“You going to try for fingerprints?” he asked now.
“Captain says yes. He’s ticked.”
“I am, too. Haven’t heard yet, but I’ll let you know if anyplace in town got hit last night.”
As he set down the phone, he saw Robin hesitating just inside the kitchen. Jacob was settled in watching a movie.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“No.” He nodded at the chair across the table. “Coffee?”
“I think I’ll pour myself some water.”
She did so and sat down. He could only call her expression bleak. “There are...things I haven’t told you.”
No kidding. He raised his eyebrows while keeping his mouth shut.
Her gaze slid away. “I should have told you before we...” She stole a look at his face.
“I’m listening.”
She shifted in place, moistened her lips and blurted, “I killed a man.”
The front legs of his chair crashed back to the floor. “What?”
“I think I killed him,” Robin said more softly.
“You think.”
“I didn’t hang around to be sure, okay?”
Seth stared at her. “Start at the beginning.”
Hot spots of color on her cheeks and tightly clasped hands betrayed how artificial her calm was. “It was after the divorce. When I saw the chance to sneak out of Richard’s house, there wasn’t time to go back for anything. I didn’t care about clothes or... But I kept some things that were important to me in a box on the shelf in the closet.”
He didn’t like where this was going.
“I read online that Richard would be away for a few days, on some kind of conference in San Francisco. I chose a day the housekeeper would be off. I’d have been out of luck if he’d changed the gate code and lock, but he hadn’t, so I let myself in. The house was completely silent.” Her throat worked. “I hurried upstairs and felt so lucky to find the box where I’d left it. I grabbed it, but when I turned around, he was there.”
“The bodyguard,” Seth guessed. Dread filled his stomach.
“Yes. I’m sorry, I do know his name. It’s—it was—Brad McCormick. He gave me this nasty smile and said, ‘The boss knew what he was talking about. Here you are, right on time.’ And then he grabbed me and started dragging me toward the door.” Her voice wobbled.
“Robin.”
Naked anguish in her eyes, she said, “Let me finish.”
He managed a nod.
“I dropped the box on the bed. I was fixated on not letting anything get broken, which sounds stupid, but—” She hunched her shoulders. “I fought. He...seemed to enjoy it. I thought he might rape me.”
He wasn’t sure he was capable of speech.
“I managed to scramble away enough to get my hands on the lamp. The base was wrought iron and stained glass, and it was really heavy. I hit him in the head and he just...fell over. I picked up my box because if I didn’t anyone would know I’d been there, and I left. Waiting for the bus, I was shaking and my teeth were chattering and I knew I should call 9-1-1 in case he wasn’t dead, but how could I? So I didn’t do anything, which is one more thing to feel guilty about.”
“He assaulted you.” He didn’t recognize his own voice.
“But I was trespassing. With the divorce final, I didn’t have any right to be there.”
Seth shook his head. “You should have been able to pack the things that were important to you when you told your husband that the marriage was over.”
She let out a shuddery breath that might have been a sob. “I did have a social worker call and ask him for the small things that were important to me. She offered to meet him. He laughed and hung up on her.”
“So you tried doing it the civilized way.” Was he making excuses for her? Seth discovered he didn’t care.
Robin squeezed her hands together so hard it had to be painful. “I watched the newspaper. I kept expecting to get arrested. But the police never came, and I never saw anything about the death in the paper or online.”
“I can’t believe Winstead wouldn’t have accused you if he found his employee dead in the master bedroom.” He hesitated. “Were there surveillance cameras?”