My heart was racing, and I had serious concerns that it was going to rupture in my chest and explode into a million particles. I envisioned the whole interview room splattered in blood, like one of those spin paintings my daughter used to bring home from the county fair.
Although it was killing me, I had no choice but to let Marty take over the interview. When Dylan tried to insinuate that Bethany was on the phone with him the moment they found Jamie’s body, I was doing everything in my power to keep from jumping the table and putting my hands around his scrawny neck.
I wanted to call Bethany right then, put her on speakerphone, and have her denounce this boy’s story and his accusations about her. On the other hand, there was a nagging feeling deep in my stomach. I was scared to death that he was telling the truth.
It got quiet in the room while Dylan compiled a list of names of both males and females who had been verbally victimized by both Kimberly and Jamie. The list seemed to go on forever, as if everyone who went to school with them was at one time or another a target of the girls’ insensitive verbal and sometimes physical abuse.
As he was writing, I would casually look to see if he was going to add my daughter’s name to the list. I could tell he was beginning to come to the end of the list because he seemed to be digging deeper into his memory and thinking longer before actually writing each name down on the page. Before he wrote down the last name, he looked up at me, those piercing blue eyes catching mine. He looked almost apologetic.
I was just about to pick up the paper when Detective Frank Robinson entered the room and handed me a report from the hospital.
“Jean, toxicology and blood work-up reports came in on Kimberly Weston.” He was all serious and business until he took notice of the Nicole Kidman look-alike in the room. He broke out in a broad smile as he turned to acknowledge our Ms. Alexis Marciano, Esquire.
Frustrated, I grabbed the report from Robinson’s hands. Another piece of the puzzle had been added to the equation. I handed the report to Marty, who looked over it and turned back to me, looking even more confused than I was.
They had found a small puncture mark on Kimberly’s back, and the report had found that Kimberly Weston was injected with insulin. Considering her medical status, it very well may have been a lethal dose.
“Is Kimberly a diabetic?” I asked, as I flipped pages and looked through the reports. “It doesn’t say anything about her being a diabetic.” I tried to recall my conversation with her mother. I was pretty sure her parents never mentioned that their daughter was a diabetic or on insulin.
I looked back at Dylan. If they were such good friends, he would know if she was a diabetic. His face remained blank.
“Dylan, do you know if any of the people on this list are diabetic? Would any of them have access to insulin?”
He shook his head. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was hard not to notice just how good-looking the kid was. I could almost understand why the girls were attracted to him. There was something about his persona that just emitted an abundance of charisma. He was the synthesis of sweet and tart. If you looked at him at one angle, his façade was that of the misunderstood bad boy. Look again, and you saw a sweet baby face, in need of nurturing and consoling.
I knew the second description was the one that must have attracted my daughter to him. She was always taking in strays, and Dylan Silver… he was her new project. Well, this was one project that my daughter would leave unfinished, if I had anything to say about it.
“Are you sure?” I asked him again.
He shook his head. His thick black hair showed signs of needing washing as it whipped back and forth across his forehead.
“The only person I know that is a diabetic is my grandmother, but she just watches what she eats. I don’t think she takes insulin.”
I noticed that his attorney put her hand on his arm, letting him know he had given us enough. She was determined to stop him from talking any further.
I knew that I had nothing to hold him on and it was only a matter of time before Nicole Kidman’s look-alike insisted on us releasing her client.
“Get him out of here,” I said, throwing down Kim’s medical file.
“Are you releasing my client, detective?” the Australian attorney asked me as she started to pack up what looked like a brand-new briefcase, shoving papers in one of the leather side pockets. She was young, and I wondered whether it was all just a prop to make her look more mature and possibly more effective.
Again, that feeling of familiarity crossed through my mind. I turned my attention back to Dylan. I got close enough that our noses actually touched.
“Stay the hell away from my daughter. If you come within ten feet of her, I will have your ass behind bars and you will become someone’s plaything! Do you understand?” I felt the heat coming from my own breath.
He started to protest, but Alexis Marciano squeezed his arm and gently pushed him toward door.
She was just about out of my line of vision when I threw out the next question.
“Hey, Marciano, how did you even know he was here? Who hired you?”
She turned back and looked at me. I didn’t realize how petite she was until that moment.
“Mr. Whitley called me, Detective. Your husband hired me to represent Dylan.”
She turned and walked away, her blond curls bouncing, leaving me with my mouth wide open and in a state of shock. Then it hit me why the woman looked so familiar to me.
It wasn’t her resemblance to Nicole Kidman, I was mistaken. She didn’t look like the actress at all. I had seen her at Glenn’s office Christmas party last December. The little blond tart, Ms. Marciano, was the girlfriend of one of the engineers that worked at my husband’s company.
***
Marty knew that nothing he could say was going to console his partner, so he remained silent. He let her do whatever she needed to do to calm down before she left to go home to confront her husband and daughter. In essence, that meant ducking as a Styrofoam cup half-filled with coffee flew across the room. Coffee splattered in every direction. The walls, the table, the floor, and when he glanced down, he realized that even his shirt had become a victim of Jean’s sudden tantrum.
Marty looked at his watch. He had been so wrapped up in the search for Bethany and interrogating Dylan that he actually had forgotten the incident with his father. He didn’t want to leave Jean, but as much as Jean was concerned for her family, he was beginning to have concerns about the Captain.
“Jean?”
She just raised her hand, the palm of her hand facing him. He gave her another few seconds to gain her composure and get her anger under control.
“I don’t know which one, but one, if not all, of those kids killed Jamie Camp and then tried to kill Kimberly. I am willing to bet my career on it.”
Still seated, she twisted her whole body around and grabbed her purse. “And I think that son of a bitch knows who it is.”
Marty knew that if Jean believed that, she had to know she was implicating her own daughter. She got out of the chair and headed to the door. “Come on, I’ll drop you off. I have some business to take care of at home, Marty. I’ll meet you here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. I am so done for today.”
Marty just nodded. He followed closely behind, and shut the lights as he left the room. They drove in silence; neither of them spoke until Jean dropped him off at the Captain’s house, where Hope had returned and was now patiently waiting for him.
Apparently, he interrupted a serious dialogue between Hope and his father, because the moment he entered the house, their conversation came to an abrupt halt.
Hope
was sitting on the sofa, her legs folded like a pretzel beneath her buttocks. She had tied her hair back in a ponytail. The very sight of her caused a stirring in his groin and his eyes to well up with tears. Sometimes it scared him just how much he loved her, and how she made him feel so vulnerable. He wasn’t used to needing someone as badly as he needed this lady.
Until he had met Hope, Marty really had no reference point to understand what his father meant when he would talk about his late wife, Marty’s mother, and how a piece of him died the day she passed away.
What scared him the most was that, if he felt this deep after only two years of being with her, what would happen if he ever had to go through the type of loss his father had endured? It made him question whether getting married was a good idea. The thought occurred to him that he might be better off if he ran as fast and as far away as possible, instead of taking the chance of getting hurt.
Marty was no coward, and he wasn’t necessarily a gambler, yet he was putting all his chips on the table. He would rather risk having his heart broken in the future rather than miss a single moment with Hope now.
The Captain was the first to speak up.
“Did everything work out? Jean’s kid… is she okay?” His words were filled with real concern.
Marty leaned over and gave Hope a kiss. She still smelled like baby powder, and because of that, he deliberately took another deep breath. Never before had the smell of Johnson and Johnson acted like an aphrodisiac for him.
Recovering from Hope’s scent, he answered the question.
“Yes,” was all he managed to get out.
Hope
wasn’t quite satisfied with his answer. She looked in his eyes and instinctively knew he was leaving something out. She asked him to elaborate.
The Captain stood up. “You must be starved. Let me fix you a plate, Marty. Here, sit down.” He motioned for Marty to take his place on the couch and he headed to the kitchen. When he got out of eyesight and what he hoped was earshot, Marty turned his attention to Hope. She had unfolded her legs and he lifted them up in one swoop so they were positioned over his thighs.
With the Captain out of the room, the conversation went in a completely different direction. “How is he?” Marty asked her, turning toward the doorway his father had exited through. “What do you think is going on?”
“I don’t know, Marty,” she replied.
A bowl of snacks sat on the table. She leaned over, grabbed a fistful, and popped a combination of pretzels and chips into her mouth. He was always amazed how this tiny woman could eat so much junk and never gain an ounce.
She finished chewing before she answered, her hand cupping her mouth so nothing came flying out.
“It could be nothing, he may just be stressed out and have a lot on his mind.”
“But you don’t think so?” Marty sounded fatigued as well as alarmed.
“Marty, let’s wait and see what the doctor says. I’m not a neurologist. I don’t want to make any guesses.” She shifted her position and lay back so he was within reach of rubbing her feet. She didn’t have to ask, he knew immediately what she wanted. He began to knead her toes between his fingers.
“What happened with Bethany? Is she all right?” Her concern was more than just a physician’s for her patient. Hope had become very close to Jean’s family two years ago when they had both been involved in the Madison double murder case.