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“And Mr. Titan worked here too?”
I shook my head. “He did, but was let go after an incident in the workplace.”
“What incident?”
“It was an internal matter.”
I wasn’t about to drag Lulu into this. She’d put up with Mark’s lewd comments and gestures for weeks before bringing them to my attention. My secretary didn’t need the cops digging into her life.
I’d seen all too often what the law did when a woman accused a man of that sort of thing. She’d be labeled a liar or a slut or told that something she’d done had brought it on herself. It wouldn’t matter that I’d had strict harassment policies set up from moment one. It’d take one word from Mark, and they’d think Lulu killed Heidi out of jealousy.
When it became clear that I wasn’t going to give him anything else, he moved on, clearly annoyed. “Do you know where Mrs. Titan is?”
“No.”
“Mr. Titan believes that you do.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I answered honestly. “Mark thinks his wife and I were having an affair.”
“Were you?”
“No.” I rubbed my thumb on my wedding band. “I’m married.”
“Happily?”
I gave the cop a tight smile. “Not at the moment, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been having an affair.”
“It doesn’t mean you weren’t.”
“True. But I wasn’t sleeping with Heidi. I’ve never slept with her or kissed her or flirted with her or did anything that wasn’t completely professional.”
“But your wife believes that the accusations are true.”
I sighed. “Unfortunately, yes, she does.”
“Would Mrs. Holden have confronted Mrs. Titan about the rumors?”
I was beginning to wonder why they hadn’t just asked me to come down to the station. Despite the initial pretense of letting me know that Heidi was missing, it was clear this was an interrogation. Maybe they thought if they asked questions here, I’d be less likely to ask for a lawyer.
“I don’t believe so,” I said. “Rachel yells when she gets mad, and she can get intense, but she’s not a violent person. Besides, I don’t know how much sheactuallybelieves it, anyway.”
I considered telling him that she’d been accusing me of having an affair with a woman from church before the incident with Mark and then realized that would probably only make me look more suspicious.
“Do you and your wife have a prenuptial agreement?”
I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that he was just doing his job. “We do. Most couples like us do.”
“You mean couples where the man’s on his second marriage and has a lot of money that he doesn’t want his wife to get if he decides to go for wife number three?”
I leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “If you’d done your research properly, you’d know that I didn’t divorce my first wife or cheat on her. She died.”
Color flooded his face, and I felt better knowing it was inexperience or ignorance rather than cruelty or manipulation that had prompted his line of questions.
“I’m sorry.”
I turned off my computer and stood up. “You’re welcome to read the agreement if that will convince you that I would’ve had no motive to make Heidi disappear even if we had been having an affair. Which we weren’t.”
“We have to ask.”