The Silent Widow

‘Yes, ma’am, it sure does.’ Williams grinned back. ‘So this Brandon kid. When did you last hear from him?’ he asked.

‘Quite a long time ago. More than a year,’ said Nikki. ‘He called me from Boston. He was using again, feeling very low. He wasn’t in a good place at all, I’m afraid.’

‘Do you think he’s dead?’ Williams asked bluntly.

Nikki shrugged. ‘It’s certainly possible. But I don’t know.’

‘OK.’ Williams changed tack, filing Brandon Grolsch under pending. ‘Tell me about the detectives running the case.’

With a heavy sigh, Nikki launched into a description of Detective Mick Johnson: his raging hostility and paranoia towards her, his determination to view her as a perpetrator rather than a victim. ‘He told me to my face that he thought I’d made up the story about the guy in the SUV trying to kill me. It’s absurd. His partner’s much more reasonable. Detective Lou Goodman.’ Williams noticed the way Nikki’s face instantly brightened when she said his name. ‘He’s different.’

‘Different in what way?’

‘In every way. He’s polite, he’s hard-working, he’s educated. Open-minded.’

‘But still not getting anywhere with the case,’ Williams reminded her.

‘I suppose not,’ Nikki admitted reluctantly. ‘Not fast enough anyway. He believes that I may have been the killer’s target all along. That Lisa Flannagan could have been killed by mistake, because she was wearing my raincoat and outside my office when she was attacked.’

Williams looked skeptical. ‘That seems a bit of a stretch.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nikki. ‘It was dark and raining. And we did look somewhat similar, Lisa and I. Superficially, at least. I mean, obviously Lisa was much younger and more beautiful.’

Williams didn’t correct her. Nikki Roberts was a good-looking lady for her age, no question, but he’d seen pictures of Lisa Flannagan. The girl had been a knockout. What a waste.

Later, Nikki told Derek about the photograph stolen from her bedroom, and filled in the gaps about the mysterious black SUV that had tried to run her down and the young man who’d come to her aid. She also gave him a copy of the death-threat email she’d received the night before. He couldn’t understand why this detective Johnson wouldn’t take those incidents seriously, especially in the context of these gruesome murders and Nikki’s close connection to both. It made no sense. Did Johnson know something that his partner didn’t?

He made notes of all his questions, then sat back and listened patiently while Nikki brought the conversation back around to the real reason she’d hired him: her husband’s affair.

The story Nikki told him was gut-wrenching. But Williams’ gut told him it was also incomplete. There seemed to be several vital pieces of the puzzle missing, facts that Nikki either didn’t know or wasn’t ready to tell him – yet.

According to Nikki, the first she knew about her husband’s mistress was the night of his death. Doug Roberts had lost control of his car on the 405 one night and been killed instantly. When Nikki got the call from police, she learned that he hadn’t been alone. A woman passenger had been in the car with him.

‘They asked me if I knew who she was, but I had no idea. At that time I assumed maybe she was one of Doug’s patients, or a colleague he was giving a ride home. It was a few days later when I learned the truth. I overheard two of the cops talking. They’d interviewed staff at the hospital where Doug worked and multiple people had told them the woman was Doug’s girlfriend. I didn’t believe it at first. It made no sense to me at all – it still doesn’t. But when I confronted Doug’s best friend Haddon, he admitted Doug had been seeing someone. As you can imagine I was devastated. I begged Haddon for details, but he claimed not to have any.’

‘You didn’t believe him?’

‘Would you?’ Nikki asked. ‘He and Doug were best friends. Maybe he thought he was protecting me, or protecting Doug’s memory. I don’t know. But I need answers, Mr Williams. All I’ve been able to find out so far is she was Russian and that her first name was Lenka. The rest is a total blank.’

‘What would you like to know?’ asked Derek.

‘Everything.’ Nikki’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘I want to know everything. Who she was, how long it had been going on, how they met, where they met. I want to know how often they slept together, and where, and I want to know why. Why did he do this? Why? We were happy. He didn’t need anyone else! We were incredibly, incredibly happy.’

Williams said nothing to this, but he watched Nikki’s reactions closely. Watched as all the poise and control, all the calm with which she’d discussed the murders and the attempts on her life, flew out of the window, replaced by an unstable mix of grief, denial and a powerful, almost tangible anger.

There are two sides to this woman, he thought.

One that’s in control of her emotions. And one that’s not.

One that lives in the real world. And one who takes refuge in fantasy.

One that tells the truth. And one that lies. Even to herself.

It also struck him that even when her own life was in danger, the thing that mattered to Nikki Roberts most was solving the riddle of her husband’s mistress. Was there something she wa

sn’t telling him? Something about ‘Lenka’ she was holding back? Perhaps that obsession was also where her courage came from? The poor woman had already died inside a thousand times over. She’d already been tortured by the circumstances of her husband’s death, and the betrayal it had revealed to her.

Perhaps, after that, nothing scared her any more?