Heart of Ice

Emily wanted to abuse the woman herself just then. She could barely keep her cool. “How, Tricia, how did he abuse you?”

Tricia swiveled in her chair again. “He was cheap. He never let me have a dime. He was, I swear to God, the biggest control freak this world has ever known. Everything had to be done his way. I just wanted to buy myself some new furniture. We had the money. But he said, no, no, no.”

“So you started to bleed the dealership.”

“I saw a lawyer so I know that the statute of limitations has run out on that, so yes. Yes, I did. I’m not sorry about it, either.”

Emily pushed herself back from the conference table and stood.

“Don’t you know what you’ve done?” Her voice was loud and she didn’t care. “Mandy Crawford was murdered. Mitch Crawford was arrested, in part, because of your fabricated statements. You’ve not only embarrassed me, but you’ve shamed yourself in the name of women who have been abused.”

“He was a jerk.”

“So get a divorce. A husband who doesn’t let you have new furniture is a lout, not an abuser!”

“You try living with a control freak.”

Emily let the words “been there, done that” play only in her mind. Her ex-husband had been a jerk, but she’d never give Tricia Wilson the satisfaction of knowing that they shared something in common.

“I’m done with you. Go back to your phones and think of Mandy Crawford and her baby and how you’ve single-handedly screwed up a double murder investigation.”

With that, Emily departed for the lobby, and made her way past the smokers’ tarp for her car.

Fatima pressed the mute button on the Rainier conference room to the OFF position. She looked down at the Cherrystone sheriff’s business card and scooted it under her telephone console.

Chapter Forty-nine

No matter what the other parts of the country were going through in terms of economic growth and recession, the Puget Sound region seemed bulletproof. Expensive developments with chichi names popped up in places that ten years before had been the modest homes of factory workers. Underperforming strip malls were dozed in favor of restaurants, movie theaters, and big-box electronic stores. Emily, still fuming over the stupidity of a woman like Tricia Wilson, drove north on 405 toward Interstate 90, then across the floating bridge to Mercer Island. As she drove, she fumbled in her purse for the MapQuest directions she’d printed out before she left Cherrystone.

It was for 4545 Lake View Terrace, which was David’s address. She felt silly for doing a drive-by to her ex- husband’s new digs, but curiosity had gotten the best of her. Jenna told her mother that the house on the water “wasn’t all that great.” But something in her daughter’s voice indicated a white lie.

It wasn’t that Emily was jealous of David’s success or his new life with Dani and their child. It just seemed that after he’d left her, he simply went on to a new life. She didn’t. She stayed where she was, mentally, emotionally, and romantically. She’d dated a few times. She hated revisiting that time of her life. She’d found love with Christopher Collier, or at least she allowed herself to entertain the thought. But not a new life. Jenna had graduated from college and was working toward her own future.

But not Emily. For some reason, Emily didn’t seem to know how to move herself forward.

She made a sharp left, then a right, and followed the road that looped around the island.

At least his view isn’t of Seattle, but of Bellevue, she thought, as she tried to rack up whatever consolation she could.

Lake View Terrace met the main road and dropped down an incline to the water.

“Dad says to add a million to each house the closer you get to the shore,” Jenna had said when she was first describing the new house. “I’d rather have a house with horses and a view of the mountain than that silly lake. Too cold to swim in, anyway.”

Emily drove down toward the water. The last house, 4545, was gated. She pulled up to the gate. The house was a monster. It had to be five thousand square feet. It was all arches and porticos, as though every Italian architectural gewgaw had been thrown into a blender and poured onto the foundation.

A deep purple 700-series BMW was parked out front on the smallish circular drive. Smallish, Emily figured, because the house had taken up most of the lot. She squinted her eyes to make out the license plate.

The plate read: HOTDOC33

Oh, David, she thought. What has Dani done to you?

“I thought I saw you on the video cam.” It was David, emerging from the front door. Emily wanted to die just then. “So now you’re a stalker, huh, Em?”

She’d been caught. There was no way out of it. No way out of her stupidity for driving by. She wondered if she’d been like one of those criminals who wanted to get caught, for some repressed reason.

“I just wanted to see where our daughter’s education fund ended up,” she said, feeling bitterness take over embarrassment.

“I see.” David’s eyes were cold, unfeeling. He stood on the other side of the wrought iron gate with his arms folded. “Maybe you’d like to come inside and see what you’re missing?”

The things she hated about him started flooding back. “I’m not missing anything.”

“Really? Then why’d you come?”

“Curiosity. I wanted to see what misplaced values and too much money gets these days.”

“Maybe you should just move on, Emily.”

“Oh, I have, David. I have.”

She got into her car, pressed the accelerator and drove off to see Chris at his condo in Seattle. She’d called him earlier in the day to say she might come by, but she didn’t know when. After playing stalker on her ex—and having her case crumble—she could use the love of the man she adored.

Chris swung open the door to his twentieth-floor unit and without missing a beat, put his arms around Emily. The look on his face was surprise.

“Why didn’t you buzz me?” he asked.

Emily managed a smile, though not a convincing one. “A woman downstairs let me in. I must look like I live here.”

Chris hugged her again. “You look upset. What is it?”

“What isn’t it? My case is imploding. My life is a mess.”

He led her to the living room where the windows framed a magnificent view of a ferry pulling in to the pier.

“Maybe I can help with both.”

“Maybe,” she said, stopping herself as her gaze landed on the coffee table. Fanned out on the table were five business cards from various real estate agents.

He followed her eyes to the business cards.

“Yup, I’ve listed the place.”

“I see that.”

“I had some brokers come over, you know, give me the song and dance about how much dough they can bring in versus the other guy. I just did the listing agreement about an hour ago.”

“I don’t know what to say or what it means for us, Chris.”

“There’s time to figure that out. The market’s slow.” He laughed and stretched out his long legs. He wore