‘OK,’ I say, surprised. Maybe I spoke too soon. ‘When?’
‘Now?’ Nate says. ‘Or later this afternoon? Whenever is convenient.’
‘Um, OK,’ I say, thinking of June and calculating how long we’ll be away from her. ‘We should be able to come now.’
‘Just you,’ Nate says quickly. ‘Robert doesn’t need to be there.’
I’m about to ask why when a nurse enters with my medication and before I know it Nate’s walking out the door, telling me that he’ll see me shortly for our interview.
‘Interview?’ Laurie says, bewildered. ‘Hasn’t he interviewed you already?’
‘Yes,’ I murmur, taking the bag of prescription painkillers from the nurse.
‘I wonder what he wants?’ Laurie asks.
‘God knows.’
Chapter 15
‘Ava?’
Looking at Nate now, I find it hard to reconcile him with the swaggering ex-football player I used to know. On paper Nate and I were complete opposites. I had a 4.0 grade point average, a scholarship to college, a firmly middle-class upbringing and had never drunk, smoked or dated. Nate, who lived with his single mom, had never had a grade higher than a C, had read only about three books in his life, lived to play football, and had dated a dozen girls before me. Yet the attraction was so intense between us the differences didn’t matter, at least at first. When a knee injury took away any college scholarship ideas he might have entertained, though, Nate had gone into a spiral. He drank and partied his way through the final semester of school and by the time I left for college he was working construction jobs and I was relieved as hell to be getting away from him.
‘Ava, do you recognize any of these items?’ he presses me.
I startle, and it takes me a few seconds to come back to the present. He’s laid out a dozen plastic bags on a table, each sealed and tagged with an evidence label. I peer closer.
‘Yes,’ I say, pointing at the diamond bracelet and a pair of earrings – the chandelier pair. ‘Those are mine.’ I look up at Nate. ‘Where did you find them?’
‘Is there anything else?’ Nate asks, avoiding my question.
I scan the table, peering closer at all the items. ‘Yes, that’s my grandmother’s engagement ring,’ I say, pointing at an art deco diamond ring. ‘But I lost that about a month ago.’ I look up at Nate. ‘I don’t understand. Where did you find all of this?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, Ava,’ Nate says softly. ‘It’s an ongoing investigation. I’ll need to ask you to sign an affidavit that these items belong to you, and we’re going to have to keep it all for evidence for the time being. You won’t get any of it back until after the trial.’
‘Trial?’ I ask, stunned. ‘Does that mean you have a suspect?’
‘I mean in case we get to trial,’ Nate says quickly, gathering all the bags and dropping them into a plastic crate.
I study him. What isn’t he telling me? Why’s he avoiding my eye? And why can’t he tell me where he found my things? Surely I have a right to know? Nate leads me out of the room and then, to my surprise, into a small room next door with a bolted-down table in the middle and two scarred plastic chairs. He gestures for me to take a seat. I glance around. There’s a mirror on one wall, which is clearly two-way. My blood runs cold. This is an interrogation room. Why am I in an interrogation room?
‘I just need to ask you a few follow-up questions,’ Nate says, sitting down and pulling out his battered notebook.
I frown, and he must see the expression on my face because he smiles at me as though to reassure me. ‘Nothing to be concerned about,’ he says lightly. ‘I just need to check some things from the witness statement you gave after the incident.’
‘OK,’ I say, slowly lowering myself into the seat opposite him. My pulse starts to skitter and my lips are suddenly so dry that I reach for the jug of water on the table. My hand shakes when I pour it and I spill some.
Nate looks up from his paperwork. ‘You said that when you got home you set the alarm on the back door.’
‘Yes,’ I say, taking a sip of water.
‘And your husband told us he disarmed it later when he put out the trash.’
I nod.
‘Was that something he normally did?’
‘What? Disarm the alarm?’
‘No. Put out the trash.’
‘When I nagged him enough.’
Nate smirks. ‘I hear that. I think my wife used that when she filed for divorce as evidence of my unreasonable behavior. He never put out the trash.’
I smile, but distractedly. Why is he asking questions about Robert? And why did he ask me to come alone?
‘And did you always set the alarm at night?’ Nate asks next.
‘Well, no. But recently people have been posting on the local Facebook community page about car break-ins on our road, especially near the trailhead, and we’re not far from there, so we figured better safe than sorry.’
Nate nods thoughtfully and writes something down, then he flips back through his notes until he finds what he’s looking for. I wish I could read his mind, know what suspicions he has. ‘And I just wanted to check – you mentioned you hit one of the intruders with a wooden chopping board and that you used a carving knife to stab him.’
I nod.
‘We haven’t been able to locate either of the items in your house.’
‘Oh,’ I say, bewildered. ‘What do you think happened to them?’
Nate shrugs, studying me like he thinks maybe I had something to do with their disappearance. Or am I being paranoid? ‘Likely guess is that they took them, knowing that otherwise they risked leaving DNA evidence we could use to trace them. If that’s the case, they’re smart.’
‘What about blood?’ I ask. ‘Did they find any traces of blood? I hit him. I stabbed him. There must have been blood on the floor. Can’t they try
