“Sure. Thanks.”
After filling their cups, she darted away.
Puzzled by her strange behavior, Rob mentally filed it away for later consideration, then turned back to Rebecca. “So you knew he was dead,” he said, picking up the thread of their conversation. “What did you do then?”
“I called 9-1-1.”
“From the bedroom?”
“No. The kitchen.”
“Then what?”
“I went outside and waited for the police.”
“Did you reenter the house at any point?”
She shook her head. “No. I…couldn’t.”
“What about your supplies? Surely you must have had something with you, some kind of equipment or tools, if you’d originally entered the house to tend his plants.”
“Yes. I had my tote bag that I carry my supplies in. One of the policemen brought it out to me. The one who questioned me.”
“What about the cat? Sadie, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Sadie. I don’t remember seeing her when I first entered the house. She must have been hiding somewhere. Under the sofa, perhaps. She does that sometimes. But when they brought Eric…the body out,” she amended, wincing, “she slipped out the door. I caught her and held her to keep her from jumping into the ambulance with him.”
He could see the tears building, the strain in her features, and wondered if this was all part of the act. In hopes of throwing her off balance, to trick her into slipping up, he changed the line of questioning. “You said you were fairly new in town.”
She wrapped her hands around the coffee mug, as if needing the warmth to chase the chill from her body. “Yes. I moved here about six months ago.”
“And immediately went into business for yourself.”
“Yes.”
He heard the pride in the single-worded response. “Had you ever owned a business before?”
She shook her head. “No. But I’d always dreamed of owning my own floral shop.”
“So why move to Royal to open a business? Seems it would’ve made more sense to go into business in a town where you were known.”
She fidgeted and he knew immediately that the question had made her uncomfortable.
“I was recently widowed,” she explained slowly, as if carefully choosing her words. “I wanted a fresh start. Someplace new, without…without any memories.”
“I would think being surrounded by memories would be a comfort. Unless they were unpleasant ones,” he added, watching her.
She stared at him, her face paling, her blue eyes filling with an anguish that had his gut clenching.
Tearing her gaze from his, she groped blindly for her purse. “I’ve told you all I know about Eric,” she said as she slid from the booth. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Cole, I really need to go.”
Rob frowned as he listened to the officer’s response to his query about the autopsy on Eric Chambers. “No prints?” he asked, frowning.
“None,” the officer confirmed. “Whoever strangled him was careful. Probably wore surgical gloves of some type.”
“Anything show up in his stomach? Any indication that he might have been drugged?”
“Only his dinner. Otherwise, he was clean.”
Frustrated by the lack of any new leads on the case, Rob bit back a curse. “I appreciate the information. Let me know if y’all come up with anything new.”
“I will. You do the same.”
Rob hung up the phone and sank back in his chair, pushing his fingers through his hair.
No leads. No evidence. No suspects.
Other than Rebecca Todman.
Sighing, he sat up and reached for the mail he’d dropped on his desk. As he did, his gaze struck the fishbowl full of flowers that he’d bought at her shop. Frowning, he pushed aside the stack of mail and drew the bowl toward him. He stuck his nose in the flowers and inhaled deeply of the sweet floral scent, the lingering tartness of the citric fruits that filled the bowl’s base.
His frown deepening, he leaned back and studied the arrangement. Classy. Fragrant. Feminine, yet not fussy. Fragile, yet with a hint of toughness.
Much like the woman who had designed it, he thought, unable to stop the stab of guilt that came along with the assessment.
Two days later and he still felt bad about his last interview with Rebecca Todman. He had questioned a lot of witnesses and suspects in his life, some more ruthlessly than others, but none had left him feeling more like a heel than had his last interview with her.
And well it should have, he concluded miserably. He’d tried his damnedest to catch her in a lie, to pry into her private life and prove that she was somehow responsible for Eric Chambers’s murder. But nothing had panned out. Not motive. Not means. The only thing he could definitely nail her with was opportunity, which he could easily nail half the population of Royal with, as well.
Rebecca Todman hadn’t killed Eric Chambers, he told himself. His search into her financial records had dissolved any lingering doubts about that. She had nothing to gain financially by murdering him. Though not a wealthy woman, she’d inherited enough money from her husband to make the down payment on her house in Royal and to set up her business, which appeared to be at least beginning to pay its own way.
No, Rebecca Todman wasn’t the murderer, he thought ruefully, remembering the strained and haunted look on her face as he’d forced her to relive discovering Eric’s body.
But there was still something about her that ate at him. Some elusive something that kept him awake at night. But what? he asked himself, his frustration returning. Was it nothing more than physical attraction? A typical male response to the sight of a good-looking woman?
He leaned back in his chair and pulled at his chin as he gave that theory some thought. If so, he mused, then maybe it was time to get to know Rebecca Todman on another level. A level other than that of suspect.
A more intimate level.
With her knees and hands buried in the freshly turned soil of her cutting bed, Rebecca let the warmth of the late-afternoon sunshine and the heavenly scent of the flowers surrounding her work their special magic on her overwrought nerves. Calm. That’s what she needed and what she sought each time she stepped out into her backyard oasis.
Though she loved her floral shop and felt a keen sense of pride each time she thought of the business she was building, it was only in her garden where she found true peace from the ugliness and brutality of her past. No old memories were allowed beyond the arch of the wisteria-draped garden gate. None were permitted to dig their way under the honeysuckle-covered picket
