Stephanie Doyle - Suspect Lover

Caroline snorted. “I’m not the sort of person who falls in love at first sight. Too cowardly to ever take a risk like that. But there was something about him. I don’t know. When I saw his picture for the first time, I thought he looked lonely. Don’t tell him I said that. I think he would hate it. I stared at the photo for hours. I had this idea that I could be good for him.”

“You will be. When all this is straightened out. Dominic needs someone. He’s always needed someone. He certainly wouldn’t let it be me…” Nora stopped. “Oh, I didn’t mean… We weren’t an item or anything we just worked together.”

“I know you’re his sister,” Caroline said.

“Wow. He told you.” Nora felt a rush of something swamp her. She always understood why he’d wanted to keep their secret. He needed to guard the links to his past. He gave her a job, a life really, so she couldn’t begrudge him it. But keeping the secret had made her feel marginal to him. Nora doubted he had a choice in telling Caroline, but still she felt connected to him now. More than she ever had before.

“So I guess this means we’re like sisters.”

Slowly they turned toward each other. “I never had a sister,” Caroline whispered, her eyes watering.

“Me, neither,” Nora concurred feeling choked up herself. “Maybe we can go shopping together. For shoes or something.”

“I would like that.”

“Okay, then. It’s a date.” Nora smiled. “You know, right after we prove Dominic’s innocence.”

Suddenly the good feelings were gone as the enormity of the situation reasserted itself.

“He can’t go to jail,” Caroline muttered. Nora reached out and took her hand. “He can’t.”

Dominic sat in a hard metal chair in the interrogation room. The room was spartan. Two chairs, one table and the standard two-way mirror. There were no windows.

He knew he was being made to wait to increase his feelings of isolation and fear, and already the claustrophobia was creeping up on him. He fought it off. He couldn’t be afraid for himself. Not any longer.

Only Caroline occupied his thoughts. If he couldn’t fix this, if he couldn’t prove Steven had killed Denny, then his only choices were to run or go to jail. Either way, Caroline would suffer.

Because she loved him. Whether she wanted to or not.

That fact sure as hell bothered him more than any small room.

The door opened and the detective who had introduced himself as Mark Hernandez entered.

“How are you holding up?” Hernandez asked.

Good cop, Dominic identified immediately. “How do you think I’m holding up?”

“You need anything to drink?”

“No.”

“You kill Denny Haskell?”

Dominic stared at the detective. “No.”

“Who did?”

“You’re the detective, you tell me.”

“I think you did it.”

Dominic met the man’s eyes again. “No, you don’t.”

Mark pulled the empty chair away from the table, the sound of the metal skidding along the floor echoed. He straddled it and folded his arms against the back. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t.”

“I sent an e-mail…”

“I know all about the e-mail to Nora. That means jack in my book. She’s a computer whiz and she’s doing everything to convince me that you’re innocent. Do you know about your secretary?”

Dominic’s brow furrowed. “Serena? What about her?”

“She’s dead.”

The news was too sudden, told too quickly, without enough preparation. Dominic sucked air into his lungs and tried to wrap his mind around the idea of what that actually meant. Serena dead. Serena. Dead.

“Who? How?”

“Well, conventional wisdom around this place says it happened like this. You were stealing money from your own company. Haskell found out about it and confronted you, so you sneaked out of your office. You followed him in your Mercedes, pushed him off the cliff, dumped the car somewhere, then snuck back into your own office so the cameras could tag you leaving in the morning. But then you got nervous, decided to take some ready cash out of the bank and went into hiding. After a time, you realized that your secretary might also be aware of or have proof of your embezzlement scheme so you offed her, too. It was another car accident and there were more paint chips from the same Mercedes.”

“Why would I steal money from a profitable company I owned?”

“I’m supposed to be asking the questions.”

“You haven’t asked me anything yet,” Dominic pointed out.

“I’m getting to it,” Mark snapped. “You know I’m starting to see a resemblance between you and that sister of yours.”

Dominic’s brow lifted.

“Yeah, I know about that, too. I know about your record. I know about your father. And I know what you did for Nora.”

There was nothing to say, so Dominic remained silent.

“Were you planning to embezzle two million dollars but got caught before you could?”

“No.”

“When did you discover the books had been altered?”

“That night. When I saw that the figures had been changed, I thought it was a mistake. Or a joke. I didn’t know what the hell it was. After Steven called me, I quickly understood that I was being set up. Because of my past I couldn’t take the chance that anyone, especially the police, would believe me. I ran.”

“Tell me about this program you needed to come back here to get your hands on. The one you told Nora about.”

“It’s very dangerous. In the wrong hands it could mean disaster.”

“You think Denny was killed because of it.”

“It’s the only explanation,” Dominic answered. “He told somebody about it. I know that much. I think he was killed to stop him from telling anyone else.”

Mark shook his head. “Haskell’s killing wasn’t spur of the moment. The financial statements were changed before Denny was killed. Whoever did this had a plan. Two birds. One stone.”

And now Dominic knew that Serena had been involved in that setup. She would have had access to his files. She could have replaced the real statements with the doctored ones. It hurt him to know that she had betrayed him, almost as much as the news of her death.

“I bet you think that person is Steven Ford,” Mark suggested.

“Yes,” Dominic said tightly, the word sticking like a chicken bone in his throat.

“Why?”

“A third of the company wasn’t enough for him. He must have wanted it all. I would never have approved the development of Denny’s program. Never. If he knew that and wanted to get me and Denny out of the picture, this was the way to do it. Two birds. One stone. His company.”

Hernandez stood. “I’m going to go call Steven. Bring him down here for questioning. In the meantime, I’m putting you in a holding cell. You can call a lawyer.”

“I don’t need a lawyer yet.”

“Fine. But you’ll sit tight until I hear what Ford has to say about this. That’s the way it’s got to be.”

Dominic nodded.

“When your wife finds out I’m not ready to let you go, she’s going to hit me again, isn’t she?”

For the first time in a long time Dominic felt his lips twitching into a smile. “Yes, she probably is.”

The detective headed for the door, then stopped. “As far as you know did Denny have a girlfriend?”

“A girlfriend? No. You have to know Denny. He wasn’t very socially adept.” Dominic stared at his hands and then a memory came to him. “Wait. Caroline said something to me. When we were arguing about something else. She said there was office talk about Denny having a crush on someone. I didn’t believe it. Figured it was just gossip.”

Hernandez’s eyes drifted off, and Dominic felt as if he were putting something together.