“Yeah, interesting to see how you explain to your wife why you’re so emotional.”
He stared at her and slowly sank back down on the chair. “Jesus, I can’t tell her.” He looked at them. “Please don’t tell her.”
Kate shrugged. “Should we need to speak to her, just what is it you expect us to say?”
He took several deep breaths, as if trying to hold back a heavy shock.
She watched him with interest, wondering if he’d have a heart attack over this. She was also being on the bitchy side, but she was damn tired of listening to all these men having a little piece on the side, supposedly loving these women, yet leaving both women in their lives stranded in a terrible in-between state. It’s not how Kate would like to have a relationship. Rodney looked over at her with that look again, and she eased back slightly.
“Again, we need to know exactly where you were. So far, we don’t have an explanation for the missing five hours, and, when you left her, did you leave her alone? Did you leave the apartment locked? Did you notice anybody else hanging around, either in the building on the way down or outside in the parking lot?”
He shook his head. “No, I was horribly upset. We’d had a terrible argument, and I raced out of there. I just ran down the stairs, got into my vehicle, and took off. I didn’t see anybody.” He looked at her. “Are you thinking she was killed there?”
“Good question,” Kate noted. “And it’s more than just that. Somebody kept her for a while, so, if we could find her phone, that would help.”
“As far as I know,” he replied heavily, “she had it with her when I left.”
“Well, no sign of it when we found her body.” Kate got up. “We still need an explanation of those five hours.”
He stared at her blankly. “I don’t have one. I literally just drove around, and then I sat at the beach for quite a while and got a coffee from one of the street vendors, just trying to get my head on straight.”
“What was the decision?” she asked.
“I was honest when I told you originally,” he repeated, “that I would leave my wife.”
She nodded. “Any chance your wife knows about this already?”
He shook his head immediately. “Dear God, no.”
She nodded. “Well, I hope not. Maybe you’ll have a chance to make good on it after all.”
“Make good on what?”
She looked at him and replied, “Your vows.”
With that, she turned and walked out. She stopped at the front desk again. “You’ll find out soon enough,” Kate explained, “but your coworker Cherry Blackwell is dead. I need to know what she was like. How her working relationship was with people in the company and with customers.”
Rodney hadn’t come back out with her, so she presumed he was still talking to the boss. Maybe it was a man thing; she didn’t know. She was just damn sick of cheaters.
The woman in front of her gasped in shock. “Oh my God, she was wonderful. She was so easy to work with. What happened to her?”
“She was murdered,” Kate stated bluntly. “You’ll hear about it in the news, I’m sure.”
The woman just stared at her, still shocked, and her bottom lip trembled.
It seemed like, all of a sudden, the word was passed around the office, and suddenly sobs were audible from several areas in the room.
She looked around, then asked the receptionist, “Was anybody here particularly close to her?”
She nodded and, still sniffling, grabbed several tissues from a box on the counter and led Kate to another young woman, sobbing into her hands.
Kate looked at her and identified herself. “I understand you were a good friend?”
The woman sobbed even harder.
Kate grabbed a chair and plunked down in front of her, then said, “I’m sorry, but I do need to ask you some questions.”
Still blubbering, the woman tried to pull herself together and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I tried to call her. I texted her several times, but she didn’t get back to me. I was getting really worried. I did phone her family, asking about her, but they said she was probably fine. And then well…”