Cast into Doubt by Patricia MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

that this was an accident.’
    ‘But it just doesn’t make any sense,’ Shelby cried. ‘How can someone accidentally fall overboard?’
    ‘It’s not that difficult,’ said Agent DeWitt grimly. ‘Not if a person is inebriated.’
    For a moment Shelby stared at him in disbelief. ‘Inebriated? You mean drunk? You think my daughter was drunk?’ Shelby let out a mirthless laugh and shook her head.
    ‘She wouldn’t be the first person . . .’ he said.
    ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh, but you don’t know my Chloe. She’s a health nut,’ said Shelby. ‘She was worried that I was going to give her son junk food while she was gone.’
    Agent DeWitt held her in his steady gaze without speaking.
    Shelby rattled on. ‘I’m not saying that my Chloe never took a drink. I mean, it’s possible that she had a drink or two. But how drunk would you have to be to fall overboard?’
    Agent DeWitt sighed slightly, and picked up a paper that was lying on the desk in front of him. He frowned at it. ‘Probably very drunk.’
    Shelby spoke firmly. ‘Obviously.’
    ‘Mrs Sloan, are you aware that your daughter had a problem with alcohol?’
    Shelby was stunned. She felt as if he had smacked her across the face. ‘That’s a complete lie,’ Shelby cried. ‘That’s just not true.’
    Agent DeWitt was stone-faced. ‘We have surveillance video of your daughter playing bingo that evening. At one point, she passes out at the table and falls off her chair.’
    ‘No,’ Shelby scoffed. ‘Maybe she was ill. Seasick.’
    The agent looked at her steadily. ‘Two other couples at the table had to help her back to her room. She couldn’t walk unaided.’
    ‘No, no that’s not possible,’ said Shelby. She was trying to picture Chloe – trying to imagine her falling-down drunk. The only image which came to her mind was of her own mother, passed out on the bathroom floor, and Shelby calling out, trying to rouse her, pushing the door up against her, trying to force it open. Chloe? No. That wasn’t Chloe. ‘No. Wait a minute. What you’re saying . . . I don’t . . . no. I mean, it’s possible to get a little high without meaning to . . . that could happen to anyone . . .’
    Agent DeWitt sighed and tapped his forefinger on the pile of papers on the desk. ‘I have a statement here from a bartender on the boat. Apparently she ordered seven double-vodka tonics that night.’
    Shelby stared at him.
    Agent DeWitt smoothed down the papers on the desk. ‘This was not an isolated incident. She repeated this behavior every night that she was on board the ship.’
    Shelby’s face flamed.
    ‘You didn’t know,’ he said. It was not a question.

FIVE
    ‘ M y Chloe?’
    ‘You didn’t know about her . . . problem.’
    ‘Her problem?’ Shelby repeated, stunned and bewildered.
    ‘She never mentioned this to you.’
    ‘No.’ Shelby tried to align this news in her head with her fixed image of her daughter. A girl who worked for a doctor, who was ever vigilant about her health, her tidy home, her orderly needlework. Chloe? A drinking problem? No. A drinking problem was her own mother, forgetting to wear underwear to a block party and lifting her skirt to scratch her thigh. Kids laughing. Howling. Not Chloe. Never. Shelby doubled over, as if she had taken a blow to the stomach.
    Agent DeWitt watched her patiently.
    ‘I don’t understand,’ Shelby wailed.
    ‘Were you close to your daughter?’ Agent DeWitt asked.
    Shelby knew what he was thinking. She must be the worst mother who had ever lived not to know this. ‘Yes. She was my whole world,’ Shelby said.
    ‘She may have wanted to spare you,’ he said.
    Dimly, Shelby knew that it could be true. If Shelby ever noticed that she seemed irritable, or in a blue mood, Chloe denied it. ‘But why? Why would she get drunk? She was happy with her life,’ Shelby cried.
    Agent DeWitt shrugged. ‘It’s a disease.’
    Shelby stared ahead, her face flaming. How