“I can’t—” I inhaled sharply. “I can’t do any better than us, William. We’re happy. We’ve been strong. If you can’t be faithful to me now, what will happen in our hard times?” I felt the tears in the moment before they came and rushed to finish before I broke into sobs. “You were myeverything.”
“Cat,” he said softly, his voice breaking in a way I’d never heard from him. Not when his father had died, not once in our fourteen years together. “Cat, please. This was a stupid thing.” He gripped my arms, pulling me against him, my struggles failing as he forced me to look into his face. “I need you to forgive me. I can’t live without you. Please.” It was a gruff, fierce plea, his voice shaking with the intensity of it. He dropped to his knees, clawing me closer. “Please don’t leave me.” It was as much an order as a beg.
I didn’t move. I didn’t respond. I watched him, and when he looked up at me, I studied the depths of his eyes, the love and heartbreak in them.
Of course I wouldn’t leave him. That was why, after all, I had done all this.
CHAPTER 45
NEENA
“What’s in the safe?” The detective was flanked by three uniforms, all of them staring at me, suspicion heavy in their eyes. I glanced back at the doorway. Matt was already gone, and I wanted to scream at him to come back. He couldn’t leave me with these cops, not after opening Pandora’s box and shoving me into its teeth.
“Neena?” Detective Cullen stepped forward, her gap tooth peeking through her chapped lips. I studied her greasy hair, pulled into a tight ponytail, and stayed silent. “What’s in the safe?”
I shouldn’t have put it in the safe to begin with. Though the alternative, the cavity hidden in the floor, had proved just as insecure. I eased toward the door that Matt had escaped through and was blocked by a fat officer in a uniform a size too small.
“The safe’s in the closet.” Another male officer spoke up from behind me. “It’s locked.”
“You can give us the combination, Neena, or we can drill out the lock.” Detective Cullen shrugged. “It makes no difference to us.”
“Or we can just call your husband,” the fat one suggested. “He sounded like he’d be willing to give it to us.”
I glanced at the detective. “Does your warrant cover the safe?”
“Your husband just gave us permission to search it. We don’t need a warrant.”
I clenched my hands into fists. “I’m not giving you the combination. I don’t remember it. Call Matt if you want to. He’s not going to know it, either.” And he wouldn’t remember the complicated six-digit combination, but he’d probably remember where we stored it—the Post-it stuck in the top drawer of our bathroom vanity.
“We will,” Detective Cullen promised, glancing at one of the other officers. “Go get Matt Ryder’s cell phone number and text it to me.” She pointed at me. “And you, Dr. Ryder—you just stay right there.”
Five minutes later, after a quick call to my treacherous husband, getting his verbal authority to open the safe and oh-so-helpful guidance to the yellow sticky note that held the combination, the chambers of the large safe clicked into place, and the heavy iron door was wrenched open. Detective Cullen flipped her Maglite on and shone the beam into the velvet-lined depths.
I think she said something, but I wasn’t sure. At that moment, I swayed, my knees buckling as black spots dotted across my vision, and I fainted.
“I got to tell you, I’ve been in this business a long time and have only had two suspects faint on me.” Detective Cullen knelt in front of our coffee table. She wiped a pale napkin across her mouth as she took a bite from the breakfast sandwich clutched in her nail-bitten claws. I blinked slowly, focusing on the sandwich and wondering if it had come from William’s chef. Had Detective Cullen seen William? What had she told him? Did she tell him what was in the safe? I glanced down at my hands, surprised to see that they were free, no handcuffs in sight.
“I think she’s okay.” Detective Cullen waved at someone, and I followed her motion, surprised to see a paramedic crouched beside my recliner. How had I gotten downstairs? This was Matt’s chair, not mine. I sat upright, and the man hurried to assist.
“Take it easy. It’ll take a few minutes to get your bearings.”
“You’ve been out for a while,” Detective Cullen said cheerfully. “Fainted and then went right to sleep. You missed all the excitement.” She tapped the folder next to her. “We cataloged everything in the safe. I got to say, Neena, you got me excited about the contents, but there’s not a whole lot there.”
I stared at the folder, unsure of what mind game she was going through. I didn’t have the mental stamina for this. If she had opened the safe, then she had me. I should be in handcuffs and headed to the station, not sitting here listening to her crunch through a bacon-and-egg sandwich as if it were her job.
“We went through everything.” She licked the tip of her right index finger, then did another mouth swipe with the napkin. “And I think I found the source of your anxiety.”
She flipped open the top flap of the folder and shuffled a few pages aside. “You really do have a wonderful husband.”
I thought of Matt, his face red, features angry as he had wrapped his hands around my father’s neck. The silent gape of my father’s mouth. The wild swing of his arms. The bulge of his eyes as he had stared at me, begging me, all the way until the moment they rolled back into his head.
“Yes,” I managed, “I do.”
“How long have you and Mr. Winthorpe been having an affair?”
That shut me up, and I hated the way she said the word.Affair.As if it were something fleeting and dirty. This was a righting of the axle, the putting of everything into place. Ibelongedwith someone like William. And furthermore, Ilikedthe emotional chess game that stealing Cat Winthorpe’s husband entailed. I was going to have him as my husband or his money as my cushion—before today anyone could have looked at the playing board and seen it all.
I pondered which angle to attack this from. “You’re confused,” I finally managed. “William Winthorpe is my employer. Any relationship we have is strictly a professional one.”