“I was asking about the timeline?” The policeman flashes a warm hug of a smile. “Starting with the company outing?”
The outing—here.Mallory knows the where and the when. And Ilena had said there were invoices for a raw bar and paddleboard rentals and even dung cleanup. But she doubts that’s what Mack Weldon is looking for. The underwear brand was Grayson’s favorite, at least in her world.
“Ooh, the outings!” She summons the stupidity she’s supposedly known for. “We’ve held them all over Cambridge and Boston, haven’t we, Aubrey? Can’t repeat ever. These young people nowadays expect—”
Officer Middlebury leans forward, and the mirrored sunglasses tucked into the collar of her shirt sway. It’s like she learned how to be a cop from watching too many B movies.
“I was referring to this most recent outing,” Mack Weldon continues in a velvety tone. “What was it?” He starts flipping through a notebook. “Three days ago?”
“Four,” Officer Middlebury says, the innocuous word coming out as an accusation.
Make that too many good-cop/bad-cop B movies.
Mallory’s father leaves his perch on the edge of the desk and places a hand on Mallory’s shoulder. An emotion not in her lexicon makes her lift her own hand and rest it atop his.
“I know you’d prefer bourbon,” he says. “Wouldn’t we all? But maybe a water, MallieMoo?” He pats her shoulder. “Apologies, Mallory.”
“Sure.” The use of the nickname in front of the police makes her feel like a child, and he should know better. But then she sees Officer Middlebury’s chin tuck, eyes lower to the ground, and she realizes that her father knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s why he told Mallory to leave their house before the police arrived and to pretend to have no knowledge of what he found in the basement. To be surprised when the police reveal Grayson is dead. To treat this exactly as it had previously been planned: as an informational interview about Grayson’s disappearance, scheduled to take place casually, in the office, rather than at the station. He’s making it harder for the officers to see her as a suspect.
Even though she is.She is, she is, she is.
“Let me.” Her father heads for the wet bar, the one place Mallory suddenly realizes she hasn’t searched for nut crackers.
She bites her lower lip, her usually rapid-fire brain unable to make any choice. This is how Aubrey must feel all the time. There’s an unexpected peace in it, in giving things over to someone else.
Her father opens the refrigerator door. “It’s the least I can do. I’m here in such an unofficial capacity that I’m actually in the Dunkin’ down the street.”
“Dad joke,” Aubrey whispers, a soft smile on her face.
Mallory feels like she’s just stepped onto a tightrope in a windstorm. She tugs on the sleeve of her blouse. Barely a whisper of an outline remains of the marks on her forearm, yet even when they’re gone, she’ll still see them.
She accepts the bottle of water from her father, cracks it open, and drinks. (Stalls.)
The sound of tapping draws her attention back to the male officer. He’s holding his notebook above his knee. “Sorry, nervous habit.” Except he’s not actually nervous. Not at all.
He gives one final tap, and from between the pages, a plastic bag slips out. It lands on the floor in front of Mallory. She reaches for it, but Officer Middlebury’s quick fingers get there first.
The fuzzy black-and-white cow print.Mallory tries to keep her expression neutral.The shape of Texas.She meets the officer’s eye. That slip wasn’t an accident. This must be the “lead” her father was talking about. A charm found in Grayson’s penthouse. Too similar to the one found in her parents’ freezer to be a coincidence. Two charms from Noreen’s key chain that amounted to one thing.
Noreen Parra is framing you for murder.
Is it possible they allactuallythink that?
Officer Middlebury slides the plastic bag into her shirt pocket, and Mack Weldon nods with feigned gratitude.
“Great.” He plants the notebook on his knee. “Where were we?”
“Outing,” Officer Middlebury grunts, not as an accusation but as a sentencing.
“Of course. The outing. Exactly what time did you first see Mr. Fields?”
Mallory runs her tongue over her lips. Beside her, Aubrey’s about to flay off a layer of skin. And Ilena, where the hell is Ilena? Christ, she’s not in labor, is she?
The thought pushes Mallory to step up. If there’s even a chance they see her as potentially being framed rather than as a suspect, she’s leaning all the way in. “I know that,” she pretends to blurt out. “I mean, I know who it belongs to.”
Aubrey can’t stop her small gasp, which fits in perfectly.
“We have to, Aubrey,” Mallory says. “We have to tell them what we know.”
