“Yes. No.” She scrunched up her face. “I think so. Maybe. Sometimes it’s hard to remember.”
My stomach dipped. I desperately needed Mrs. Martins to remember her meeting with Ali. “My husband came to see you on the day he died. I was wondering why. Did he visit often?”
“Ali?” She shook her head. “No, he never came. That was the first time. I asked him to come because—” She abruptly halted mid-sentence. “What do you mean? On the day he died? What’s happened to Ali?”
It was my turn to be confused. “I assumed your daughter would have told you.” Lizzie came to visit often and never told her mother about Ali’s death? “He died in a car accident a few months ago.”
Shock rippled across her face. “On the same day he came to see me?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“No, no, no,” she moaned, shaking her head, breaking into heaving sobs.
Alarmed, I came to my feet and crossed over to put a light hand on her shoulder. “Mrs. Martins, please don’t be so upset. Is there anything I can get you?”
Instead of being comforted, the old woman sobbed even louder.
The door opened, and two staff members rushed in. The young man and the nurse who’d administered Mrs. Martins’s meds hurried to the woman’s side. “Mrs. Martins, calm down. Everything is going to be OK.”
I backed away to give them room.
“Is my husband coming to see me?” she asked, tears streaming down her face. “I want Lawrence right now.” She huddled over, rocking herself back and forth.
The nurse looked at me. “What did you say to her?”
I felt her recrimination. “I told her that my husband died. They’re ... I guess you could say ... old family friends.”
Her face hardened. “In her condition, the last thing Mrs. Martins needs is to be upset by visitors.”
I briefly wondered what the state of Mrs. Martins’s health was. “I didn’t realize that she hadn’t been told.”
The man straightened to face me, speaking loudly over the old woman’s moaning. “I think you should leave now. Mrs. Martins needs to rest.”
His voice was kind but firm, leaving me no choice but to gather up my things. I scurried out of Mrs. Martins’s room, guilt rippling through me, even though I’d done nothing wrong. My mind zigzagged in all directions. Bill and Lizzie were siblings. And their mother said she was sorry about Ali.
He didn’t deserve what happened to him.
I’d assumed that she was referring to the accident, but if the crash was news to her, what had she meant?
I climbed into my van. A shot of orange flickered in my peripheral vision. When I turned toward it, an orange sports car pulled out of the parking lot and sped away. I shivered. That car showing up in randomplaces no longer seemed like a coincidence. Could somebody actually be following me?
Maybe I was being ridiculous. Maybe orange sports cars were the latest rage. Still, I dialed Detective Fox.
“You don’t know for sure that you’re being followed, is that right?” she said after I told her about the vehicle.
“What are the chances that we both just happened to be in the same place that often?”
“It’s hard to look up without a license plate,” she told me. “Try to get the license plate number if the car shows up again. And I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“What are you doing here?” Lizzie asked as I marched into her hotel suite.
“We need to talk, and I’m not leaving until I get some answers. Real answers this time.”
She closed the door and regarded me warily. “How did you find me?”
It wasn’t hard. The extended-stay hotel was less than a mile from the facility Mrs. Martins lived in. For the first time in my life, I’d actually bribed someone, giving a hotel maid fifty dollars to tell me which room Lizzie was in.
