Since We Fell

She nodded.

He handed her a photograph. One look, and the blood rushed along her hairline and behind her eyes and barreled through her heart. Brian sat with his arm around the pregnant woman she’d seen this afternoon. She wasn’t pregnant in the picture and Brian’s hair had less gray in it than it did now. They were sitting on a couch. It had gray cushions and looked to be made of white rattan that blended with the white beadboard wall behind them. It was the kind of wall you found in a beach house or, at the very least, a house in a beach town. Above them hung a reproduction of Monet’s Water Lilies. Brian appeared very tan. He and the woman sported big white smiles. She wore a blue flower-print summer dress. He wore a red flannel shirt and cargo shorts. Her left hand lay quite casually on his right thigh.

“You don’t look well suddenly, ma’am.”

She said, “How am I supposed to look, Detective, when you hand me a photograph of my husband and another woman?”

He held out his hand. “Can I have it back?”

She handed it to him.

“Do you know her?”

She shook her head.

“Never seen her before?”

“No.”

“How about you?” He handed the photograph to Caleb. “Know this woman?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Caleb said.

“Well, you’ve missed your chance.” Trayvon Kessler returned the photograph to the pocket of his car coat. “She turned up dead about eight hours ago.”

Rachel said, “How?”

“Shot once in the heart, once in the head. It probably led the news tonight if you’d been watching.” He gave the bar another glance. “But you were engaged in other activities.”

“Who was she?” Rachel asked.

“Her name was Nicole Alden. Beyond that, I don’t know much. No criminal record, no known enemies, worked in a bank. Knew your husband, though.”

“That picture’s old,” she told him. “Might even pre-date when I met my husband. So what’s to say he’s still in contact with her?”

“You say he’s in Russia?”

“Yeah.” She found her phone, opened the last text he’d sent her claiming to be on the runway at Logan. She showed it to Kessler.

Kessler read it and handed the phone back. “He drive himself to the airport or take a cab?”

“He drove himself.”

“In the Infiniti?”

“Yes.” She stopped. “How do you know—?”

“What he drives?”

“Yes.”

“Because an Infiniti FX 45, registered to your husband at this address, was found parked across the street from the victim’s home this afternoon. And a witness saw your husband exit the home on or around the time of the murder.”

“And, what, he just walked away and left his car behind?”

“Can we all sit down?” He tilted his head at the bar.

All five of them took stools around the bar, Kessler in the middle, like the father at a family meeting.

“Our witness says your husband drove up in the Infiniti, but he drove off again an hour later in a blue Honda. You ever use one of those map programs where you can see the actual street? Either of you?”

They both nodded.

“What the map companies do to get that picture is drive around in a van and film the streets. So you’re looking at pictures could be months old or weeks but not years. So I went on a real estate site and I punched in the victim’s address and then I went to street view and I clicked around a bit. And guess what I found?”

“A blue Honda,” Caleb said.

“A blue Honda parked halfway down the block on the east side of the street. Got me a license plate, ran that plate, and discovered it was registered to a Brian Alden. Ran Mr. Alden through the DMV, got a driver’s license photo that looks identical to your husband.”

“Jesus,” Rachel said, not having to bring much to the performance to make it convincing. “You’re telling me my husband is not my husband.”

“I’m telling you your husband may be living a couple of lives, ma’am, and I’d like to talk to him about that.” He folded his hands on the bar and smiled at her. “Among other things.”

After a minute, she said, “I only know he’s in Russia.”

Trayvon Kessler shook his head. “He’s not in Russia.”

“I only know what he tells me.”

“And that’s looking like it could be a lot of lies, ma’am. He go on business trips a lot?”

“At least once a month.”

“Where to?”

“Canada and the Pacific Northwest mostly. But he also goes to India, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom.”

“Some cool places there. You ever go with him?”

“No.”

“Why not? I’d like to see me some Rio, maybe walk around Prague.”

“I have a condition.”

“A condition?”

“Or, I mean, I had one until recently.”

She could feel them all looking at her, particularly the two female cops, wondering what “condition” could possibly afflict an entitled Back Bay princess like her.

“It kept me from leaving the house,” she said. “I couldn’t fly, that’s for sure.”

“So you’re afraid of flying?” Kessler’s tone was helpful.

“Among other things.”

“You agoraphobic?” he said.

She looked in his eyes and they were far too wise.

“I majored in psychology at Penn.” Again with the helpful tone of voice.

“It’s never been officially diagnosed,” she said eventually and thought she heard Officer Mullen sigh. “But I definitely had symptoms that suggested it.”

“Had? Past tense?”

“Brian’s been working with me on it.”

“But not enough to take you on a business trip.”

“Not yet, no.”

“Would you like protective custody?”

He said it so casually it took her a moment to process the words.

“Why would I want that?”

He turned on his stool. “Officer Garza, you got that other picture?”

Garza handed him a photograph and he turned it faceup on the bar so she and Caleb could see it. The blond woman lay facedown on a kitchen floor, her lower half out of frame. Blood had billowed out from under her chest and pooled above her left shoulder. Her left cheek and part of the refrigerator door were also splattered with blood. But the worst image, the one Rachel suspected she’d be woken up by for the rest of her life, was the black gouge at the top of her head. It didn’t look like someone had shot her; it looked like something had taken a bite out of her skull. And the hole left in the wake of that bite had immediately filled with blood that spilled into her hair and turned black.

“If your husband did this and—”

“My husband didn’t do that,” she said loudly.

“—I’m not saying he did but he’s the last person we know of to see her alive. So let’s just say, let’s just say, Mrs. Delacroix, that he did do this?” He turned on his barstool and pointed. “Well, ma’am, he has a key to that door.”

He’s beyond using it, she thought.

She said, “So you’d like to take me into your custody?”

“Protective custody, ma’am. Protective.”

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