He said nothing, just looked at her.
“You don’t believe I’m sincere?”
“You married him, Talia, and shared all that the state of matrimony implies. I think you’ll have a difficult time convincing Rudkowski, et al., that you never felt something was off about your husband.”
“I felt he kept secrets,” she said softly and with reluctance. “More lately than at first. I attributed it to an affair.”
“Had you ever accused him prior to night before last?”
“No.”
“You showed your hand with that accusation. You’re lucky he went after Elaine first. When I came tearing down here to South Carolina, I thought I was rushing in to save you. You’re loaded. All of us figured you were next. But you weren’t.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“No, I just want you to understand what that means to you. If the authorities don’t find his body, and they won’t, they’ll keep their eye on you. They may not call you a suspect, but there’ll always be that shadow of doubt as to what you knew or didn’t know, what your level of participation was, if you had any compliance whatsoever.”
“I didn’t!”
“Okay.”
“You don’t believe me,” she exclaimed. “What do I have to do to prove I’m innocent?”
“Die.”
She slumped against the back of her chair and looked at him with incredulity over his bluntness.
He said, “If you turn up dead, the authorities will reason that he killed you to shut you up, whether or not you were culpable. If you go on living, untouched, there’ll forever be that question mark beside your name.”
She looked around her, taking in various perspectives of the room as though it had become alien territory. When she came back to him, she said, “I realized this last night, although I didn’t want to acknowledge it.”
“Realized what?”
“That no matter how this ends, I’ll never regain the life I lived before. Will I?” He didn’t say anything, but she got the message. She nodded, then straightened her spine and asked, “Will they hold me in jail?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it were up to you?”
“It won’t be. Not entirely.”
“If it were. Entirely.”
“I would rather have your full cooperation with the investigation. I’d want your input, your gut instinct, your recollections, your unconditional help in catching him.”
“What if I offered my unconditional help?”
“That would go a long way with them.”
She looked down at her lap in which her hands rested. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”
“At what?”
“Manipulation. Bending people to your will.”
“Yes. I’m very good at it. But I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m telling you like it is.”
“Why should I trust that that’s true?”