Page 43 of She Didn't See It Coming
Now Sam glances at Paige uneasily, her long brown hair blowing around her face in the breeze, wondering how much this revelation about Bryden’s affair will hurt him. The detectives already seem to think he killed his wife. Well, he’s not Husband of the Year.
•••
In the chilly park,with the cold March wind, Paige observes Sam, the way he’s clenching his jaw as he watches his daughter, andfeels a matching anxiety course through her. He’s right. If the detectives knew he was cheating, or if they think he knew Bryden was cheating on him, it gives him motive. He’s obviously scared. But it also gives them someone else to focus on.
She stands beside him, wanting to pull him into a hug, but she can’t do that in front of Clara. Not in public, she wouldn’t dare. And certainly not with all the media around. They will have to be more careful than ever.
She’s worried for herself and Sam both. The police obviously suspect him. She doesn’t want to see herself dragged through the mud by the media. She can imagine what they’d say about her, thebest friend.
The sex has been casual, but great. She doesn’t really know how he feels about her. And now Bryden is dead, and that might change everything.
•••
Donna is relievedwhen Sam and Paige leave with Clara. They need to talk—she and Jim and Lizzie.
Once they’ve gone, Donna glances at Lizzie and then says to her husband, “Jim.” He lifts his head and looks back at her uneasily.
They’d been so overwhelmed with grief last night at the discovery of the body, the thread of hope snapped, that they’d been unable to speak. This morning, Donna had kept her doubts about Sam from her husband. She doesn’t really know what he thinks; he’s been so shut down. But now it’s time, Donna thinks, in the living room of the condo, to be honest. “I know we’ve all been supportive of Sam, but we have to consider the possibility—” She can’t finish.
“What are you suggesting?” Jim asks uneasily. But he knows. “That Sam did this? That he murdered our girl? That’s impossible,” he insists, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Because you don’twantto believe it,” Donna says, trembling, holding her ground.
“Ican’tbelieve it! That he could do that! To the mother of his child—kill her and…and…do that to her body.” He seems to recoil from the very idea, leaning back further against the sofa, his face twisting. “Think of what you’re saying!”
“Husbands kill their wives all the time,” Donna says, “in horrible ways.”
“I can’t believe it either,” Lizzie says, speaking up.
Donna is taken aback. “I thought—”
“You don’t know Sam as well as I do. He’s not capable of something like this,” Lizzie insists. “Whoever did this must be—” She can’t seem to finish the thought. She adds stubbornly, “I just can’t see it. He loved her.”
Donna looks back at the two of them. “I’m not necessarily saying hedidit. I’m saying it’s possible, and maybe we should just stop blindly believing everything he says.”
“It’s for the police to figure out,” Jim says wearily.
“He has no alibi,” Donna points out. “Am I the only one here who finds that odd? A two-hour blank in the workday?” The other two stare back at her. “We don’t know what was going on in their marriage.”
“Bryden and I were close, Mom,” Lizzie says. “If things were bad, she would have told me. I would have noticed. There was nothing wrong, I’m sure of it.”
Donna doesn’t agree. She’s not sure Bryden would have told her sister if there were problems, if she would have told anyone. She knows Bryden and Lizzie had a complicated relationship, were sometimes at odds. “He’s not acting like an innocent man,” Donna says.
“How do you mean?” Lizzie asks. “How would you expect him to act under the circumstances?”
“I don’t know, but there’s something about him. I think he’s hidingsomething. He’s not like he used to be. Something about him has changed.”
Lizzie says, exasperated, “How could henotbe changed?”
A short time later, when Sam and Paige return from the park with Clara, Donna studies Sam, his tight, worried expression, and thinks, her stomach cramping,He looks guilty.
28
Jayne has asked Sam Frost to come back in for further questioning. It’s late Thursday afternoon, and her team has been busy. Sam is on his way. She wonders if this time he will want an attorney. They now know about the wife’s affair with Derek Gardner, and that it’s likely that he was physically abusive to his wife. Sam had said that their marriage was perfect. She’s about to punch a big hole in that idea.
She checks in with the team in the incident room first. The officers have reported back that no one they’ve spoken to can confirm Sam was in Washington Park on Tuesday. The officer who took the stairs from the eighth floor to where Bryden’s body was found had run into no one. They are interviewing everyone who lives or works in the condo building again, chasing down any visitors, hoping to find someone who might have seen somebody with the suitcase. They are looking into Derek Gardner too. But right now, she wants to focus her attention on the husband.
When Sam is waiting for them in the interview room, she and Kilgour enter together. She tells him that he is here to answer questions voluntarily to help in their investigation and that he can leave at any time. She tells him this to make him relax, in the hopes of getting more out of him. The truth is, if he decides he doesn’t want to be here and gets up to leave, she will tell him he’s no longer here voluntarily and have Kilgour read him his rights. He might then opt for an attorney, but at least he’s alone for now. She asks Sam to identify himself for the tape.
