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“I’m sure,” he said. “I’m a pretty capable bloke. She liked that about me. She also knew I was more than happy to come to her rescue anytime, and the harder it was to do, the more I liked it. She called it my ‘white knight complex.’ Not that she always let me do it, but something like that? She’d have let me do it.”
Quinn’s eyes softened. “I’m sure she did. That quality in you drives me a little crazy, and I also love it. So we don’t like either of those. How about this one? Shedidgo upstairs, after coming back for … whatever reason—maybe she’d tried driving home and gotten scared, tried to wait it out like the cops said, and decided to go back to her sister’s and stay there. But Victordidsee her, and he came up, too. I already know he’s interested in doing a threesome with Samantha, and what’s more exciting and forbidden than doing it with her sister? He poured her a drink, a nonalcoholic one, and put the Xanax into it. Something that would relax her, especially if she wasn’t used to meds. You said she didn’t like taking them. Why not?”
“She said they affected her too much. Never wanted painkillers, anything more than Panadol. She’d barely take her prescription antihistamines in summer. I didn’t know if it was quite true, or if she just didn’t like to feel … buzzed. Different from normal. She didn’t drink much, either.”
“Well, that’sextremelyinteresting,” Quinn said. “That sure suggests to me that she wouldn’t have taken Xanax, especially before driving at night in a storm.”
“She wouldn’t have taken it at all,” he said. “I told her parents. I told the cops. Nobody believed me. Grieving husband deluding himself, that was the idea, but I’m not wrong.”
“Well, I believe you,” she said. “You’re an extremely clear thinker. You’d have been a good lawyer.”
“No, thanks,” he said.
“Ha. OK, so if hedidgive her a Xanax, and she was affected by it like that, thatwouldmake her feel like she didn’t want to drive home. Especially if it was more than half a milligram. It might have made her pretty out of it. Andthenhe says, oh, let me drive you. I know you want to get home to your kids.”
“Why didn’t Samantha tell anyone later?” he objected. “And why would she have let him drive off with Abby? She was jealous anyway, and she was sleeping with the bloke. Makes no sense.”
“It would make perfect sense that she didn’t tell anybody later if she felt guilty,” Quinn said. “If she thought he reallywasdriving Abby home, doing Samantha a favor. If Abby reallywasinsistent about leaving. Would she have been?”
“Yeah. Janey’s birthday the next day.” He had to swallow again. Not just from grief this time. From rage, too. “If he did that. If he did, I’ll …”
“No,” she said. “If he did that,we’llmake sure the police find out. What are Troy and Janey going to do,” she said when he would have answered, “if they lose you, too? No, Beckett. This part isn’t up to you.”
“I know.” He had his elbow on the table and his hand in his hair, was willing himself back under control.
“So from Samantha’s perspective,” Quinn said, “she lets Abby drive off with this guy, who’s probably well known to be sleeping with her—Samantha—no matter how discreet they think they’re being, and Abby ends up dead, and Samantha and Victor make some sort of a pact to keep quiet about it. Because of her parents. Because of her job. Because she’s always been the family fuck-up. That’s what she told me,” she said when Beckett’s head lifted.
“It’s a lot to keep quiet about,” Beckett said. “To keep sleeping with the bloke, too. And to give you his name.”
“She told herself … whatever he told her,” Quinn said. “That Abby decided to drive herself home after all, once they got outside, and he couldn’t convince her. That’s probably the story. It makes more sense anyway, except for the student seeing the sea monster. It explains the Xanax, and it explainswhy.”
“Except,” Beckett said, “for Abby going back to Sam’s in the first place. It doesn’t explain that. How do we find out?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. There are all these pieces, and no way they quite fit no matter how many ways you try them, but you know that if you find the right arrangement, they’ll all slot together perfectly. And if I go to sleep for about twelve hours, I’ll bet I can think of a way to do it.”
53
SHUFFLING THE PIECES
Quinn said, “I have such renewed respect for cops.”
Beckett said, “It’s barely been two hours.”
“I hope she didn’t call in sick last night or something,” Quinn said.
“You rang the bell at eight,” Beckett pointed out. “Just in case. She’ll come home.”
“Also, I shouldn’t have had that large coffee. I thought I needed it. Too bad women can’t pee in a bottle. Maybe I have time to—”
“There,” Beckett said. “Getting out of the sporty red car.”
“OK. Here I go. Wait. Placing the call.” She did it, and Beckett clicked his own phone to answer, then started the recording app. She said, “Let’s hope it isn’t two minutes long.”
“If you’re having doubts,” Beckett said, “I’ll do it.”
“Right. Like she’ll letyouup.Nowhere I go.”
She tried, as she walked down the sidewalk on another hot, humid day, to send her mind into the swimming zone. The race zone. Breath. Muscles. Mind.
