"How has their relationship been since that argument?"
"Increasingly more arguments. It's been okay, mostly. Zach is still at the house quite often. He visits after work and sometimes spends his evenings with us, or Sophie when I'm not home. He just turns up and wanders in. It really annoys the work crew."
"So he still comes over a lot despite your mutual decision that you didn't want him to."
Austen nodded. "Way too much. He crosses boundaries too. I found him in my home office last week."
I frowned. "What was he doing in there?"
"That's what I asked. He said he was just looking for a pen but he had one in the pocket of his padded vest and I swear I closed my laptop when I left, but it was open. My laptop is password protected but I bet he tried to gain access."
"Do you have any idea why?"
"No, but we had a weird conversation about life insurance a couple weeks back. He asked me how much Sophie would get if I died."
"Wow!"
Austen blew out a breath. "Yeah."
"I assume you weren't talking about the benefits of life insurance because he wanted a policy?"
"No, far from it. Zach was talking about investments before the question popped out. I was surprised. He brushed it off and said he was only concerned for his sister since they didn't come from much but it seemed off." He glanced at Sophie. "Perhaps it was nothing. I'm here, I'm okay, and Sophie is the one who’s lying unconscious."
"I'm sorry if this seems indelicate, but does Sophie have life insurance?"
"Yes, she does. Before you ask, I'm the beneficiary but it's essentially just legalese. Crass as it sounds, I brought all the money into the relationship and Sophie brought all the happiness. Financially, if she died, I would receive what I already had. There's no financial motive to murder her, if that's what you're asking."
"Do you have a pre-nup?" I asked.
"I get why you're asking," said Austen, "and I'm not offended. Yes, perhaps that would give me a motive if I wanted to get rid of her without a divorce, but I can assure you I want my wife to stay alive and live well. We have a pre-nup that's airtight. My lawyers insisted on it but I gave Sophie the money to engage her own lawyer to keep it fair. I would never bulldoze her from a position of power. In short, Sophie wouldn't receive any payout until a minimum of five years of marriage unless children arrived. There isn't any codicil on having children, only a clause regarding the manner in which the marriage dissolved, if it did. I can send you the paperwork. So, you see, if I wanted out of our marriage right now, I could walk away absolutely fine. Financially and materially, I wouldn't lose a thing. I really don't harbor any motive to hurt my wife."
I had to agree; it didn't sound like Austen stood to gain anything from his wife's demise. Even though it didn't offer me any answers as to why someone would want to hurt Sophie, it temporarily eliminated Austen as a suspect. If he didn't want to be married, he could easily get a divorce without losing anything. Of course, Sophie did suffer a horrible fall but the suspicious bleaching of the stairs threw a shadow over such a basic accident. There was another consideration I hadn't explored yet: would someone hurt Sophie in order to hurt Austen? He already established that he had money and power. Did someone envy that?
"How did you two meet?" I asked.
"At the theater. We both love Shakespeare and the theater in general, and we attended a fundraiser at The Playhouse. Sophie and I happened to be seated next to each other. I was alone and so was she so we got to talking. I previously bumped into a friend and his wife in the lobby and arranged to meet them at the bar for a drink afterwards. I asked Sophie to join us." Austen smiled. "I asked for her phone number and she told me if it were meant to be, fate would bring us together. Then she disappeared into the night. I thought I'd never see her again."
"But you did," I prompted.
Austen glanced at Sophie and reached for her hand, smiling. "Two days later. It was raining and I was leaving the office. We both raced for the same cab and when I realized who she was... The rest, as they say, is history."
"Sounds so romantic."
"So long as you don't think about me getting drenched with my hair plastered to my head." Austen laughed. "Instead of taking that cab, we decided to dry out at a nearby bar and that turned into dinner. Sophie gave me her umbrella that night and told me to find a unique way to return it."
"Did you?"
"I have tried several unique ways to return it but I still have it. She just gives it back and tells me to keep trying." He laughed again, the lines around his eyes crinkling and warming his face. "I'm thinking of having it turned into an art object and installing it in the house permanently."
"That sounds fun."
"Possibly. I think Sophie would like it too. She's a fun person. Anyway, we've been together ever since that night. It's funny really. I'm forty-seven. I got to the age where I thought, maybe there's no one out there for me. I've always worked hard, long hours, building my business, but my personal life? Sure, I've had plenty of partners and I even got engaged once but nothing seemed to fly until I met Sophie. Yes, she's younger than me, a lot younger, and it felt like a cliché at first, but it doesn't seem to matter. She gave me a new lease on life. With Sophie, I had, have, everything. A wife, a friend, a companion. We were even talking about starting a family. The idea of losing her is just unimaginable. I don't know what I'll do if she doesn't wake up. The only thing I can think of, aside from her wellbeing right now, is what the hell happened to her? If I can't protect her, what kind of husband am I?"
"I'll find out what happened," I told him. "Can you tell me more about being unsure of Sophie's identity?"
Austen's shoulders slumped as he leaned back in the chair. "It feels like such a stupid thing to say. I fear you think the sleep deprivation is playing with my brain. Maybe it is."
"I think you're a smart, successful man. You noticed the blood drops and I already confirmed some of the stairs were bleached. If you noticed something else, I'll take a look into that too."
"Thank you for not saying I'm an idiot."
"Tell me more about this theory. What else aroused your suspicions?"
"I don't know it was any one thing. I told you already how she avoids discussing her past, and the way Zach behaves. For a brother, it's kind of creepy."
"Some siblings are closer than others." I knew that from my own family circumstances. As the youngest of five siblings, I had distinctive relationships with each. I probably saw my brothers, Garrett and Jord, the most often. Garrett, being the oldest, was also significantly older than me and pretty much out of the house while I was just beginning to enjoy my toddler years. Given the age difference, we didn't experience any sibling rivalry. Since I became a private investigator, our cases intersected on more than a few occasions, and I thought we shared a healthy respect for each other.
Jord married my best friend, Lily, after years of denying their feelings for each other, so we socialized plenty. My other brother, Daniel, was the quietest of the siblings and we once bonded over our exes cheating on us with each other. We both happily moved on and Daniel married Alice. My only sister, Serena was an uptight overachiever and every time I thought she mellowed, she reverted back to her old self. However, she did appear to be a lot happier since her marriage to my colleague, Delgado. I awarded myself some kudos for sending him over to help her when she needed it. As it turned out, he never stopped helping her.