Page 133 of Dying to Meet You
“Anyone see you leave?” she asks.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “I doubt it.” Beatrice is off-site at a museum to meet their programming director. And I didn’t chat with the art-restoration team. “Can’t you check video footage from across the street?” I point at the house with the doorbell camera—the one that filmed Harrison knocking on our door. “Won’t it show you who was here?”
“Of course, we’ll try that,” she says. “But I still have to ask about everyone’s movements.”
“Sure you do. Someone is terrorizing my family, and you think maybe it’s me.”
She doesn’t even react. “I’ll need to get fingerprints from Natalie so we can exclude her prints on the wallet.”
“Is that okay with you, Natalie?” I ask tiredly.
“Sure,” she says with a shrug. “But if this person is really trying to scare us, he probably isn’t dumb enough to leave his fingerprints on the wallet.”
“We’ll just have to be sure,” Riley says. “Let me get my scanner.”
She trots off, and I pull my ringing phone out of my shoulder bag. It’s Beatrice.
“Where are you?” she asks. “It’s time for the budget meeting. Hank is at the mansion alone.”
“Oh shit.” My heart sinks. I’d forgotten all about the meeting. “Can you tell him that someone broke into my house? Natalie called me in a panic. I’m here with the police.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry. I’ll call him back right now.”
“Thank you.”
“Keep me posted!”
We hang up, and I check my texts. There are three from Hank. All politely checking to see if he got the time right.
God, could the timing be any worse? I took the high road, and now he thinks I’m blowing him off.
Then again, there’s no good time to be stalked at home by a killer.
The older detective, Fry, emerges from my house, the wallet in a baggie dangling from his hand. “Can I speak to you a moment?” he asks.
“Of course.” I take this to mean that he doesn’t want Natalie to hear, so I move a few paces away.
“There’s no one inside except for a very friendly cat,” he says. “That was our first concern.”
“Thank you,” I say numbly.
“Aside from the wallet, we didn’t spot anything else that seems out of place,” he says. “But of course, you’ll know better than me.”
“Okay. I’ll be sure to look.” I won’t be able tostoplooking. The idea that someone was in our home makes my skin crawl.
He holds up the baggie. “So what’s your take? What was the point of leaving this in your home?”
“To scare me. Or incriminate me. And I’m scared, so I guess it worked.”
His nod reveals nothing. “Any thoughts on who’d want to do that?”
“Somebody who heard about my trip to Laura Peebles’s house with Detective Riley. Someone who saw me go into her house. Someone who needs to confuse you guys about this case...”
“Hmm,” he says. “No signs of forced entry, though. Unless the door was left open, someone had a key to your home. Or maybe you or Harrison wanted to make it appear like the killer is terrorizing you.”
I close my eyes for a brief second, needing a break from looking at his face. Then I open them again and stare him right in the eyes. “I don’t know if you have children. But terrifying them with a dead man’s possessions isn’t great parenting. No sane person would do that.”
“Ms. Gallagher,” he says, “you already lied to us about why you went to the mansion the night Tim died. I have to consider the idea that you or Harrison are lying to me now.”
