“On creating the perfect scene?”
“On getting out of that relationship. Are you telling me you would still want to be together with her?”
Zachary shook his head, but more in confusion than denial. He still loved Bridget, no matter how badly she had treated him. He would have gone back to her if he had thought there were any hope of reconciliation, but there simply wasn’t. She was lost to him forever.
“Were you actually married? Or just dating or living together?”
“We were married,” he admitted.
“I thought so. That kind of anger doesn’t come from just dating. It had to be marriage.”
“I don’t know what you must think of me. If you want, I can just pay for this now, and we can get out of here…”
“No need for that. I’m perfectly fine where I am. She’s gone away, so you can relax. I don’t think she’ll be coming back. In fact, I don’t know if she’ll ever be coming back here again. It’s always going to remind her of you and how she made a fool of herself now.”
“That won’t stop her.” It wasn’t their first scene. It wouldn’t be their last. Sooner or later, one of them was going to have to leave town. The only way Zachary was leaving town permanently was in a coffin.
“Relax. Honestly, I’m fine. It was all very entertaining. Tell me all about her and what a witch she is.”
“She was the love of my life,” Zachary said hopelessly. “We were once so happy. I don’t even know where to start. We lived and breathed for each other, but over time… things happened. Feelings were hurt. We had to weather some storms that… most marriages just don’t survive. Ours didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” She lowered the eyes that had been dancing with amusement just a moment before. “Here I am making light of something that was really tragic to you. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
“You didn’t. There’s not much that could make me feel worse than that. When I think about how much in love we used to be, and how it could turn into that…”
“She’s jealous.”
“What? She’s not jealous. She’s angry. She thinks that I… we disagreed on a very important subject… and I think she blames me for what happened to her. She’s not jealous of me. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I beg to differ.” Kenzie reached across the table and put her warm, smooth fingers over his. “I saw her face. She was shocked to see you here, but she didn’t get really angry until she saw me.”
“She can’t be jealous. She hates me.”
“No, she doesn’t. She’s angry with you, but she doesn’t hate you.”
Zachary shook his head. “You only saw her for a few seconds. I’ve lived with her. I’m the one who has had to live through this disastrous divorce. I know.”
“Okay. You know. Let me just say that she has no right to treat you that way, and I’m sorry you had to put up with that crap. You deserve better.”
Zachary shook his head. If Kenzie knew all about everything, he was sure she wouldn’t say that.
“Don’t let her get to you,” Kenzie advised.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go across the street for dessert. They have these fantastic, chocolate-mousse-filled croissants. They are just to die for. I don’t think I can eat a whole one myself, so even if you’re not in the mood to eat the rest of your sandwich, you still have to help me with dessert.”
Zachary couldn’t help but smile at this. Chocolate-mousse-filled croissants sounded like a pretty good solution to his troubles.
Zachary’s next step was to develop a map of the area surrounding Isabella’s house. The police had done plenty of sketches of the crime scene and the route from the back yard to the pond, but Zachary had something different in mind.
He started with the list of sex offenders that the police had identified and spoken to and pinned each address on a digital map. Then he went to a few other sites to track down houses that had been reported as marijuana growing operations, where violent crimes had been committed, or which had been condemned by the Board of Health. The pins on the map became thicker. Zachary knew that any other neighborhood would look the same. No one could escape all the sickos.
Once he had his map finished, he would take a drive around the neighborhood, checking out each of the houses in question. Chances were, everything would be quiet, and nothing would seem off. But maybe… maybe someone would object to his surveillance, or a face would be familiar, or someone would act in a way that identified them as a suspect. The police should already have visited most of the houses, just as they had the sex offenders, but there were no notes on the file he had reviewed saying that they had. It was always possible that he would turn up something more.
Checking out all the pinned locations on his map had turned out to be an all-day affair. Zachary had only expected it to take a couple of hours, but he had obviously made his canvassing area too big. He had gone according to the area the police had used for the sex offender canvass, but they had plenty of cops to run them down, and Zachary had only his two feet. At least he didn’t need to interview everyone, just to snoop around.
He did end up talking to a few people when he was confronted by homeowners or neighbors who didn’t like him sneaking around, but mostly his reconnaissance was ignored. People who wanted to know what he was doing backed off pretty quickly when he explained he was investigating Declan Bond’s death. Most of them.
He was footsore and spirit-weary when he got back to his apartment at the end of the day. Second-guessing why he was still investigating the case. Everything pointed toward
