Roz just stared at her. Was she really this clueless?
Sheryl clapped a hand to her mouth. Then she slowly lowered it. “That was Sebastian Esquivel’s plane, wasn’t it? Do you think someone—do you think I tried to crash that plane? You can’t possibly! Please tell me it wasn’t the air filter.” She was getting hysterical.
“Sheryl?” Roz used her most soothing voice. “Sheryl. Calm down, Sheryl.”
“But you think I tried to kill you!” she screeched.
“Actually,” Alden said, “we thought you tried to kill Sebastian.”
Roz gave him a scolding look. But now that it was out there, she turned back to Sheryl. “What do you know about it?”
“I told you, nothing! Wayne was the one who was the expert in airplanes. I mean, he did a lot of research for me. Came up with all kinds of ways to sabotage a plane for my script. I picked the scenario that worked for my plot and found the rest of the details online. He cared about me that much.”
Alden leaned forward and spoke in a low tone that made Sheryl freeze. “Or maybe he went to all that trouble to make it look like you were the one who sabotaged Sebastian’s plane, in case investigators figured out that’s what happened.”
Roz sucked in a breath. A convincing theory. And it would mean Sheryl wasn’t the evil mastermind either.
Sheryl gaped at him. “You think Wayne framed me? But that would mean—” She swallowed, unable to finish the sentence.
“That would mean,” Roz said, looking at Alden, “that Wayne tried to kill Sebastian.”
“But Wayne was murdered before his own murder plot succeeded,” Alden replied. “We really need to know what was on that guy’s laptop.”
“I’ll ask Duke.”
“Of course you will.”
Sheryl interrupted them. “There’s no way Wayne would have done something so nefarious. He wasn’t that evil!”
Roz turned back to her, speaking in her gentle voice again. “He was evil enough to steal your fifty thousand dollars.”
“You don’t know that!”
Sheryl sat there under the weight of their gazes, looking like a trapped bunny rabbit. Then she started crying.
Crap. “I’m sorry,” Roz said.
“He said he was going to help me!” Sheryl sobbed. “The others, too. I know he was talking to Nicole, but I didn’t realize he had a deal with her husband. I think the rest of the writers gave him twelve hundred apiece to get a premium listing on some site that he said would put their IP in front of the right people. That’s how he first helped me. He talked a lot about IP.”
Roz caught Alden in an eye roll at the jargon for intellectual property. Sheryl, her face in her hands, didn’t notice.
“The police might end up talking to you again,” Roz said. “But I’m glad to hear you weren’t trying to kill anyone.”
“Of course I wasn’t! Who do you think I am?” Sheryl looked up at them, angry now. “I’m a gardener, for goodness’ sake!”
“You have a lot of sharp tools in that belt,” Alden quipped.
Roz was about to glare at him when, to her surprise, Sheryl hiccuped a laugh. Then she sniffled and wiped away a tear. “I still love him, you know.” Her expression turned accusatory. Because it was their fault, after all, that her dream was shattered. “I think you should leave.”
“All right.” Roz stood. If Sheryl was a liar, she was a darn good actress.
Sheryl didn’t say anything as Roz and Alden walked out of her little patch of paradise.
Alden finally spoke as they got into her car. “What do you think? Did Wayne try to kill his partner?”
“I think you’re on to something,” she said, “but I’m not positive. We need more before we can report this. I’m texting Duke.”
“Greeaaat.”
