Claire tried to think of a good excuse to contradict him. “Did the security cameras show the men breaking into the garage?”
“You can never be too sure.”
She summoned a weak copy of her mother’s librarian voice. “I would think sixteen cameras would make you as sure as possible.”
Nolan shrugged. He was smiling at her again.
“Not to mention half a million dollars’ worth of automobiles that are still parked in the garage.”
He kept smiling, and Claire realized that she was talking too much. Her hands were sweating. She gripped the arms of the chair.
Nolan asked, “Something up here you don’t want us to see?”
Claire forced herself not to look at the computer. Instead, she looked at his lips and tried not to think about the red, wet lips behind the zippered mask.
He said, “I’m curious, Mrs. Scott, did your husband say anything to you before he was murdered?”
She remembered the alley, the rough texture of the brick, the burn of skin being scraped from her cheek. Was Paul suddenly into that kind of thing? Was that why he had this movie on his computer?
“Mrs. Scott?” Nolan mistook her silence for embarrassment. “Don’t worry. Detective Rayman told me why you and your husband were in the alley. No judgment here. I’m just curious about what your husband said.”
She cleared her throat again. “He promised me he wasn’t going to die.”
“Anything else?”
“I already told all of this to Detective Rayman.”
“Yeah, but that was a few days ago. Sometimes it takes some perspective to jog your memory.” He pressed a little harder. “Sleep usually does it. I’ve dealt with a lot of victims of violent crime. There’s this adrenalin rush that gets them through the hard parts, and then they have to tell their story to old gumshoes like me, and then they go home and they’re alone and they start to crash because the adrenalin’s gone and there’s no forward momentum and they fall into a heavy sleep and then suddenly they wake up in a sweat because they remembered something.”
Claire swallowed again. He was perfectly describing her first night alone, but the only revelation that had come when she’d woken up with the sheets soaked in sweat was that Paul was not there to comfort her.
Comfort.
How could the man who looked at such vile filth possibly be the same gentle man who had comforted her for eighteen years?
“So,” Nolan said, “did you remember anything? Doesn’t have to seem useful. Just a stray comment he might have made, something unusual that he did. Before or after the attack. Anything you can think of. Maybe not even something he said, but his demeanor.”
Claire’s hand went to her thigh. She could almost feel the missing streaks of skin where Paul had raked his fingers up her leg. He’d never marked her like that before. Had he wanted to? Had he been fighting the impulse all those years?
“General demeanor,” Nolan prompted. “Anything he said.”
“He was shocked. We were both shocked.” Claire clasped her hands together on the desk so that she wouldn’t start wringing them. “It’s called Masters of the Universe Complex.” She sounded like Paul, and in fact the phrase had come from her husband. “It’s where people think that status and money insulate them against tragedy.”
“Do you think that’s true?” Nolan asked. “Seems like you’ve seen more tragedy than most.”
“That’s a keen bit of detective work on your part.” Claire forced herself to stay in the present. “Are you a detective? Because when I met you in the driveway, you didn’t give your title or show me your credentials.”
“You’re right.”
He didn’t volunteer the information, so she said, “I’d like to see your identification.”
Nolan was apparently unflappable. He reached into his coat pocket as he walked toward her. His wallet was a cheap bifold. Instead of a detective’s shield, there were two laminated cards behind plastic sleeves. Everything on the top card was in gold ink—the words Federal Bureau of Investigation, the blind Lady Justice, and the bald eagle. The bottom card was in blue ink and showed Fred Nolan’s color photograph, his name, and revealed that he was a special agent from the Atlanta field office on West Peachtree.
The FBI. What was the FBI doing here?
She thought about the file on Paul’s computer. Had the FBI tracked the download? Was Fred Nolan here because Paul had stumbled across something he shouldn’t have? What Claire had seen could not be real. It was a made-up movie designed to appeal to a sick fetish.
A sick fetish that, apparently, her husband had either stumbled across by mistake or kept hidden from her for the last eighteen years.
“Satisfied?” Nolan was still holding out his wallet. He was still smiling. He was still acting like this was a casual conversation.
Claire looked at the credentials again. Nolan had fewer gray hairs in the photograph. “Does the FBI routinely investigate foiled burglaries?”
“I’ve been doing this job long enough to know that nothing’s routine.” He flipped the wallet closed. “The gang who robbed your house crossed county lines. We’re helping coordinate between the police forces.”
“Isn’t that the job of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation?”
“You’re certainly up on your law enforcement hierarchy.”
Claire had to put a stop to this before she gave everything away. “It’s just occurred to me that you never answer my questions, Agent Nolan, so maybe I should stop answering yours.”
Nolan chuckled. “I forgot you’ve had experience with the justice system.”
“I’d like you to leave now.”
“Sure.” He indicated the door. “Open or closed?”
When she didn’t answer, he closed the door behind him anyway.
Claire ran to the bathroom and threw up.
FOUR
Lydia tried to concentrate on the road as she drove her daughter to an away game. She had lasted twenty-four hours before the full impact of Paul Scott’s death hit her. The hangover from her ensuing breakdown was breathtakingly awful. All day, she’d felt weepy and exhausted. Her head throbbed with every heartbeat. The coffee she’d gulped down to stave off the headache had made her fidgety. She hated the feeling of being punch-drunk and she hated it even more that her first thought when she opened her eyes this morning was that a bump of coke would even her out.
She wasn’t going to give up seventeen and a half years of sobriety for that asshole. She would throw herself off a bridge before she did something so stupid.
But that didn’t stop her from hating herself for even thinking of using. And it didn’t stop her from crying like a baby last night.
She had wept in Rick’s arms for over an hour. He’d been so sweet to her, stroking her hair and telling her that she had every right to be upset. Instead of making her talk it out or driving her to a meeting, he’d put on John Coltrane and fried some chicken. The chicken was good. The company was better. They had started arguing about which was the best Coltrane solo, “Crescent” or “Blue in Green,” and right in the middle of it Dee came out of her room and gave Lydia the greatest gift a teenage daughter can ever give her mother: She had agreed with her.