anyone else? No. I didn’t say a word. I let you have your fun, and—”
“And you had yours,” he interrupts curtly. He splashes more liquor in his glass.
“Yeah, but we agreed friends were off-limits.”
He sighs, burying his long, burdened exhale in his second drink.
“That was your rule for this game, and now—Jesus-fucking-Christ, I can’t believe you put us in this position.” I sweep the hair away from my neck, but it doesn’t cool the flash of heat blooming there. “I can’t breathe.”
“Calm down.” He rounds the island, drags me into his arms, and caresses my back. “You’re getting all worked up over something that happened last year. What Joanna and I had is over. It’s done.”
“Because she was killed, for Christ’s sake!” The laugh that bubbles out of me is borderline hysterical. “And now the police suspect us and—”
“Whoa, whoa—what?” He jerks back, nearly pushing me away, his dark eyes wild. “We’re suspects now? Did the cops tell you that?”
“No, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”
“What’d they say?”
“That you talked to Joanna sometime right before she died.”
“Is that all they have?” He paces from the back door to the living room windows and back again, clenching and unclenching his fists and popping his knuckles. The sound makes my skin crawl. “Those messages could’ve been about business.”
“That’s what I tried to tell them.”
“And they didn’t believe you?”
“Travis, it’s not that simple. I don’t think you realize how bad this looks. You were sleeping with your boss’s wife and were talking to her right up until the end. Once they find out about the affair, they’re going to know you had motive.”
“What motive could I possibly have?” he snarls.
“You’re the jealous lover.”
His jaw tightens as if I’ve hit the nail on the head, and something inside me wilts.
“If that’s the case,” he says, his voice darkening, “you’re my vengeful wife. You don’t think they’ll try to spin that too?”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Travis—should we get a lawyer?”
“No.” He takes a loud, labored breath. “Not yet.”
Outside, Melissa Mendes fluffs her hair in front of the camera and prepares to go live for the six o’clock news. She’s standing on the grassy patch between our home and the Harrises’, her back to us. Without saying a word, Travis wraps his arm around my shoulder and guides me in front of our floor-to-ceiling windows. From here, we’ll be caught on camera looking like the worried couple next door.
“We need to stay calm, especially now.” His voice is low and soothing, vibrating my head where it rests against his chest. “They’re just trying to make us panic, to see how we react when they put pressure on us, but they can twist the story as much as they want. There’s nothing to find, right? We did nothing wrong.”
I nod against his chest, hesitantly.
“Now kiss me,” he says. “And let’s give them one hell of a show.”
COLLEEN
Settling into the corner of the couch, I glance out the window at the grove before peeling open the book on my lap. It’s A Study in Scarlet, the very first Sherlock Holmes novel. I’ve read it a dozen times, and don’t know why I felt the need to pull the classic from my shelf this morning. But when I flip through the pages and begin skimming, it comes to me.
The cryptic word Rache written in blood. It’d been a clue in the classic Sherlock tale—crimson letters scrawled on the walls of two different crime scenes. Although the police had been stumped, Sherlock deciphered the message. It wasn’t short for a woman’s name, as officers had rashly presumed.
As Sherlock swiftly pointed out, Rache was German for “revenge.”
If Rachael knew about Travis’s affair with Joanna, she’d have a motive for killing Joanna, too. Rachael might’ve