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“It’s Mark.”
“I’m sorry, Anne,” Eliza said briskly. “This will have to wait.”
THIRTY-FIVE
One Month After
March 2019
Eliza sat in her newly leased, barren office, fingers flexed over her computer keyboard. She’d gotten the keys to her first solo office just three days after her husband’s death and, simultaneously, three days after the loss of her only client. It was salt in the wound to sit behind her desk and pretend to work, but what could she do? She was on the hook for six months of rent. She might as well use it.
Humming a tuneless tune, Eliza stared listlessly at her hands. To anyone peering in from the outside, it would look as if she were deep in thought. Truth be told, she was simply killing time, musing over a chip in her nail polish and wondering when it had gotten there.
In another round of irony, in the month since her husband’s death, Eliza had found herself suddenly in the black. She’d been able to pay off all her debts, including the loan to Jocelyn and Todd, in large part due to the sale of Roman’s cars. All was going well in the world of Eliza Tate. Except, of course, for the fact that her husband was dead.
A knock sounded on the door, startling her from the study of her chipped nail. Eliza jerked to attention, fielding a flash of annoyance that she hadn’t gone ahead and hired an assistant. The CEO of Eliza Tate PR shouldn’t be opening her own damn door. Then again, the CEO of Eliza Tate PR needed to get clients in order to need an assistant.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Eliza opened the door to reveal two uniformed policemen standing in the hallway. “Can I help you with something?”
“Mrs. Tate?”
“That’s me.” She glanced pointedly at her shiny name plaque on the door.
The taller cop’s gaze followed, but he didn’t appear amused. He scratched at the back of his head, then glanced over Eliza’s shoulder. “May we come in for a moment?”
“I’m very busy, so I hope we can make this quick.”
Eliza returned to her seat. She sat, folded her hands across her desk (tucking the chipped nail out of sight), and tried to look disinterested in whatever the cops had to say.
On the inside, however, Eliza trembled with nerves. Ever since she’d come to this country, she’d felt uneasy around law enforcement, as if they would somehow sniff out the fact that she didn’t belong. That she was an imposter, an intruder.
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.”
