Natalie glared at Kennett from across the table, her arms folded tightly across her chest.
“Why are you here, Detective?” she asked curtly. She didn’t bother masking her anger. After all, this was the man who had humiliated her and separated her from her children. “Is this the interrogation portion of my arrest? Have you come here to offer me a plea deal? Leniency if I confess to a murder that I didn’t commit?”
Natalie may have been all bravado externally, but inside she was hardly self-assured. It was obvious they had enough evidence to arrest her—fingerprints she’d inadvertently left behind, security camera footage from Audrey’s house, or perhaps those cell tower pings Sarah Fielding had assured her wouldn’t be a problem. Why a detective from New York City had taken it upon himself to hunt her down like an animal, Natalie couldn’t say.
“I’m not here to offer you leniency,” Kennett said matter-of-factly, “but I do have a deal of sorts to make. More of a favor, I guess.”
“A favor?” Natalie eyed him, nonplussed. “I’m sorry, Detective, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got the roles reversed. I’m the prisoner.”
“Are you wearing handcuffs?” asked Kennett, capping that with a sly smile.
Natalie held up her wrists, spreading her arms apart.
“You’re not a prisoner, not at all. You’re free to go, in fact. I actually have a car waiting outside to take you anywhere you wish. I needed to make it look and feel believable, but in fact your arrest was actually done for your own protection and that of your children.”
Natalie barked out a mirthless laugh.
“My protection? Detective, you traumatized my kids. Forgive me if I don’t express my sincere gratitude. And what the hell were you ‘protecting’ me from?”
“From your husband, from Audrey Adler’s real killer.”
Natalie froze for a moment. Any anger she’d felt toward Kennett left her in a flash.
He knows the truth.
“So are you telling me that my arrest was staged? That you did it to make Michael think you were on his side?”
Kennett returned a slight nod.
“I think you already know some of the rather distressing discoveries that I have to share about Michael,” he said.
Natalie replied, “You mean Joseph Jacob Saunders?”
“When did you find out?”
“Before I ran away,” said Natalie without equivocating.
That elicited another nod of admiration from Kennett.
“I certainly don’t blame you for running,” he said.
“What’s your deal here, Detective?” Natalie asked. “Why is a New York City police detective involved in all of this? Aren’t you outside your jurisdiction? And before you answer that, I want you to know that I’m still royally pissed that you put my children through the trauma of seeing their mother handcuffed and carted away like a dangerous criminal.”
“I understand your anger,” Kennett said apologetically. “But I need your cooperation to get to your husband—and if it helps, it wasn’t a decision we came to lightly. In fact, it took a lot of string pulling and interdepartmental cooperation to get the approvals I needed to launch this undercover op, mainly because of your kids and an abundance of concern for their well-being. Ultimately everyone involved agreed it was a case of the end justifying the means. We want Michael behind bars, Natalie. We want him where he belongs. And I want to be the one who puts him there.”
Natalie held his unflinching gaze.
“Let me ask you again,” she said. “What’s your involvement in all of this?”
Kennett cleared his throat.
“Brianna Sykes, Audrey’s sister, was the first murder case I worked as a rookie cop when I was with the Rye PD. I knew we had the right guy—your husband, Joseph, as he went by back then—but he went free as a bird, and I never got over it.”
“I know all about Brianna,” Natalie admitted. “I’ve been to see Michael’s mother, too,” she added.
“Marjorie Saunders,” said Kennett. “Now that’s a blast from the past. How is Marjorie doing these days?”
“I don’t think she’s over it, either,” Natalie offered.
“No surprise there,” Kennett countered. “But I sure as shit was surprised when one of my best detectives sends over a picture of a family to use for a ‘be on the lookout alert,’ wife and children gone missing, and I get a peek at it, and right away recognize the husband as Brianna’s killer. Naturally, I decide to get involved, go to the scene. Your husband didn’t recognize me, I’m sure of that. I was a nothing cop back then, but I pegged him in two seconds. I didn’t reveal the connection, of course. That would have been showing my whole hand. You were wise to run away from him.”
“You’re not the only person from Michael’s past he didn’t recognize,” Natalie said with conviction. “He and Audrey were having an affair. I don’t think he recognized her as Brianna’s sister, or maybe she didn’t recognize him—that Michael was really Joseph. Either way it’s pretty twisted.”
Kennett’s expression remained impassive.
“Yeah, we had our suspicions about their relationship, but nothing concrete,” he said in a low voice. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t know who he was. She was so young back then, and people do change a lot in twenty-five years.”
“But you ID’d my husband right away,” said Natalie.
“I was older than Audrey, that’s all. And truth be told, if it wasn’t such a high-profile case, and if the case hadn’t continued to haunt me, he might have been lost to me under the avalanche of scumbags that I’ve dealt with over the years.
“I guess you should know that while we were on the road together, Michael told me that he’d had an affair—an ‘indiscretion,’ he called it. Gotta say, I didn’t imagine it was with his victim’s sister.”
“So you knew about Audrey, and figured her murder was somehow connected to my running away from Michael? Is that what made you go looking for me, Detective?” Natalie asked.
“Pretty much. Audrey’s murder wasn’t high profile, but I caught wind of it from colleagues who had worked Brianna’s case back then,” Kennett said. “Obviously I didn’t know about you and Michael, not until he turned up at the hotel and I found out you two didn’t live far from Audrey. So yeah, you’re right. I got it in my head that he was involved in her death, and I came up with the idea of playing good cop to get him. I surprised Mike with a visit to your house, where I offered him my services to help him find you. When people let you in, that’s usually when the secrets spill out. Didn’t quite work out as I planned, so I improvised, came up with a new approach while we were on the road together.”
“My arrest,” said Natalie.
“Your fake arrest,” Kennett corrected her.