The Bone House - Brian Freeman [31]
'It's nothing to be proud of, Cab.'
'Did I say I was?' he asked.
'You never say anything.'
Cab opened his mouth to fire off a sarcastic reply, but for once he let it go. Then he asked, 'So what week do you have in the pool?'
'Next week, actually,' she said, without smiling.
'That soon?'
'I know you better than the others.'
It was as if she'd given him a terminal diagnosis. 'Well, if anyone's going to make money on me, I'd like it to be you.'
Lala didn't answer. Behind Cab's shoulder, someone gestured to her, and she climbed out of the chair and chatted with a uniformed officer in the doorway of the investigation division. When she returned, she was all business again. There wasn't time for anything personal between them, and he wondered if she was relieved by the interruption.
'You've got a visitor in the interview room,' Lala told him.
'Delia Fischer?' Cab asked, checking his watch. 'She's right on time.'
Lala shook her head. 'It's not her. It's Mark Bradley. And his attorney. They want to talk.'
* * *
Chapter Eleven
Hilary Bradley emerged out of the Naples Police headquarters building into the bright sunshine. She slipped sunglasses on to her face. She stopped on the circular brick walkway and hesitated, unsure where to go. Mark was upstairs, and she assumed the police would interview him for an hour or more. At least he wasn't alone in facing their questions. She liked the attorney they'd hired; he was a bulldog, according to her father. It was the smart thing to do to get help, but she knew Mark was right about perceptions. The police would see him with a lawyer, and one word would jump into their heads.
Guilty.
She'd heard it in her father's voice, too. Her parents had stood behind Mark last year, because Hilary had convinced them he was innocent. Now she'd gone back to the well, and this time, there was an unspoken doubt in their reactions. They didn't know what to believe anymore. They probably wondered what she believed and whether she was being honest about her suspicions. But they had stayed silent.
Hilary stood in front of the pink stone building and saw a police cruiser glide up to the curb twenty feet away. The front passenger door opened, and she stiffened with dismay as she recognized the woman climbing out.
It was Delia Fischer. Glory and Tresa's mother.
Delia's head swiveled as she looked up at the two-story building, and her eyes were vacant, as if she was lost and overwhelmed. Her stare passed over Hilary without recognition, and then, slowly, horribly, it came back and landed on her and froze there. They confronted each other across the sidewalk. Hilary took off her sunglasses and nodded at Delia. There was no point in pretending.
Glory's mother approached without saying a word. She was several inches shorter than Hilary. She looked beaten and exhausted, with deep worry lines furrowed in her brow and around her mouth. Her cheaply colored blond hair was tied in a ponytail. She was rail-thin, a woman in her mid-forties who looked ten years older than she was. She wore spiral earrings made from aluminum cans; that was one of the eBay businesses she used to earn extra money in the off season. If you weren't rich in Door County, you always had something going on the side to make ends meet. Hilary had bought some of Delia's jewelry as a gesture of friendship the previous year, before everything erupted over Tresa.
Despite their history with her, Hilary had never been able to hate Delia. She understood the emotions that drove her. Delia was a single mother struggling with two teenage girls, fiercely proud and protective. Hilary could easily imagine the stunned fury Delia had felt in reading Tresa's diary, believing that her child had been exploited and abused by a man she trusted. All of that anger had landed on Mark's head, regardless of Tresa's denials. If Hilary had been in her shoes, she probably would have done exactly what Delia did - launch a crusade to destroy