‘I’m going. But I’ll leave my card with you.’ He places it on the coffee table. ‘If you think of anything to add, please call me.’
They follow him to the front door, see him out. Rich people, he thinks, walking down the steps and toward his old Toyota. They will protect each other. But he has done what he came to do. He has no doubt that this will get back to Ted and Jill Westcott.
Chapter Twenty
TED WATCHES HISwife with concern.
Jill isn’t handling things as well as he’d expected. She’s upset– she’s letting that manipulative bastard Ramirez get under her skin. Ted thought she was tougher than this.
‘We have nothing to worry about,’ he says now. ‘Just try to calm down.’
She shoots him an angry look. ‘Don’t tell me to calm down.’
She’s upset because their cleaning lady, Nadya, had stayed a little late today specifically to tell her when she arrived home that Special Agent Ramirez had dropped in and asked her some very pointed questions.
‘How dare he come in here and talk to our cleaner!’ Jill fumes. Too restless to sit, she’s been pacing back and forth in front of the windows in the front room. Now she turns to face him. ‘Telling her that we’ve been having financial problems! How would he know that? And why would he do that, unless he suspects us?’
Ted thinks Ramirez probably has ways to find out about theirfinancial situation. He’s not going to tell her what Ramirez said to him under his breath from the deck of the boat, after he told him there were no cameras.I bet that’s a relief.He knows Ramirez suspects them, but it doesn’t matter, as long as they hold their nerve.
He approaches her and gently grips her arms above the elbows, to steady her. He fixes his eyes on hers. ‘You know that there’s no evidence. We’re home free. He can’t do anything to us. You know how it works– innocent until proven guilty. They have to be able toproveit was murder, beyond a reasonable doubt, and they can’t, because there will always be the possibility that it was an accident.’ He kisses her on the forehead. ‘He’ll give up eventually. He suspects us because of the money. He knows I inherit. But it doesn’t matter. He can’t touch us.’
She takes a deep breath and nods. ‘I know. It’s just… it’s unsettling, that’s all. He upset Nadya. And embarrassed me in front of her.’
Ted steps back, releasing her, and says, ‘Did you see his suit? And the way he was looking around when he was here? He’s probably doing this because we’re rich and he wants to stick it to us.’
‘That’s what worries me,’ Jill says.
He studies her for a moment and asks, ‘Is there something else bothering you?’
She pauses before she answers. Then she says, ‘I had lunch with Lara today.’
‘And?’
‘And… nothing. She was being a bit nosy, wanted to know about the money.’
‘That’s just human nature,’ Ted says. ‘Of course she wants to know about the money. Did you tell her?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘Oh, you know, she was thrilled for us.’ And they both smile.
Lara watches through the glass of the front door as Agent Ramirez gets into his car on the street and then turns and fixes her eyes on her husband. ‘What the fuck was that?’
They return to the front room, and she sits on the edge of the sofa and addresses her husband, feeling a little strange. ‘Did he actually say that? That he thinks it might have been murder?’
‘It’s outrageous,’ Ben says, looking genuinely outraged.
That’s Ben, though, she thinks. He doesn’t think badly of anyone. But Lara actually finds herself considering it.Could it have been murder?It had never crossed her mind. She just thought that Ted and Jill had been incredibly lucky. They sit in silence for a moment, as if neither one of them wants to say it first. Finally, Lara says, ‘Why would he think that? There must be some reason they think it might not have been an accident.’
‘It’s the money, of course,’ Ben says slowly. ‘Ted will inherit a lot of money. He was there when Greg went over the side, and he and Jill survived.’ He looks back at her, troubled. ‘I mean, you can see why they’d look into it.’ He sighs heavily, his face wrinkling in concern. ‘How awful for them, especially after what they’ve been through. The very idea. People don’t just murder people. Life is not a book.’
Lara studies her husband, reflecting on how different they are. She has always felt that truth is much stranger than fiction,that real life often seems far more unbelievable than a novel. Especially these days. ‘Jill didn’t seem too concerned about it when I saw her today,’ Lara tells him, remembering their lunch earlier. ‘But she told me it was an accident investigation.’
‘No reason she should be concerned. They didn’t do anything wrong,’ Ben says with conviction.
Lara wonders. It’s true Jill hadn’t seemed particularly worried earlier that day. She’d seemed quietly pleased under all that faux regret. Should Lara tell her that the special agent spoke to them, and what he said?