I shook my head. “Just the front. The neighbors have fences that make up the sides. Well, most of the sides. And we leave the front gate open. The motor is broken on it.”
“And the back of the property?”
“The back doesn’t have a fence due to the steep hill. Past the tree line, there are other homes.”
“So, someone could have gotten in that way?”
“Sure, but those homes are in the neighborhood, also. They’d still have had to get past the main entrance gate.”
She turned to the garage’s interior door, examining the lock, then nodded to the security keypad mounted on the wall. “Your security system go off?”
“It doesn’t work. It’s from the last owners.”
“You have any security system at all? Cameras? Motion sensors? A Ring video doorbell?” Her voice rose with each item, and I bristled at her incredulous tone. She probably lived in a townhome. Something low rent, in a neighborhood that might require a security system. This was Atherton. We were paying the highest property taxes and homeowners’ dues in the state for a reason.
“No.” Seeing her raised eyebrows, I pushed back. “You know, most people in the neighborhood don’t even lock their doors. The Winthorpes leave theirs wide open most of the time. We had planned to get some sort of system in place, but we’re renovating. Did you see the new landscaping?”
Maybe we should have pushed an alarm further up the to-do list. The security company had given a thorough presentation of the different safeguards available. Window sensors, motion-activated cameras, a schedule of interior lights that would give the appearance of constant activity. I’d seen the estimate and taken a few giant steps back at the cost, deciding to invest in an outdoor seating set instead. And the weather-friendly sectional had been a valuable and impressive investment—until Cat had splattered limoncello all over it.
She pointed at our side door. “Was this locked when you just came out of it?”
“Yeah. It’s a dead bolt. I flipped it to come out.”
“Let’s step in there for a moment.” She opened the door with a gloved hand and moved into the secondary foyer. She let out a low whistle, and I stiffened at the critical way her eyes moved over the space.
Excessive grandeur, that’s what Matt’s mother had called it, her afternoon pop-in perfectly timed when I was exhausted from unpacking and too emotionally fried for verbal assault.Way too fancy for the likes of you two,she’d said, running her hand over the velvet chair with an unimpressed sniff.That chandelier come with the place, or did you guys buy it?She liked to remind him that I grew up in a shack and had been perfectly happy in my Kmart sundresses before I started wearing designer lines. She was wrong, of course. I may have smiled the night I met her in my cheap sundress, but I had never been happy. Not while my father was home, and not until I was out of that horrible town and had my first taste of financial stability. She thought I changed Matt, but his lifestyle had been what changed me. He’d given me a taste of the good life, and I’d binged on each middle-class bite until I’d developed more expensive tastes.
From behind us, an officer wiped his boots on my mat. “No one’s on the property. I’ve got lights moving through the back woods, but that’s a wild-goose chase. There are at least six different directions he could have gone in. Right now uniforms are tightening up security and doing vehicle checks at each neighborhood exit.”
She nodded. “Go next door to the Winthorpes’. See if they’ve seen anything, and make sure they’re all locked up.”
Oh, poor Cat. She was probably still feeble from her “poisoning.” I hoped the gunman didn’t go in their often-unlocked door. I hoped he didn’t find his way to their bedroom. I hoped dear little Cat hadn’t been a casualty of his panic.Gag.
She glanced at me. “You know anything about the property on your other side?”
I shook my head. “The Rusynzks are gone for the summer.”
The officer nodded. “I’ll check windows and doors on both places,” he offered.
“Look for cameras. If they got ’em, get footage.”
“Will do.” He turned and pulled the door closed behind him, his hand casually resting on the butt of his weapon.
The detective stepped farther into the house, rounding the corner and entering the great space. Looking down at her pad, she flipped over a page. “Mrs. Ryder, we’re going to bring your husband inside and go through a few questions together.”
My shoulder rubbed against Matt’s, and I don’t know why he didn’t change his shirt before they got here. He was in a thin ribbed tank top, his slight man boobs sagging, the fat of his underarms squishing against his sides. His skin felt clammy and slid against my deltoid in a disgusting way. I shifted a little to the side, wanting to break the contact, and felt the detective’s eyes follow the action.
“I woke up with the gun in my mouth.” Matt swallowed hard. “It was pressing against my teeth, shoving my head back.”
“And then he pulled the trigger?”
“Yes. There was a click, but nothing came out. A misfire. He looked at the gun and then ran.”
“You’re lucky,” the detective remarked. “Both of you are.” She glanced at me, and I tried to assume a look of gratefulness.
Oh yes.Solucky. One shot and Matt could have died. I would have been a widow. Instead, we were here, dealing with all this, a crowd of strangers trampling through our house, my husband fully intact beside me, not a single hair harmed on his head. So lucky.
Detective Cullen moved down a list of questions, and I stayed quiet, listening to Matt’s responses.