“Your relationship with the victim.”
“Friends,” Cassie said hesitantly. She worried they would know it was a lie. Trish might already have told them that Cassie was a stranger who had never met the family before.
Parker stared at her and the silence grew uncomfortable.
“Are you sure about that?”
Cassie nodded. She felt anxious about where this was all heading. Ryan’s untimely death had blown all her secrets into the open. Now she was caught up in the investigation and if this line of questioning continued, Trish would find out what she and Ryan had done.
“Cassandra Vale.” Parker’s voice was hard and uncompromising. His gaze pinned her.
“Your statement today will form part of the official investigation into this death. Perjury is a crime, as is defeating the ends of justice.”
He reached into one of the brown envelopes on the table and brought out an evidence bag.
Cassie caught her breath in horror as she saw it contained the first pregnancy test she’d taken; the one that she’d messed up by dropping into the toilet bowl.
“We discovered this while searching the house, and Mrs. Ellis has confirmed it is not hers.”
How had they discovered it? Cassie was sure she’d thrown it away carefully. Had Dylan put it somewhere? Had Trish suspected something and gone searching for it? At any rate, here it was, out in the open—together with her secrets.
With a twist of her stomach, she remembered that the children knew. Madison had seen Cassie kissing Ryan and knew she hadn’t slept in her own room. Dylan had seen her on the way to Ryan’s bedroom, wrapped in his robe. She wouldn’t have a chance if she continued to deny.
“We slept together a couple of times,” she whispered, as her eyes filled with tears.
She felt like a whore, confessing this in the family’s home, with Ryan’s bereaved wife and children waiting down the hall.
“Please understand, I had no idea he was married. He told me he was divorced. I only found out the truth when his wife came back from a business trip overseas.”
The detectives exchanged another glance.
Cassie was starting to realize there was more to this. The way that Parker had called Ryan “the victim”—even the way that Trish had looked at her so fearfully earlier, and how she’d demanded that Cassie should not be left alone with the children.
Bruton nodded at Parker, who stood up.
“Give us your passport, please.”
Cassie walked with the policeman to her bedroom and took it out of her purse.
He took the passport and they all went back to the kitchen.
Cassie dreaded that they were going to seize the passport. She’d been questioned by the police at her last job, after the suspicious death at the chateau, and they had ended up taking her passport away. She remembered the trauma of feeling trapped, unable to get away, a prisoner in the house.
Cassie feared this was going to happen again.
In fact, what they did next was even worse.
The policeman took out a tape recorder and spoke briefly into it, giving the date and quoting a reference number and some other information that she couldn’t make out.
Then Parker turned to her.
“Cassandra Vale, we are arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Ryan Ellis. You do not have to say anything at this time, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something on which you later rely in court.”
He continued to read Cassie her rights, but she couldn’t hear him.
All she could hear was the panicked thoughts inside her own head.
They thought Ryan had been murdered, and suspected she had done it.
Given that she’d admitted she’d had an affair with him, and that he’d lied to her, Cassie realized she’d unwittingly given the police exactly what they wanted—a cast-iron motive for his murder.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Cassie stared at the two officers in terror. Bruton looked stolidly professional but Parker seemed pleased, as if he was inwardly satisfied that this was happening.
“No!” she said loudly. When they didn’t respond she tried again.
“No!” She screamed the word. “You can’t do this. You have no right to arrest me. I’m innocent. You’re framing me, this is a conspiracy. I refuse to allow this to happen. Get me a lawyer. Now!”
Parker grabbed her arms and forced them behind her back. She struggled with him, feeling as if she was fighting for her life, not just her freedom. This was a nightmare she had to escape from. It couldn’t be happening, it wasn’t real.
“This way, please, ma’am.”
Shrieking at the top of her voice, straining against the tight embrace of the handcuffs, Cassie found herself half-carried, half-marched to the waiting police car.
It was only when they turned her around to force her into the car, in a practiced and efficient way, that she saw Trish and the children were standing at the front door, watching her go.
Cassie was appalled that this would be the children’s last sight of her, the last impression they would have. Her hands restrained, being manhandled into the vehicle like a criminal. For a crime she didn’t commit.
“I’m innocent,” she called to them, sobbing out the words. “I’m being framed. Please help me!”
She hoped they might run to the car and intervene, but they simply stood, watching, and she realized that Trish must believe completely in her guilt
Cassie had never felt so helpless and alone.
*
The drive to the local precinct took only a few minutes but to Cassie, it felt like eternity. She was crushed by fear. These were no trumped-up charges; this was the British police system that operated like a well-oiled machine. If they had arrested her, it was because they knew they had a watertight case. She regretted struggling when they’d taken her away. Overcome by panic, she’d fought them instinctively, but it could only have cemented her guilt in their eyes.
When they arrived, the police helped her out of the car and escorted her into the police station. There, finally, they removed her handcuffs and released her aching arms.
She
