She wondered if the fear would ever leave her very marrow, despite its ridiculousness. She’d been married for ages, a working member of society for even longer. She belonged in this country as much as anyone else, but old habits died hard.
She studied the cops, wondering what had brought them crawling out of their cave. The police had bothered her plenty in the weeks after Roman’s death, but she’d finally started to think they were through with her. Eliza had even started to wonder if they’d just give up on her husband’s case and move on to the hot, new murder du jour.
They need evidence. She reassured herself with the familiar phrase and took a deep breath. She’d been repeating it over and over to herself in the time since Roman’s murder.
“We can make this quick,” the shorter cop said, flicking his gaze to Eliza. “Mrs. Tate, you’re under arrest for the murder of your husband, Roman Tate.”
Eliza couldn’t process what they were saying. “But that’s impossible.”
“Mrs. Tate, you have the right—”
Eliza held up her finger as her phone rang. It sounded shrill, eerily so in the bare cement walls that formed her office. She answered, speaking evenly, barely processing Anne’s sobbing voice on the other end of the line.
“I’m sorry, Anne,” Eliza said briskly once Anne had mumbled on and on about her very-alive husband. Anne’s problems were just not that important right now. “This will have to wait. The police have arrived to arrest me for my husband’s murder.”
Eliza hung up on Anne, then looked to the officers. “There must be a mistake. Your people have questioned me a hundred times. I told you I didn’t do it. I am innocent. And unless you have evidence—”
“We do, Mrs. Tate.”
“That’s impossible. How can you have evidence if I didn’t do it?”
“This will be a lot easier if you cooperate with us.”
“Cooperate? You mean admit to something I didn’t do?”
“Come down to the station with us. Everything will be explained.”
“I want my lawyer.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Eliza frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The taller cop stepped forward, removed a pair of handcuffs from his waist. “All I’m saying, Mrs. Tate, is that things aren’t looking good for you.”
The other cop shook his head, a false sadness sliding over his features. “They never do when the wife’s fingerprints turn up on the murder weapon.”
Eliza felt her face go numb first. Then her arms, her hands, the tips of her fingers and toes. The world seemed to halt on its axis, suspended in space and time, while the cops surrounded her.
The panic in her chest grew in its intensity as she was hauled from her office. How was this possible? She hadn’t killed anyone. As Eliza climbed into the back of a cop car, her brain whirred at a million miles an hour. There had to be an explanation. How had the cops found the murder weapon? Where? And most importantly, how had her prints gotten onto it?
THIRTY-SIX
One Month After
March 2019
Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?” asked a detective dressed in slacks and a sky-blue button-down shirt. “Something to drink, maybe? Coffee?”
“Just so long as the bathroom is close by, I should be fine.” Penny dropped herself into a chair, groaning with the effort of it. “I hope we can make this quick.”
“We’ll do our best.” The detective sat opposite Penny at the interview table. “Ms. Sands, we’ve invited you here to discuss the murder of Roman Tate.”
“Eliza wouldn’t have killed her husband. I don’t know why you’ve arrested her.”
“Isn’t that a little ironic? A defense coming from her husband’s mistress?”
Penny winced, then shook her head. She rested a hand on her stomach as she met the detective’s gaze. “You don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“You’re right, I don’t. That’s why you’re here. When did your affair with Mr. Tate begin?”
Penny’s breath hitched. “I didn’t realize it was an affair. He said he was separating from his wife.”
“At the time of his death, Mr. Tate was still wearing his wedding ring.”
“Yes.”
“Was he wearing it when you started seeing him?”
Penny thought back to the day when everything had changed. The day in Roman’s office when he’d promised her great things. Wild success. Then he’d turned her very dreams into the trap that broke her.
“Yes, he was wearing it when our relationship began.”
“You didn’t think to ask him about it?”
“I did ask him about it, and he told me he was separating from his wife.”
The detective jotted down a note on a tiny piece of paper. “Did he explain the cause of the separation?”
“He only said that it was a long time in coming. There was a mention of how he was still on good terms with Eliza. That it was a mutual and amicable separation—no kids, no messy dividing of assets. They were going to split things down the middle and carry on with their lives.”
“Would it surprise you to learn that Roman Tate had no real assets to split?”
Penny blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I thought you said that you and Mrs. Tate were friends.”
“We are, but I’m not privy to her personal finances. What do you mean Roman had no assets to split? The Tates are loaded.”
The detective ignored Penny. “When did you begin seeing Mr. Tate?”
“I met him when I signed up for his acting classes after moving to Los Angeles. I suppose that would have been sometime in June of last year. I don’t remember the exact date, but I’m sure there’s a confirmation email somewhere that would state when I began paying tuition.”
“I’ll need to see any correspondence that corroborates your testimony.”
Penny gave a vague, tired wave of her hand. “Fine.”
“When did your relationship go from professional to something more personal?”
She was forced to think on the question. Not because she couldn’t remember but because she couldn’t be sure of the correct answer. When had it switched over?
It might have been the day Roman had called Penny up onstage, his dark eyes fixed on hers, that musical voice lulling her into a moment of heady lust before the rest of her classmates. She could still feel the ghost of his breath on her shoulder, the whisper of his touch on her back. Skin against skin, as if he were right here in this room. But that was impossible, because Roman Tate was dead.
Penny bit her lip, studied the cop across the table.
“I’m thinking,” she said at his raised eyebrows.
Maybe it wasn’t the day onstage when things had changed. Maybe it was the moment she’d accepted his offer for feedback on her stolen script. She’d gone to him knowing it was a ruse, knowing she wouldn’t walk away unscathed, and she’d been right.
Penny felt the familiar growl of anger rising in her gut as she remembered—all of it, every sordid detail. She rested a hand on her belly and felt movement there and, beneath it, a pit of despair.