Her Frozen Cry (Detective Amanda Steele)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Amanda called Libby on the way to Tina Nash’s house to see if she could stay with Zoe a little longer.

It was after six when Amanda and Trent sat down in Tina Nash’s living room. They’d pulled a background on her as due diligence before leaving Tony’s driveway. No record. Tina was thirty and average height with light blond hair. While she might have conceivable motive to kill Alicia, Amanda wasn’t seeing any for taking out Eve. But Tina might be able to tell them more about Tony and Alicia’s marriage.

“I don’t have long,” she told them. “I have another job to get to in forty minutes. I can’t be late.”

“We have some questions about your employment with Alicia Gordon,” Trent said.

“That is a tragedy. Her death, I mean, not the questions. I’ll do what I can to help.” Tina pressed her lips together and subtly shook her head, and it seemed like a canned response. “I feel for Tony, and that little boy. Leo must be devastated.”

No mention of Brad, but Tony?Then again, as per his confession, Tony and Tina were a little better acquainted than they should have been. Amanda would get around to asking about the nature of Tina’s relationship with Tony, but she wanted to focus on Alicia first. If Tina got defensive and shut down, then they’d already have their other questions answered. “What was your relationship like with Alicia?”

Tina shrugged. “She was my boss. Nothing much else to say.”

“And she treated you well, was a good person as far as you knew?” Amanda asked.

“I’d say so. I could tell that she loved Leo…” Tina stopped there, dramatically rolling her eyes. “Just some of her demands were unreasonable.”

“Like what?”

“I was to tidy up after Leo all the time. He’s ten. At some point, he needs to learn some responsibility.”

“Alicia didn’t agree with you?”

“Nope. She said that’s what she was paying me for.”

Amanda just wanted to cut straight to it. “Did you know she planned to sell the business to spend more time with him?”

“I did.”

“Were you concerned about your job?” Trent interjected, getting there mere seconds before Amanda could ask the same thing.

“No.” Tina shook her head. “She was going to still have me in a few hours a week, just not full days.”

“The hit to your income couldn’t have been something you were looking forward to,” Amanda said, careful to keep accusation out of her tone. She really couldn’t ignore there was no obvious motive for Tina to kill Eve.

“Alicia had already lined up another job for me. And speaking of a job…” Tina winced and tapped a foot. “I have a part-time one right now to get to. It’s a bit of a drive, so I really need to go.”

Another job that Alicia had lined up? It must have been after the argument that Bethany had overheard. Why hadn’t Tony mentioned that Alicia had done this for Tina? “We won’t keep you much longer. You said Alicia lined up another job for you?”

“Yes, great family too. They even offered me more than Alicia was paying, so it would have been a win.”

“Why not leave Alicia before the sale finalized?” Trent asked. “After all, you had this other family lined up who were offering you more money.”

“That’s not the way to conduct business, and it’s called loyalty.” She leveled her gaze at him.

Tina’s “loyalty” was up for debate if she was willing to kiss her employer’s husband. “What is your relationship with Tony like?”

Tina’s eyes widened, light sparked in them then dulled. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

Trent leaned forward. “Think it was rather straightforward.”

“He was Alicia’s husband.”

“So no lines were ever crossed?” Amanda pushed.

Tina stuck her chin out. “What did he tell you?”

“We’d just like to compare notes.” Amanda gestured for Tina to answer.

“It was nothing serious.” She cleared her throat. “It was just casual.”

“What was casual?” She really had a horrid feeling about where this conversation was headed—Tony had lied to them again.

Tina narrowed her eyes. “Our relationship.”

“Your relationship?” Tony had mentioned a kiss.

“Uh, yeah, we are, ah, seeing each other.”

“Seeing each other?” The words would barely scrape from her throat.

“We didn’t mean for it to happen. It just sort of did.”

Trent glanced at Amanda. “So we’re talking more than a one-time kiss?” he asked Tina.

“Ah, yeah. We’ve been sleeping together for about a month.”

Amanda could feel Trent still looking at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to return eye contact. She was offended and pissed off that Tony had lied right to her face—again. Why would Tony confess to a single kiss and not an affair? He knew they were coming to speak with Tina. Only two reasons Amanda could think of: Tony was too much of a coward to admit this to her face, and two, he’d know how it might make him look guilty. Could Amanda really believe a single word Tony said? “Where were you yesterday morning between eight and nine?” The timeframe to account for Eve Kelley’s injection, and Amanda was following a strong hunch.

“I was with Tony.” Tina bit on her bottom lip, her eyes darting back and forth between them.

“You were with…” Amanda stood and left. She heard Trent thank Tina for her time.

Back in the car, Amanda couldn’t even speak. She was struggling to breathe through her rage. Her vision was red.

“All the lies, the leaving things out… It’s not sitting well, Amanda.”

“You think?” she spat.

“What do you want to do about this?” He angled his body to face her.

“What can we do at this point? Besides, Tina just alibied him for the time of Eve Kelley’s murder.”

“She could be lying to protect him. Tony knew we were coming here. He could have asked her to say they were together.”

“Not that it makes him look good. And why not just tell us they were sleeping together, for crying out loud?” She raked a hand through her hair and clenched her teeth. “‘A kiss, that’s all it was, Amanda…’” She mocked Tony’s words.

“Yeah, he’s not exactly the most forthright person I’ve met. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the guy.”

“Again, I agree, Trent,” she barked on auto-defense. “Sorry. It’s just… You think you know someone only to find out that you don’t. I mean, it’s not like I’ve been in Tony’s life for years, but I’d like to think I was a better judge of character.” For a blink of a second, as a teenager, she’d considered ending things with Kevin to pursue a relationship with Tony. Now she was chockful of gratitude that she hadn’t. Tony was a damn cheater.

“Time, relationships, experiences, they change us.” Trent put that out there and managed to do so without sounding like some radical new-age guru.

“For sure they do. But Claudia had cheated on him. It ended their marriage. You’d think that would deter him from hurting Alicia in the same way. I’m done defending the guy.”