Out of the Shadow Read Free

I found my husband stabbed to death. There's nothing else to tell."
    "What do you know about a missing knife? We found one missing from the knife set on your kitchen counter. Was it gone before the murder?" the cop inquired.
    "No. I had a full set…" Becca stared at him, mouth agape. "It was there when I went to bed."
    "It’s not there now. We think it might be the murder weapon. What I don’t understand is how you slept through the stabbing."
    A tremor ran through her, but she tried her best to control it. She didn’t want her interrogators to spot any weakness they might pounce on quicker than Cecil could corner a mouse. "David used to say a truck could drive through the room if I was asleep."
    "Yeah...sure," he said, sounding unsure.
    "Look, I’m not the murderer and I’m certainly not the rapist. There’s a lunatic out there. Do you have any idea at all who did this?"
    Detective Mills shrugged. "Nothing more than we’ve already told you. We’ve questioned your husband’s partner, the other people in his office, your neighbors, your friends, his parents, but we still have no clear-cut lead. Anything more you can tell us? Friends? Enemies? Anything?" Mills jotted a note on her pad.
    "Not anyone I haven’t mentioned before." She could swear the walls were closing in on her. The room seemed smaller, stiller, stifling. She sensed the twitch under her eye and hoped it didn’t make her look guilty. "Did you figure out how the killer broke into the apartment?"
    "Good question," the blue-clad cop replied. "No broken windows or obvious entry point. You have any idea?"
    "All I know is David planned to fix the security latch on the dining room window this weekend. Did you notice if the window had been tampered with?"
    Detective Mills looked up from her scribbling. "It was unlocked, but it wasn’t open. Someone could have crawled through it, but there’s no evidence they did."
    "Oh…" Becca swallowed the curse that came to mind.
    The woman stared at her. "Anything else you want to tell us?"
    Becca didn’t like the detective’s accusatory tone. "No. Nothing." She wished away the quiver in her voice, took a deep breath of courage before asking, "Am I a suspect in David’s murder?"
    "Not yet," the woman said, but her cocked brow and piercing eyes told Becca a different story. "Just one more thing. In the initial report, it mentions you didn’t act like a woman who had lost her husband only moments before."
    "I was in shock. How was I supposed to act?" The detective didn’t answer. Becca’s mind whirled. "Listen, I’m tired. Is that all for now?"
    "We’re done removing evidence. You can do what you want with the apartment. Since I’m the detective assigned to the case, contact me if you think of anyone or anything else. Here’s my card." Mills handed the small, white card with blue lettering to Becca, stood, and started toward the door. She glanced over her shoulder with a hand on the knob. "And stay where we can find you if we need you."
    "Don’t worry. I’ll be here."
    The moment the cops left, Becca rushed into Angela’s guest room, lunged into bed, and tugged the covers over her head. Moments later she heard Angela enter the room, smelled the faint hint of stale tobacco, and felt her take a seat on the end of the bed.
    "What was that about?" Angela asked.
    Becca lowered the covers just enough to meet Angela’s worried gaze. "From what I gather, the police think I might have killed David. The only semen sample was his. How can that be?"
    Angela frowned. "Shit. I wish I knew. A condom?"
    "That’s possible." She had to bite back the tears that welled in her throat. "One of my kitchen knives might be the murder weapon. If I read them right, everything points to me."
                "You have to be kidding! Don’t they have eyes? There’s no way you could have pulled that one off. You’re hardly strong enough to turn Browning in 222 when you have to change the dressing on his butt. They can’t