Cross the Line (Alex Cross 24)

“We understand you and Tom were getting divorced,” Bree said.

“We’d separated, yes.” She sniffled. “What would you like? Espresso? A latte?”

Bree said, “Espresso would be fine.”

“Latte,” Muller said, and he touched his mustache.

In one corner of the kitchen was an espresso maker that Bree figured would have set her back a month’s pay. Vivian pushed a button, and the machine steamed and hissed and spilled black coffee that smelled like heaven.

When Vivian set the cup and saucer down in front of her, Bree said, “The separation.”

McGrath’s widow hardened, crossed her arms, and said, “What about it?”

“Tom’s idea?” Muller asked. “Or yours?”

“Tom never told you?”

“Assume we know nothing,” Bree said.

“I suggested the separation, but it was because of Tom,” she said forlornly. “I’d always believed we could make it work. He was so unlike anyone who ran in my social circles, but we worked for seventeen years, and then, for reasons I’m still trying to figure out, we just didn’t anymore.”

She broke down sobbing.

Chapter

7

Bree took a breath, feeling more frustrated than sympathetic.

When Vivian got control again, Bree said, “Can you be more specific about how it wasn’t working?”

She wiped at her eyes with a tissue, glanced at Muller, and then said, “He stopped touching me, if you must know. And it felt like he had secrets. He kept a second phone. Spent money he didn’t have. I figured he had a mistress.”

Bree didn’t comment on that.

“Did Tommy have a mistress?” Muller asked.

“I don’t know,” Vivian said. “I think so. You tell me. I never hired anyone to look, I mean. But I could see Tom was unhappy with me, so three months ago I asked him if he still loved me. He wouldn’t answer the question. I asked him if he wanted a separation, a divorce, and he said that was up to me.”

“If you wanted to stay with him, why did you suggest the separation?” Bree asked.

Vivian wiped at her eyes, pulled herself up straight, and gazed at Bree evenly. “I thought it might knock some sense into him, make him come back to me.”

“I gather he didn’t,” Muller said.

She looked humiliated. “No.”

“Had you filed for divorce?” Bree asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I still loved him,” she said. “I hoped…”

“Must have hurt,” Bree said.

“It hurt, it demeaned, and it saddened me more than you can imagine, Detective Stone,” she said with a stricken expression.