Jocelyn’s mouth was dry from speaking. She wanted very badly to get a drink of water, but she stayed rooted to her seat, eyes unblinking and focused on Francine. A slow shiver started in the woman’s shoulders and worked its way down to her legs. Jocelyn felt a pinprick of excitement. She had no idea how much or how little Francine knew about her husband’s activities. She’d been taking a risk, dangling her theory like a piece of baited fishing line with no guarantee of a bite.
But she’d obviously hit a nerve.
Francine’s cheeks had flushed as Jocelyn spoke, driving away the pallor caused by the recent trauma to her body. Now, as she stood on unsteady legs, her face was aflame. She clutched her purse to her stomach. She wouldn’t meet Jocelyn’s eyes. She turned and walked to the door. Over her shoulder, she said, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” She paused. Jocelyn waited, hoping she’d turn around, sit back down, and tell Jocelyn what she was thinking or what she knew. Instead, Francine said, “I’ll let myself out.”
Chapter 30
November 17, 2014
The conference room was completely silent as Jocelyn went back in. Only the sound of Knox’s O2 tank whirring could be heard. All heads turned toward her, except for Trent, and her friends let out a collective breath.
“Well?” Knox asked.
Jocelyn yawned. She felt drained, as if she had been the one leaned on instead of Francine. She plopped into the chair between Anita and Kevin and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.
“What was she here for?” Trent asked, his voice barely audible. He kept his eyes on the table.
“She wanted to thank me for being nice to her at the hospital.”
“That’s odd,” Anita said.
“You think she knew her husband poisoned you?” Knox asked. “Maybe she came to see how you were?”
Jocelyn shrugged. “Who knows? She’s hard to read.”
“She knows something,” Kevin said. “Why else would she show up here?”
“She knew about the affair,” Jocelyn said. She recapped the conversation for them.
“You really think she knows he killed Sydney?” Anita asked.
“I don’t know,” Jocelyn said honestly.
“Well,” Knox said. “You planted the seed. Gave it your best shot. Let her sleep on it. Why don’t you and Raz take a day. Maybe you can make up. Tomorrow’s another day.”
Jocelyn met Trent’s eyes. She wasn’t good at apologizing, and apparently, neither was he. They settled on a nod. Truce.
“Not for you,” Anita said to Knox. “You don’t have many days left.”
Knox looked from Jocelyn to Trent and smiled. “Oh, I think I’ve got one more.”
Chapter 31
November 17, 2014
They didn’t need to sleep on it. Jocelyn got the call a few hours later. She was dozing on her couch while Camille and Olivia played dolls on the living room floor, the two of them so alike that it made Jocelyn’s throat constrict.
Francine Rigo called her cell phone. Jocelyn didn’t know who she was at first, the call was so unexpected. Then she remembered she had given Francine her business card a month earlier when Jocelyn visited her home. On the other line, Francine sobbed. “I found something.”
Jocelyn felt like she’d taken an intravenous shot of caffeine. She sprang up from the couch, phone pressed to her ear, searching for her sneakers while Camille and Olivia stared at her, suddenly silent.
“Francine?” Jocelyn went to the kitchen and pulled her holster down from the top of the fridge.
“I found something,” Francine blubbered. “Cash isn’t here. Can you come?”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
She left Camille and Olivia with hurried hugs and kisses and a breathless explanation. She called Trent on the way but got his voicemail. She left a message and dropped her phone onto the passenger’s side seat. She drove like a maniac at first, until she realized that no matter what Francine had found, the case was still fourteen years old. The answers to the mystery of who shot Sydney Adams could wait another fifteen minutes. There was no point in Jocelyn getting into an accident over it. She slowed the vehicle and her breath. By the time she pulled up in front of the Rigos’ house, her heart rate had returned to normal as well. She took a breath and called Knox. She got his voicemail too and left a message.
She knocked softly on the door and listened to footsteps inside. Francine pulled the door open and regarded Jocelyn with red-rimmed eyes. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, brown wisps hanging down the sides of her face. Gone was the outfit she’d worn to Jocelyn’s office. In its place was a black pair of yoga pants and an oversized maroon Temple University sweatshirt, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She didn’t speak. Instead, she turned and walked deeper into the foyer, down the narrow hall that ran alongside the steps. A chandelier cast a harsh yellow glow over the area.
Jocelyn closed the front door and followed Francine. She almost didn’t hear the woman when she said, “Cash is still at school.”
Where the hallway terminated near what Jocelyn assumed was a closet door, a tall, narrow table lay on its side. Beside it was an eight by ten photo frame that had been placed face down on the carpet. Beyond that was a much larger, thick wooden frame that had been mangled. Shards of glass lay everywhere. The painting that had been inside the wooden frame was bent and discarded. Jocelyn recognized it at once. She’d seen the corner of it in the flirty photos of Sydney. Knox had described it to her. The Tree of Death, he called it. It was every bit as creepy and odd as he had described. It was a barren tree in a snowy landscape. Its branches were painted in black with a series of striking red lines going from each branch to the ground. The lines were straight, forming what looked like a red cage around the bottom of the tree. They stood out like streaks of blood. On the floor next to the painting was a hammer.
A tremor ran down Jocelyn’s spine. A wave of dizziness passed over her. Unconsciously, the fingers of her right hand found her scar and stroked it.
She looked away from the hammer to the frame itself, which was a thick, dark faux teak. Francine had pulled it apart at the corners and used the hammer to smash the frame into several pieces. Francine stood over them, staring at the glass and wood debris at her feet. She motioned to the overturned table. Her voice was low and flat. “He stands in front of the table and just stares—I mean not recently, but he used to do it all the time. He’d go on staring for a good half hour if I didn’t stop him. At first I thought he was studying my painting. I was flattered. I took one of those art classes where you drink wine while you paint. It was his idea to have the stupid thing framed and hung. I wanted it back here so it wouldn’t be so visible to our visitors. I mean it’s not that good. It doesn’t go with anything else in the house.”