Her Alibi. Carol Ericson
studied his square jaw, clenched in disapproval. Did she detect jealousy in that question?
“Niles had been wanting to discuss other aspects of the business with me for weeks and figured this was his opportunity to have me at his mercy.” She cleared her throat. “I really wanted those files, so I agreed.”
“How did the meeting go?”
She ran her fingers through her hair, avoiding the sore spot on the back of her head. “Like all our meetings. We ended up in an argument.”
His eyes flickered, but he took a seat on the edge of the coffee table and she eked out a little sigh because he was no longer looming over her.
“Did anyone at the bar notice you arguing?”
“I’m sure a few people did. We exchanged sharp words and may have got a little loud, but there was no knock-down-drag-out.”
He rubbed his knuckles across his clean-shaven chin. He’d shaved off the beard since the last time she’d seen him. Bearded or not, the man still pushed all the right buttons in all the right places.
She licked her lips, and his gaze bounced to her mouth and then back to her eyes.
“What happened next? How’d you end up at his house? That house in La Jolla, right?”
“Yeah, that one.” She caught a drop of moisture on the outside of the glass with her finger and touched it to her temple. “Niles had left the file I wanted at the house. I had to go with him to retrieve them.”
“Go with him? You didn’t drive your own car?” He tipped his head at the window, toward the Lexus in his driveway.
“I walked to the bar. It was close to my house and you know I don’t like to drive after even one drink.”
“Is that what you had? One drink?”
“Two.” She held up two fingers in a peace sign and then brought the fingers together. “Scout’s honor.”
Unless she’d downed whatever was in that crystal tumbler at the house.
“I’m not checking on you, Savannah. I believe you. What I’m trying to get at is if you were drunk when you left the bar with him.”
“Absolutely not. I don’t get drunk...anymore.”
“So why’d you black out? Do you remember going to his house? Driving in the car with him?”
“I do remember getting into his car. I remember more arguing on the way to the house, arriving at the house and then...” She shrugged. “Nothing after that. I don’t remember what we did at the house. I don’t know how I lost my clothes and ended up in his bed. And I sure as hell don’t know how he wound up dead.”
“And you didn’t...”
“What?” She jerked her head in his direction.
He swiped a hand across his mouth as if to keep the words from tumbling out. “You’re telling me that someone broke into Niles’s house, murdered him in a violent manner and you were allowed to sleep peacefully through it all. Why weren’t you killed along with Niles?”
“That, I can’t tell you.” She skewered him with a gaze. “You almost sound disappointed.”
Connor pushed up from the coffee table and stalked to the kitchen. “Don’t play the poor-me card. I know you too well.”
He thought he did, but she’d kept secrets from him before.
He buried his head in the fridge and popped up with a bottle of beer in his hand. “I’m not offering. Someone needs a clear head here, but it’s not gonna be me.”
“Beer for breakfast?” She held up her hands to deflect his scowl. “Never mind. And I already told you, I have no idea why the killer left me undisturbed...almost undisturbed.”
“Almost?” He took a swig of beer and hunched over the kitchen island.
She jabbed her index finger into her chest. “I did not voluntarily take off my clothes for Niles, and I did not crawl into his bed.”
“The murderer took the time to strip you naked and place you in Niles’s bed? Where was Niles’s body?”
“On the floor next to the bed.”
“Next to you?”
“On the floor.”
He snapped his fingers. “Did you check the security cameras? A place like that, a guy like that—he had to have video surveillance.”
“All disabled.”
He scratched his chin in an absentminded manner. He must’ve just lost the beard and missed it, although why Connor’s facial hair occupied her thoughts at this crucial moment was a mystery. She squeezed her thighs together and huffed out a breath. No, it wasn’t, no mystery.
“Murder weapon?”
“Gone.”
“Blood?”
“All over Niles and the floor beneath him, but only a little on me and none on my clothes.”
“You had blood spatter on you?”
“I wouldn’t call it spatter.” She curled her right hand into a fist. She didn’t want to show him her palm, but she couldn’t hide it. He’d notice it anyway.
Holding her hand out to him and spreading her fingers, she said, “The blood came from some cuts on my hand.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, and then skirted the counter and charged toward her. She shrank back when he dropped to his knees in front of her and took her wrist between his fingers.
But she had nothing to fear from Connor.
With a gentle touch, he traced a fingertip over each cut, sending chills down her spine.
“These aren’t very deep...and they’re on the wrong hand.”
“The wrong hand?”
“The wrong hand for stabbing. You’re left-handed.”
She clasped his shoulder with her left hand. “I knew there was a good reason to run to you. D-do you think someone’s trying to set me up for Niles’s murder? Because I do. That’s what I think.”
“Could be. Do you have a motive?” He dropped her wrist and rose to his feet, as her hand slid from his shoulder.
She rolled her eyes. “Take your pick. We were fighting over the business. With his death, I get the whole thing, controlling interest back in my lap. A-and there’s something else.”
He had returned to his beer and raised his eyebrows as he took a sip.
“Life insurance.” She knotted her fingers in front of her. “Lots of life insurance.”
“It’s natural to assume a spouse would be the beneficiary of life insurance, even after a divorce. It’s not necessarily the first thing most people going through a separation think about.”
“Niles Wedgewood is not most people. He did think about dropping me as his beneficiary after the divorce in favor of his new girlfriend, Tiffany, and his junkie twin brother, Newland, and his sister, Melanie, up in San Francisco, but I convinced him we should leave each other as our beneficiaries until we had the business worked out.”
“And people know this?” Connor tugged on his earlobe, a sure sign of worry.
“His divorce attorney knows it.”
“How much are we talking?”
She dropped her chin to her chest. “Millions.”
“With Niles’s death, you stand to get the business and millions of dollars in life insurance money.”
His gaze sharpened