“How about a gun? Either of the Rigos ever own a gun?”
“Not that I could prove. Nothing registered in either of their names. I went to the house several times, but I could never get a search warrant.”
Jocelyn looked into his jaundiced eyes. “I assume you leaned on this guy.”
He smiled, his cheeks reddening slightly. “Until I was formally reprimanded, and his wife threatened to file a lawsuit against the police department.”
Anita gave a low whistle. “Well,” she said.
Knox glanced at her. “I couldn’t break him.”
Jocelyn pulled out a chair and sat down. “This is not new evidence. I mean we’ll call it that to get things moving again, but it’s not. This is not a smoking gun. You know that, right?”
Knox frowned, the cannula on his upper lip bobbing. “I know Cash Rigo did this.”
“These pictures don’t prove that, Knox. You can’t even prove that Cash Rigo took these.”
“I know Cash Rigo killed Sydney,” Knox said. “He did it.”
Jocelyn exchanged another look with Anita. She knew her partner was on board, in spite of the fact that Knox had brought them next to nothing to work with. “You have no physical evidence. You have a suspect with something of an alibi. You barely have a motive.”
Knox opened his mouth to speak, but Jocelyn leaned forward and held up one of the flirty photos. “Even with these, you’ve got nothing, Knox. Which means you’ll need a confession.”
Knox’s expression morphed from crestfallen to the kind of earnest, hopeful expression dogs get when their owners pull out a leash. Anita clucked her tongue. “It’s been fourteen years, Rush. Fourteen years this piece of shit has gotten away with it. Why in the hell would he confess now?”
Jocelyn smiled. “Because we’re about to put the pressure on. First, I need a homicide detective. One who’s still on the payroll.”
Chapter 6
June 8, 2000
It was hot in the house. Stifling. Sweat poured down his face and neck in rivulets, but Cash Rigo made no move to turn on the ancient AC window units throughout the house. Instead, he stood stock-still in the darkness gathering all around him, twilight sinking into the house. It was so quiet. He used to love this time of day, when he got home before his wife, and there was nothing but silence. Blessed silence, occasionally broken up by the muffled sounds of the outside world, like a car passing, a dog barking, and the children at the end of the block shouting and playing. The soft, silent dark time. It was all his, all peace, or what passed for peace in Cash’s world.
Today he’d gotten caught up by the table at the end of the foyer hall. The one under Francine’s painting with its ridiculously oversized faux teak frame. The table that was more the size of a stool—tall, narrow and good for nothing but holding decorative items, like the photo of the two of them that Francine had placed there the week before. Its gaudy eight by ten frame seemed to mock him. There used to be a candle there. One of those fancy, large candles that cost more than a Thanksgiving turkey and that you could smell throughout the entire house without even lighting it. It had been some kind of tropical scent. It had been there so long, untouched, that a thick film of dust clung to it. He remembered the fruity scent mingling with Sydney’s own smell—shampoo, sweat, and freshly cut grass. She had smelled like spring, he thought wistfully.
He heard her voice in his head. God, you’re so lame.
She used to say that to him all the time. It was a flirtation. She always smiled when she said it, her gaze lingering on him till his face flamed red. It was almost a compliment. She’d said it that night.
That night.
That’s what he called it. It stood out from all the other nights of his life. He tried to remember how he’d ended up behind her, his hands on her, their fused bodies rocking the ill-conceived little table until it left a small, thin gouge in the wall behind it. Had it really happened? Of course it had. He’d thought of nothing else for almost a month. Until she was gone.
He clenched and unclenched his fists. The sound of his wife’s key in the lock of the front door barely registered. He had to move, but he couldn’t. She’d be angry that he hadn’t turned the AC on.
You never consider me or my feelings, she would say.
That was what his wife always said. She was right in some ways. He hadn’t considered her at all when he’d fucked a seventeen-year-old student at this very table.
Sweat pasted his polo shirt to his body and poured from his crotch, dampening his khakis. He could smell his own foul stink. Francine wouldn’t like that either. She didn’t like a lot of things. Then again, he was a shitty husband. Even before they married, he’d been a shitty boyfriend.
Since Sydney’s death, Cash had told himself he would be better. He had to be better. They were trying again. His wife wanted a baby.
Her cool fingers curled around the back of his neck, startling him, as if she’d materialized out of thin air. She stood just behind him, looking over his shoulder. “I always liked that picture of us,” she said quietly, fingers kneading the back of his neck.
“What?” he mumbled. He tried to tear his gaze away from the table to look at her, but he couldn’t. He could still see Sydney there, feel her in his hands.
Francine moved around his body, filling up the space between Cash and the table. She looked up at him, trying to catch his eyes. She put her hands on his chest. “That photo of us. Don’t you remember? The wine festival in Vermont? We hadn’t married yet.”
“Yeah,” he said finally, looking at her. “I remember.”
A small smile lit on her round moon face. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. “Do you remember what we did in the woods that day?” she asked as her hands slid down to his belt buckle.
“Don’t,” he said as she undid his belt.
The smile tightened on her face. “You’re my husband,” she said, her voice cracking on the last syllable.
He pushed her hands away. “It’s—it’s too hot.”
She didn’t move. Instead, she stood there, her hands poised halfway between their bodies, the corners of her smile failing. He smiled, trying to salvage the moment. But he could already sense her disappointment. “It’s hot,” he said again, awkwardly. “I’ll turn the AC on and make you something to eat.”
He left her there, by the table, in the close, hot dark.
Chapter 7
October 16, 2014
Caleb’s tongue trailed between Jocelyn’s breasts, moving lower and lower, circling her navel and then—she gasped and grabbed clumps of his thick brown hair in both her hands. She squirmed against her bedsheets and glanced at her nightstand where the video monitor of Olivia sat. Her four-year-old slept peacefully. She had always been a good sleeper. She didn’t usually try sneaking into Jocelyn’s bed until three or four in the morning. They’d been lucky in the year they’d been sneaking around. Olivia had never woken up while Caleb was there.