Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN AT THE GRAVE

Victoria told me she met Mason through a staffing agency.

She told me she had moved to town after her divorce.

She told me she understood grief because she had lost her mother.

Some of that might have been true.

That was the part making me sick.

I no longer knew which pieces belonged to a real person.

Ruiz collected Owen’s email.

Then she asked us both to come to the station.

Separately.

I sat in a small room while she asked where I had been the night Caroline died.

“Home. Lily had a fever.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

“Rosa. She stayed late.”

Ruiz nodded.

She asked about the transfer.

The signature.

My marriage.

Our arguments.

“Caroline and I fought,” I said. “We had a five-year-old, two jobs, and no sleep. Sometimes we fought over dishes.”

“Were you having an affair?”

“No.”

“Did you know Victoria then?”

“No.”

Saying it aloud made the room tilt.

Victoria had stood beside me at Caroline’s grave.

Not at the funeral.

Later.

She had brought flowers because she said Caroline deserved to know Lily would be loved.

I had cried.

She had held my hand.

Now I wondered whether she had been checking a box.

Ruiz slid a photograph across the table.

A convenience store camera had captured Caroline’s car on the night she died.

A dark truck followed.

“Is that Mason’s?”

“We’re working on it.”

“Why wasn’t this enough back then?”

“Following a car on a public road isn’t proof of a crime.”

I hated that she was right.

When I got home, a woman was waiting near the gate.

I recognized her from the wedding guest list.

Victoria’s sister, Audrey.

She looked at the patrol car parked beside the house and almost left.

I stepped outside.

“If you’re here for her things, her attorney can arrange it.”

“I’m not here for her.”

She held up a creased photograph.

Victoria and Mason stood beside a courthouse.

They were laughing.

Victoria wore a short white dress.

Mason held a marriage certificate.

“They’re married,” Audrey said.

My ears began ringing.

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