Page 14 of The Perfect Divorce

“Sheriff Hudson, we’ve got reporters in the lobby demanding you come out and make a statement. I’ve told them you’re busy, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep them at bay.”

I let out a heavy sigh and say, “It’s fine, Marcy. I’ll give them a statement.”

She delivers a sympathetic smile. I get to my feet and follow her out of my office, through the bullpen, and down a long corridor leading to the front of the station. My hands ball up into tight fists, so taut it feels like my knuckles could tear right through the skin, revealing white snowcapped mountains. I stop in my tracks. There’s no way I can give a statement right now, not without doing something else first. Shaking out my hands, I break away from Marcy.

“Sheriff, the media’s out front. Where are you going?” Marcy calls, noticing I’ve veered off.

“To talk to Stevens,” I say, and I hope that’s the only thing I’ll do to him.

TEN

BOB MILLER

“Damn!” Brad says.

I take a seat in the chair in front of his oversized desk. I know he bought this thing to make himself look bigger, but it has the opposite effect as he appears minuscule sitting behind it. He’s spared no expense decorating his office. The lighting is dim, producing more of a warm glow. His degrees are in gold frames hung prominently behind him, UW–Madison undergrad and University of Chicago Law School. A bar cart in the shape of a globe is within his reach. It sits open, revealing an assortment of expensive scotches and a set of crystal glasses. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves fill an entire wall, lined with leather-bound spines twinkling with gold foil lettering, all the legal texts one could ever need.

Brad looks up from his phone screen. “This is going to be messy, and it could result in a huge settlement. Is that why you’re telling me? Are you trying to delay the divorce to collect on a potential wrongful death suit?”

I give him an incredulous look and lean forward in my chair.

“No, Brad. You know I don’t want a divorce at all, so it isn’t about money. But this”—I gesture to the news article detailing Ryan Stevens’s connection to the Kelly Summers case pulled up on his phone—“is a problem.”

He notices the bandage wrapped around my hand and eyes it suspiciously. “What happened there?”

“It was an accident. I cut myself,” I lie, letting my arm fall to my side. I don’t even know why I’m lying or why I’m still protecting Sarah. I mean, after the news broke, she practically threw me out. She seemed scared—no, terrified. Her brain was working overtime like cogs in a machine being pushed to their limits. I tried to tell her that we’d be stronger as a team. But Sarah didn’t want to hear it. She said she needed time to think and told me to leave, so I did.

“Okay...” Brad says. “But how is the Kelly Summers case a problem?”

I blink several times, trying to decide how much I can reveal to him. I’m not sure how to play this because I don’t know what Sarah is going to do or if she’ll do anything at all. Will she wise up and be a unified front with me, like we always said we’d be? Or will it be every person for themselves? Together, we’d be unstoppable, but apart, I don’t know what we’d be.

“It’s just... the timing of all of this is a problem. Sarah and I going through a divorce, and then this leaks. Plus, at one point, I was a suspect.”

“But you were obviously cleared,” he says.

“Yeah, in that investigation, which was led by a sheriff who was screwing the victim. Kelly and I had history too, and I’m sure that’s going to get brought up again.” I rub my brow.

“What do you mean you two ‘had history’?” Brad careens his head, confused at this new information.

Brad’s in the dark about that time in my life. He was living in another state when this all happened, and we’d lost touch. When he moved to the DC area around five years ago, we reconnected, but I never mentioned any of it to him. Why would I? It was in the past and it was supposed to stay there.

“Her real name wasn’t Kelly Summers.” I pause, knowing the impact this is going to have once it leaves my mouth. “It was Jenna Way.”

His eyes go wide. “Get the fuck outta here!”

“I’m serious.”

“Jenna Way? That bitch that killed your brother?” Brad shakes his head, leaning back in his chair. “Talk about karma.”

I nod, even though I know karma had nothing to do with her demise. It’s not always the universe that ensures what goes around comes around.

“Your history with Kelly—or Jenna—is circumstantial at best. It’s not enough to pin anything on you, especially if there’s no other evidence tying you to her murder.”

“I know, and I was in Wisconsin, nine hundred miles away, when she was killed, so it’d be hard for them to tie me to it because I can’t be in two places at once.”

He raises a brow and taps his pointer finger against his chin. “Unless, of course, you hired someone to kill her?”

I tighten my eyes and rise from my seat. “Are you working for me, Brad, or trying to build a case against me?”

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