Here she was. Popcorn in her lap, wine on the table, and Lydia whispering urgently about lasagna as though nationalsecurity were at stake. If this was borrowed time, and Kinsley was increasingly certain that it was, she intended to spend it well.
24
Kinsley Aspen
July
Saturday, 9:37 am
Rain misted across the windshield, not quite committed to a full downpour but persistent enough to require the intermittent setting on the wipers. Kinsley finished what was left of the coffee she’d purchased at Carol’s, the cup gone lukewarm during the drive, and ignored the leather portfolio resting on the passenger seat of her Jeep. Toby had given it to her yesterday, believing it might help keep her organized. While she appreciated the gesture, she just didn’t work that way. She was a whiteboard person, a sticky-note-on-the-dashboard person, a scribble-on-the-back-of-a-napkin person. The portfolio would end up in her desk drawer within the week.
She set the empty cup into the holder, collected her keys, and stepped out into the damp morning air. The Bells’ current home had no porch, no overhang, nothing to shield a visitor from the weather. Kinsley jogged up the short pathway and pressed thelighted doorbell button, rain beading on the shoulders of her blazer.
Eden Bell had personally reached out to Kinsley earlier that morning, a development that had pulled her out of bed before her alarm. Joey had evidently called his parents after their conversation at Carol’s Café the previous day and shared enough detail to concern his mother. Oddly enough, Eden had requested that she and Kinsley speak without Richard present.
The front door opened before Kinsley could step back. Eden stood in the threshold, backlit by the home’s interior lighting, and she appeared like a different woman from the one Kinsley had spoken to before. The defensive, guarded wife who had let Richard steer the conversation was gone. In her place was someone who had clearly spent the night making a decision and was now prepared to act on it.
She was dressed in cream linen pants and a silk blouse the color of champagne, her blonde hair pulled back in a low chignon that emphasized the sharp angles of her face. No jewelry except for small diamond studs and a wedding band that caught the light when she moved her hand to gesture Kinsley inside. The overall effect was deliberate, composed, a woman who had dressed for an occasion she was taking seriously.
“Detective.” Eden’s greeting was cordial but distant. “Please, come in.”
Kinsley stepped inside and was immediately struck by the temperature. The house was cool to the point of being cold, the air conditioning waging an aggressive campaign against the humidity.
“Can I offer you something to drink?” Eden asked, already moving toward the kitchen with the practiced efficiency of a woman who found purpose in hosting. “Coffee? Water?”
“Water would be great. Thank you.”
The request was strategic as much as it was genuine. It gave Kinsley time to study Eden as she moved through the kitchen, gave her a window to observe the woman in her own environment before the conversation turned to places neither of them would enjoy.
As Eden retrieved a glass from a cabinet and filled it from a filtered tap, Kinsley noticed the slight tremor in her hands. The woman who had answered the door with such composure was working to maintain it, and the effort was visible in the small details.
“You mentioned on the phone that Joey reached out to you,” Kinsley began, making no move to touch the glass that was set in front of her. “We’re aware that his alibi for that night doesn’t hold up. He was near the residence when Iris was killed, and we?—”
“Joey did not kill his sister.”
The words were immediate, forceful, and delivered without hesitation. Kinsley had encountered this kind of certainty before, and it usually came in one of two forms. The desperate denial of a parent who couldn’t accept the possibility, or the absolute knowledge of a parent who knew the truth because they knew exactly who had been responsible. She couldn’t yet determine which category Eden occupied.
Kinsley hadn’t taken a seat at the island. She stood facing Eden, who seemed to decide that standing was no longer tenable. Eden walked across the kitchen until she reached the small dining table that overlooked a meticulously landscaped backyard. She pulled out a metal chair with a black cushion and lowered herself into it, though her attention went immediately to the window, where the drizzle traced patterns down the glass.
Kinsley decided to abandon the topic of Joey entirely and approach from a direction Eden wouldn’t anticipate.
“What made you want to downsize, Mrs. Bell?”
“Eden, please.” Her attention flickered toward Kinsley as she took a seat at the table, then drifted back to the rain. “The house had become too much. Too many rooms we never used. Too much space for just the two of us. After Joey moved out, it felt like living in a museum. Beautiful on the outside, empty on the inside.”
“I take it that’s when you discovered the mini-recorders that Iris had hidden around the house?”
“Yes.” Eden inhaled slowly, as if she’d finally come to terms with whatever had compelled her to make this phone call. “We were packing up the foyer. I found one behind a picture frame in the hallway. More in the living room, the dining room. They were everywhere, Detective. In places I never would have thought to look.”
“How many total?”
“I didn’t count.” Eden shifted, crossing one leg over the other. “Once I realized what she’d done, the scope of it, I stopped looking. I just wanted them gone.”
“After so many decades, I imagine the batteries had corroded?”
“Years of neglect. Some of them were rusted completely through, the casings cracked open.” Eden’s voice took on a harder edge, and Kinsley could detect the controlled anger beneath it. “My daughter had been dead for so long, Detective Aspen, that finding her little spy devices hidden throughout our home wasn’t exactly a comforting discovery. It felt like an invasion. Like she was still watching us from beyond the grave.”
“I can imagine.” Kinsley softened her tone deliberately. “What did you do with them?”
