“I heard you talking to her. And I knew you were giving her money. But I just…” He closes his eyes. “I just thought, in time, she’d come home.”
Oh. Denial. I’m painfully familiar with that game. For a moment, I’m standing in the middle of my kitchen, looking at an empty bottle of Macallans.
“Are you sure she was pregnant?” His eyes are fierce even as they cloud over.
I have a terrible, sinking feeling.
“Not for sure,” Karen whispers. “Why?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t trust him.”
And I know who, even as Burke asks.
“Robert Swenson,” I say, and Jeff nods.
“I think he talked her into leaving. I think maybe…maybe he was sleeping with her. We had it out a few weeks ago, before a game. He was coming from some deal he made, all cocky, like he was some hotshot, and I confronted him.” Jeff takes a breath. “He told me that my daughter didn’t belong to me anymore. That she was eighteen and could make her own choices.”
“And what did you say?”
“We scuffled, but I…” He looks at me, then Karen. “I loved Gretta. I would never hurt her. And I feared that he might say something to her to make her push us out of her life.”
“A father never stops caring.” I don’t know why I’m channeling my father. “The only way you survive is to hang onto hope.”
Jeff looks at me like I get it. And I do. Oh, wow, I do. More, I’m doing some scant math. What if during the scuffle, his cufflink fell off, lodged into the door of the Lexus? And maybe, while Karen was at Lulu’s it fell out…
Before I can test this theory, however, I hear a voice.
Oh no.
“Did you call Booker?” I hiss to Burke, who frowns at me, but Booker strides in before I get an answer.
“Stone!” His voice rings out again. I slowly look up at him.
“Yeah.”
“We got a 9-1-1 call from a neighbor,” Booker says, “And dispatch ran a search on your cars. Placed you both here.” He walks over to Jeff, looks at me. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
He’s giving me a hard look, and for some reason, I feel like his arrival has something to do with our previous conversation, the one about changing time. I shake my head. “Following up on a case.”
“And?” He looks at Jeff.
I’m unlocking the man’s cuffs. Mostly because I believe him, and yes, he took a swing, or two, at me, but you were there. You heard what I said. So, “You good?” I ask Jeff.
He rubs his wrists, glances at Booker, then nods. “We have an alarm system. You can check the time I returned from my run. My wife was back from her breakfast—or I guess, her visit to Lulu’s—by then.”
My hunch is that it’s long before we showed up at Lulu’s to find Gretta’s body still warm.
Which means, I’m still looking for a killer.
Booker glances at me, and gestures with his head. And I know I’m in for it when we step out on the stoop and he shuts the door behind me.
He purses his lips, puts his hands in his pockets. He’s wearing his badge on a lanyard around his neck, his leather jacket, and that watch on his wrist. My watch.
I want to ask if he’s done any traveling lately.
“I know where you were last night.”
My head pops up and all I can think was…Eve?