The Night Before by Lisa Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

face.
    “Was he having financial problems?”
    “Not that I know of. Nothing specific.” But he was always short on money. Always dealing with a “temporary cash flow problem,” always borrowing from you.
    “Was he involved with anyone else?”
    She’d known this was coming and somehow the reminder of her husband’s infidelity gave her strength and cleared her head. “Yes,” she admitted and the pain still hurt. It was one thing for Josh to want a divorce, another to be flaunting another woman in her face. “Her name is Naomi Crisman.”
    “How did he know her?”
    “I’m not sure, but I think they met at some kind of fund-raiser.” She was pulling together now, the threatening blackness receding. “ Josh is . . . was . . . involved in a lot of philanthropic causes.” She caught the look between the two detectives and suddenly it struck her that they weren’t just here to deliver the bad news, but that they were digging for information.
    “Do you know her?”
    “She was dating my husband, Detective,” she said and sniffed back her tears for a husband who hadn’t loved her. “That doesn’t make for a buddy-buddy situation.” Swiping at her eyes and feeling the bandages hidden beneath her sleeves, she added, “Thank you for coming by to tell me about my husband . . . I’ll want to see him if that’s possible . . . but you’re asking me a lot of questions and you said this might be a homicide, right?”
    “We’re not certain yet.”
    “Am I a suspect?” The idea was unthinkable but as she stared at the unmoving expressions of the two cops, she knew that she was considered a possible killer. Which was ridiculous. Absurd. “How did my husband die?”
    There was a slight hesitation.
    “He was still my husband,” she pointed out, angry and wanting to lash out at someone. Anyone. These people intruding into her home, giving her the horrid news, were as good a scapegoat as anyone. “I think I have the right to know.”
    Detective Morrisette nodded. “It’s possible your husband took his own life, but, as I said, we still have a lot of unanswered questions about what happened to him. We found him in his den. His wrists had been slit.”
    She cringed. Saw the vision of him slumped over his desk in her mind’s eye. How could she have known? “Suicide,” Caitlyn whispered, disbelieving, then thinking of the cuts along the insides of her own arms. “No way. He wouldn’t do that.” She was shaking her head, trying to dispel the image of her husband bleeding to death. “He . . . he’d use his rifle, or fire up his Mercedes and let it idle in the garage or . . .” Her voice faded as she realized she had their rapt attention.
    “Or what?” Reed asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    He didn’t prod, but the look in his sober eyes said, Sure you do. You lived with the man. You knew what made him tick. And you just might have killed him. He was divorcing you. He was after your money. He had another woman. He was threatening to sue you for the wrongful death of your child. And then there was all the blood in your bedroom. But the detectives don’t know about that. At least not yet. “Look, if you’re finished, I think . . . I think I’d like to lie down.”
    “If you can bear with us, we only have a few more questions,” Detective Morrisette insisted with the hint of a kind smile that Caitlyn was certain she practiced. “Then we’ll get out of your hair.” And she was true to her word. They asked some general questions about Josh, his family and business dealings, of which Caitlyn knew little, and then stood as if they were finally ready to leave.
    “Just one more thing,” Reed said. “Where were you last night?”
    Every muscle in Caitlyn’s body froze. “I was out.”
    He made a note. “All night?”
    Oh, dear God. “I went out around eight-thirty or nine and was home sometime after midnight. I’m not sure of the exact time,” she admitted, feeling Reed’s unflinching gaze bore deep,