the thoughts and feelings jumbled inside her. “I really have to pick up my daughter,” she said, moving toward the door, holding it open for the detective, letting in a mist of rain.
Thronson took her time following after Elizabeth. Clearly, she wasn’t ready to go. “I’ll get back to you on the polygraph.”
Elizabeth was afraid to have her stay, afraid she would change her mind and say too much. She wanted nothing more than to push her out and slam the door shut behind her, but the detective lingered on the outside steps a moment, turning back at the last moment, unmindful of the rain dampening her hair. “I showed a picture of you to the Tres Brisas staff. Two of them identified you as the woman at the hotel.”
Elizabeth heard a buzzing in her ears and felt light-headed. “It wasn’t me,” she choked out, then shut the door on the detective. She threw the dead bolt again and walked backward away from the door. Oh, God . . . oh, dear, God.
She thinks I killed Court.
What if she finds out about GoodGuy?
“There’s nothing to find out,” Elizabeth whispered aloud.
You need to tell her about him. And Mazie. And Officer Unfriendly. You need to come clean. Now! Call her back!
