I stood aside and let Jase be the one to knock and announce our presence. I’d learned pretty early on that people tended to be a lot more receptive to a federal agent than to a private eye.
The door creaked open a few seconds after Jase knocked, and a man with a blotchy, red face peered out at us.
“Can I help you?” he sniffled.
“Hi,” Jase replied calmly. “I’m Agent Park with SDCT, and this is Costa PI. Are you Ryan Rothschild?”
“That’s me.” The man nodded. His voice was thick, and he had heavy bags under his eyes as though he hadn’t slept all night. “Would you like to come in?”
“If you don’t mind,” Jase said as he stepped through the threshold of the doorway.
I followed him in and took a quick look around. It was a suit that looked more like an apartment than a hotel room. I could see a door on one end that I assumed led to the bedroom and an open archway on the other that led to a small kitchenette.
“Please, have a seat,” Ryan insisted as he directed us to the set of couches in the center of the room. “How can I help you, gentlemen? I already spoke to the police this morning and just a little while ago.”
“We just need to ask a few more questions,” Jase replied sympathetically. “I understand it’s a difficult time, but since the case is now in federal jurisdiction, we have to conduct our own investigation.”
“Federal?” Ryan gasped as he looked up at us. Something about his expression struck me as off, but I couldn’t immediately place what it was. “Why? Has something happened? Did you find out something about the person that did this?”
“Not yet.” Jase shook his head. “We just need to ask some basic questions as part of our process.”
“Oh, I see.” Ryan sighed. His face was sullen, as though he was disappointed by the news, but something about the way the tension had left his shoulders as soon as he’d heard Jase’s answer seemed to indicate something else. It was almost as though he felt relief at hearing that we didn’t have any new leads.
“So, could you start by telling us where you were last night?” Jase asked.
“I was at a party,” Ryan replied. “At the Cleo rooftop bar. I was out almost until dawn. I drank so much that I ended up falling dead asleep and didn’t even wake up until the police were knocking on my door this morning. I just can’t believe that while I was out drinking and partying, Alexis was…” he trailed off and pressed his face into his hands before letting out a long, shuddering sob.
I watched in silence as he cried, and almost started to feel bad for him until he looked back up at us, and I realized what had seemed off about his expression a few moments before.
His eyes weren’t wet.
His nose and cheeks were mottled and ruddy, and although his eyes were red and laden down with dark circles, there weren’t actually any tears in them.
“What else did you want to know?” he sniffed.
Jase opened his mouth as if to respond, but I beat him to the punch.
“Why were you getting a divorce?” I asked plainly.
Ryan’s eyes went wide as he looked at me in shock. Even Jase snapped his head to the side to toss me a confused glance.
“That’s kind of private,” Ryan muttered, the corners of his lips edging down into a frown.
“Is it?” I asked. “Because I heard it was all over the news for a while. And then there were the domestic abuse allegations.”
His face went pale at my words, and I could see his chin twitch minutely as he gritted his teeth together.
“Who told you that?” he demanded, his voice suddenly sounding far less weepy than it had just a moment ago.
“Does it matter?” I smirked. “I can’t tell by your reaction that they weren’t false. Is that why she was leaving you?”
“I don’t appreciate this line of questioning,” Ryan replied, looking over to Jase as though asking him to interfere. Jase glanced at me but stayed silent.
“I bet you don’t.” I nodded. “I bet you didn’t appreciate airing all your dirty laundry to everyone in Florda, either. That must have made you pretty mad.”
“Shut up,” Ryan growled, all traces of the pathetic, sniffling man he had been just a moment earlier gone.
“I bet you got angry a lot,” I continued to provoke him. “Is that why you hit her? Because she made you lose your temper? Were you jealous of her position? It must have hurt, having a wife who was more successful than you.”
“I said shut up,” Ryan snapped, his eyes wide and his chest heaving as he drew short, stuttering breaths.
“Then she had to go and make you look bad,” I jeered. “She humiliated you on national television, and you couldn’t take that, so you killed her.”
“I’ll kill you!” he screamed as he lunged over the coffee table at me.
I had been expecting him to lose it at some point, so I was ready when he did. I dodged to the side and avoided the initial blow. His fist collided with the couch behind me, but he recovered quickly. He turned around to try to hit me again, so I ducked down and used his own weight and momentum to flip him onto the ground as he came toward me again.
“Don’t move!” Jase yelled as he drew his gun and pointed it at Ryan. “Put your hands up. You’re under arrest for--”
“Wait,” I called out to stop him. Ryan scrambled to
