I hadn’t been able to figure out if his solution was to let the poor guest sweat, or if he had plans to try again with the repair. I nudged the conversation back to Brooke. “At what point did you feel like you were losing control?”
“She just wouldn’t stop. Pecking at me, that’s what she was doing. Continually wiping her brow so I would understand she was sweating. Asking when I was going to go outside and take a look at it. Bringing up articles on her phone and making ‘helpful suggestions.’” He put air quotes around the words. “I just looked at her, sitting there on the couch, and I pictured her stomach cut open.”
His words had drilled into me, as if it had been my own stomach at risk. So calm. So matter-of-fact. As if he cut into flesh on an everyday basis.
“She’s getting fat,” he’d added. “It bounces when she moves. I thought about that, wondered if it’d make it harder to cut or easier.” He had looked at me. “What do you think?”
I’d met his gaze without flinching, because most of my clients wanted a reaction. For some, that’s why they kill, because they’re standing there, screaming at the ones they love, and aren’t getting the feedback they want. I wasn’t going to give him a reaction. “I think we need to work on you not having that visual.”
Now, I ran my finger down to the next handwritten line of the notes, and my heart sank at what it said.
Not just looking for attention from me—he is a serious threat to her. High risk.
CHAPTER 28
Nita watched as her husband put their Range Rover in park, the movement deliberately slow, all of them dreading this moment. She twisted to unlock her belt and glanced into the back seat, where Scott sat, his body slumped against the window, his gaze out on the police parking lot.
“I don’t want to go back in there,” he said quietly. “You know what they did to me last time.”
She closed her eyes, blocking out the memory. The medical examiner had told her that it would be quick—a DNA swab of his genitals and a rape exam kit. It had just taken fifteen minutes, and Scott hadn’t met her eyes when he’d come back to the waiting room. He’d even walked differently. She thought of college, when her roommate had gotten drunk and blacked out and Nita had taken her the following day to the women’s crisis center to see if she had been raped. Her roommate had sobbed the entire way home and said that she would have rather not known than undergone that exam.
“They’re just going to ask you questions.” Their attorney, who had gone to college with George, spoke up from behind her. “And I’ll be right there.”
“But I have to answer all their questions?”
“I’ll step in if they ask you anything that is inappropriate. But we need you to be honest with them, Scott. It’ll help with their case against Mr. Thompson.”
Scott limply pulled on the door release handle and slowly stepped out of the car. Nita met her husband’s eyes.
George gave her a reassuring smile. “It’ll be okay,” he said quietly.
But would it? How could it ever be okay again?
As they moved down the hall of the police station, the heel of Nita’s sandal caught on an uneven piece of flooring, and she stumbled forward. George caught her, helping her back upright, and she smiled at him in gratitude. She should have worn flats. After months in her pajamas and slippers, she felt off-balance in high heels. Assuming she didn’t fall flat on her face, they just needed to get through this questioning so they could get back home. They weren’t criminals, and Scott wasn’t under suspicion. While there would eventually be a trial, for now, they could knock out these inquiries, then get back in their Range Rover and go to lunch. She could sip an ice-cold mimosa and they could discuss college. Not Vanderbilt, not anymore. He should be closer to home, given everything that had happened. Pepperdine would be perfect. Small, private, and safe.
Crowding into the small viewing room, she looked through the glass at Scott, who was seated, their attorney right beside him. Juan was good, though criminal law wasn’t his specialty. Still, he’d known Scott his entire life, and this questioning, as the detectives had assured them, was mostly fact-finding. Fifteen or twenty minutes, tops.
Detective Erica Petts cleared her throat. “Scott, I need you to tell me about the place where you were kept.”
Nita shifted on her heels. Scott had already told them that he didn’t know, that he’d been blindfolded. Blindfolded for seven weeks? they had asked. Seven weeks of darkness—no wonder he couldn’t sleep. It was amazing he didn’t need a lamp left on in his room.
“I don’t know anything about it,” he mumbled. “I was blindfolded.”
Look up, Nita wanted to shout. Look into their eyes so they believe you.
“Well, you were blindfolded in the room. But then you escaped, right? So we need to know what you saw when you got your hands loose. You took off the blindfold then, right?”
“It was dark,” Scott said. “I felt my way to the door and then down the hall. I was running. I didn’t really see anything until I got outside.”
“And you didn’t have to go down or up any stairs to get outside?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“Was he in the house? Did he live there?”
“I—I don’t know.”
But they did know, didn’t they? The police had searched Randall Thompson’s house top to bottom and decided he hadn’t kept Scott there, but at some other location. And the morning that Scott had escaped, he’d been at school, teaching. Nita had learned that not from the detectives but from the news. The detectives had kept them in the dark on everything.
The pair grilled him on the neighborhood he’d run through on his way out. What he described—quiet streets with run-down homes—could have matched a hundred Los Angeles neighborhoods. What she hadn’t understood, what she still didn’t understand, was why he hadn’t stopped at one of those houses for help. Why hadn’t he flagged down a car? Why had he run for miles, all the way home?
“Let’s go back to the room where you were kept. We understand that you didn’t see anything, but let’s talk about what you could hear, what you could smell. Could you hear any activity in the house?” This was the other officer, the chubby male, who stood in the corner, one foot crossed over the other.
Scott paused. “I don’t think so.”
“When he came into the room, would he open a door? Did you hear him coming down the hall? Think about how you knew he was there.”
Scott rubbed at his forehead. “I don’t know. I guess I heard a door open. I don’t remember any stairs.”
“Take your time,” Detective Harvey urged. “In the room, was it carpet or solid floor? Could you hear his footsteps?”
“Solid floor.” He swallowed. This was ridiculous. They knew who the killer was. Why did these details matter? It wasn’t fair to make Scott relive all this.
“Okay, so you couldn’t hear any noise from other rooms? What about a TV, maybe playing nearby?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“Road noise? Trucks? Horns?”
“No.”