Page 27 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

“You’re gonna need to try and stay calm,” Troy said. “Take out your phone and google me.”

I did as I was told, my finger beading sweat on my phone screen.

CHAPTER29

IN THE VIDEO,Troy Hansen stands in a drugstore. He’s wearing the same hoodie, pulled up, but it’s easy to know it’s him from his stooped posture. He’s in the beauty-products section, a basket on his arm, staring at bottles. From somewhere else, I hear the soft clatter of cardboard on the linoleum. The camera dips, comes back up. Troy is suddenly holding a box of condoms. He hands it to the person behind the camera.

“Whoops. Thanks.” A woman’s voice.

“No problem.” Troy gives an awkward smile. He tries to go back to his shopping. She doesn’t let him.

“Gotta stock up.” She shakes the box. He looks. “You never know when there’s gonna be another pandemic.”

Troy laughs his weird, tittering laugh. “Essential items only.”

“Right. Right.” She shows the camera the box of condoms. “You, uh, you go through a lot of these?”

“Me?” Troy’s smile twitches. “No. I don’t tend to.”

“Oh. So you don’t use ’em at all?”

Troy grins down at his basket, eyes mischievous. “Well. Notthatsize, anyway.”

I fished around on the internet on my phone at the café table while Troy squirmed in his seat. It didn’t take me long to find out that the condom video was in the process of going viral. The original poster’s follower list on TikTok was spinning like the reels on a slot machine. Stills of Troy standing in the grocery-store aisle smiling and holding a box of condoms were trending on every news chart in the country. The video had been uploaded barely thirty minutes ago.

“When was this video taken?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Jesus, Troy,” I said.

“I was just buying shampoo!” He gave a dark growl. It was the first genuine, complex emotion I’d seen him exhibit. “It was morning. I thought the stores would be empty.”

“So you thought you’d go out and get some scalp cleanser and flirt with some random woman?” I asked. “Are you nuts?”

“I wasn’t flirting!”

“It looks like you were flirting,” I said. “Shemade itlook like you were flirting. How did you not see it?” I slapped the table. “A woman recording a video saunters up to you in public and accidentally drops a box of rubbers at your feet, and you don’t clock that as a setup?”

“I wasn’t thinking!” Troy pleaded. “She wasn’t holding the phone like a camera. She had it tucked in her front pocket. And it wasn’t flirting, it was ... it wasquestionandresponse. She said, ‘Do you use these?’ I said, ‘No,’ and then it was like — ”

“The punch line was right there,” I said. “You couldn’t help yourself.”

“Yes! Exactly!”

“You’re either an idiot or a sociopath, Troy,” I said. “I’m trying to figure out which. Your wife has been missing for a week.”

“Maybe I’m both.” Troy clawed his scalp. “But I’m not a killer.”

We sat in silence.

“Rhonda, I said something stupid. Really stupid. But this video ... this isn’t me. I don’t go around bragging about my ... my penis size to random women. Something came over me.”

“It doesn’t matter, Troy,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if you really were flirting or if you went on autopilot or you panicked or you were tired or ... whatever, Troy. It doesn’t matter what you were actually doing. I’ll repeat what I just said: It. Looks. Like. You. Were. Flirting.”

“Oh, Jesus. Jesus.” Troy hung his head.

“Let’s get on to the other thing.” I stared at the top of Troy’s head. “A quarter of a million dollars was deposited in your and Daisy’s bank account two months ago. Where did it come from, and why didn’t you tell me about it?”

---