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“Yep.” Rachel nodded. “Sitting here when I came in to use the bathroom.”
“Shame on Harris. I’m excited to give him shit about that.” Josh looked at Rachel. “Hungry? We were going to start the grill.”
“Sure.” She repacked and shut the bag before glancing up at Elisa. “I’ll take a rain check on the house tour for another time.”
“Okay.” Elisa doubted she had a choice since Rachel made the statement and walked out of the office.
Josh lingered by the desk. “Problem?”
“Have you ever known Harris to leave his bag out?” The one with the medicine and other items in there that he wouldn’t want Nathan to touch. Elisa knew the answer and so did Josh.
“No, but he has a lot on his mind right now.”
She wanted to ignore him but couldn’t. “Like what?”
“You.”
“Me?” But she knew that. Harris had made that perfectly clear. Her unraveling was an inconvenience to him.
“Let me guess.” Josh’s mocking voice dripped with condescension. “Now you think Rachel is trying to mess with you. You blame me. You blame her. Is anyone else trying to make you look bad?”
Elisa was also sick of Josh’s dramatic outbursts. “I asked you a simple question about the bag.”
Josh let out a long sigh. “Not everything is a conspiracy, Elisa.”
Being around him used to be so easy. They joked and she found him annoying like a little brother might be, but harmless. Now every word carried a cut and she had to fight not to kick him out. “What question are you answering?”
“I’m just saying don’t blow this out of proportion. Harris made a mistake. It’s no big deal.” Josh smiled. “You know what it’s like to accidentally leave your medicine sitting around, don’t you?”
He touched her pills. She didn’t know how he knew about the safe combination, but she knew, down to her bones, that hisfingers were all over this mess. But that didn’t answer what Rachel was doing snooping around the house, and now Elisa would have to spend time trying to figure that out.
“I don’t know, Josh. You’re the expert on accidents, not me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The pompous jackass. “Ask either of your dead wives.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Something about Shelby Tanaka made Elisa want to spill every thought zooming around in her head. Shelby possessed this sort of welcoming quality that had to benefit her as an investigator, but it wasn’t as great for Elisa. The idea of opening up a vein and letting her entire life story pour out terrified her. She hadn’t felt comfortable doing that with her therapist. She’d barely done that with Harris, and even now there were things he didn’t know... like about how she’d hired Shelby.
Ten minutes after the receptionist ushered Elisa into the glassed-in conference room and handed her a cup of tea, Shelby walked in. Telephones rang in the distance. Elisa saw a younger man race down the hallway to the front door of the office then disappear.
Shelby sat down across from her with three folders in front of her, one thicker than the other two. She wore the same type of pantsuit as she had on the day they met, this one navy blue with a white tee. The juxtaposition of formal and informal intrigued Elisa.
“How are you doing?” Shelby asked.
I fear I’m slowly going insane, thanks. “Fine.”
Shelby smiled. “That’s not really believable, but we can pretend.”
Elisa considered herself an expert in that skill by now. “Thank you.”
“One question before we start.”
Elisa felt every muscle in her body tense. She had her hands wrapped around the mug and had to concentrate on not squeezing it until it shattered. “Go ahead.”
“Does your husband know you’re here?” Before Elisa could answer, Shelby clarified. “That sounded annoyingly ‘can I speak to the man of the house.’ Sorry.” She shook her head. “What I meant was, on the matter of the shooting, at some point the lawyers for Maxine’s estate will want an official statement from you. The hospital might also want to enter an agreement to keep you from talking. You have rights, and I don’t work for you on that case, so—”
