Page 19 of She Didn’t See It Coming

After interviewing Sam Frost, Jayne and Kilgour return to the condo. They know for certain now that it is a crime scene. Bryden didn’t walk away—she must have been murdered and placed in the suitcase in the apartment, and then taken down to the storeroom.

But it doesn’t look like any crime scene Jayne has been to before.

It looks as if nothing has happened here at all.

There are no bloodstains, no yellow cards laid out by the forensics team marking evidence.

Jayne watches as the technicians walk around in their white suits, dusting methodically for fingerprints, looking for hair, fibers, anything.

Jayne is very suspicious of the husband. It’s his suitcase. He has keys to the storage room. And most damning of all, he has no alibi.

···

Alice Gardner curls up in bed in a pale-pink satin slip of a nightgown.

She has brushed out her long auburn hair till it gleams. She’s studied her porcelain skin in the mirror and smiled at herself.

She’s plumped up the pillows and now she pats the ones next to her for her husband, who is changing out of his clothes, to join her.

She’s feeling amorous, and she hasn’t seen him all day.

She got in late, because she had dinner plans. “How was your day?” she asks.

He gives her a look and slides into bed beside her in nothing but his boxers. “I had a visit from a detective today. A female detective.”

“Really? Why?”

“Do you remember a few weeks ago when that woman smashed into the back of my Tesla?”

“How could I forget? You were furious.”

“Yes, well. Apparently, she’s gone missing.”

“Missing?”

“Yes. And the detective was questioning everyone who had come into contact with her for the last few weeks.”

“I think I saw something about a missing woman on the news. What a small world. Well, it’s not like you knew her.” She pauses. “You didn’t know her, did you?” She can feel her own eyes narrow, her smile falter.

“No, of course not.” He looks back at her guilelessly. “I only met her twice, you know that—the time she hit me, and then later when we met up for her to give me the money for the repairs.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” she asks.

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Was she attractive?”

“Not really.”

She pouts and grabs her phone from her nightstand. “I’m going to google it right now and see what she looks like, so I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“She was attractive, but not as attractive as you.” He kisses her.

She smiles at him, puts her phone back down. “Is she married?”

“I think so. Yes, she mentioned a husband and a child.”

“Then if she’s missing, my money’s on the husband.”

He kisses her on the mouth, and she feels his warm hand slip beneath the pink satin to caress her breast. She forgets about the missing woman.

···

Sam lets himself quietly into the hotel suite that Lizzie has arranged. He knows she’s already there. She’d texted him the information, and the detectives had provided an officer to drive him there. It’s almost ten thirty. He uses the key card and slips in the door as if he is in disgrace.

Lizzie hears him, creeps toward the door to meet him, and whispers, “How did it go?”

“Fine.” He realizes that he sounds abrupt. He doesn’t want her to think he isn’t grateful for all she’s done. “Thanks for arranging this,” he adds after a beat. “I don’t seem to be able to manage anything right now.” He rubs his hands over his face in exhaustion.

“I understand,” she says.

“I’ve got to get some sleep,” he tells her.

His nerves are shot. He’s not thinking clearly, and he needs to keep his wits about him.

That detective thinks he murdered his wife, and she’s not going to let up.

He must be careful, not give her anything she can use against him.

But he can’t tell Lizzie that. Lizzie seems to be the one who’s coping best—perhaps it’s her training as a nurse, Sam thinks; she functions well in a crisis.

He looks in on Clara, in the hotel room cot in the room that Lizzie has taken; there’s an adjoining door between them.

Clara is asleep, at least for now. She doesn’t know her mother is dead.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to tell her.

But he has to, soon. He whispers to Lizzie, “We have to tell her. Tomorrow morning. The two of us, before we go back to the condo.”

Lizzie looks back at him and nods gravely.

He makes his way to his own bed and sags down onto it, overwhelmed, trying to think.

He is afraid of what the police might discover.

···

Jayne rubs her temples wearily. She and Kilgour have stopped at a coffee shop after leaving the condo.

It’s late, and she ought to be going home.

The story of the dead woman in the suitcase will probably lead the eleven thirty news.

She’s tried to keep the information given to the press to a minimum, but the fact that the body was found in a suitcase in the basement of the condominium building has been released.

The body is now with the coroner, awaiting autopsy. She hopes forensics will come up with something useful. Perhaps they’ll find something in the apartment that wasn’t visible to the naked eye. She’s hoping they can find something on the body, the suitcase, or in the storage locker.

The finding of the body has made things less urgent.

It’s no longer a missing persons case; Bryden can’t be saved.

Jayne nurses her cup of coffee and talks it over with Kilgour, who looks as if he’s ready to go home too.

The adrenaline of a missing persons case has evaporated, and now they’re in for the long haul of a homicide investigation.

“It’s Sam Frost’s suitcase that we found her in,” Jayne says.

“He has no alibi.” She thinks it through.

“He might have driven back to the condo once he picked up his lunch. It would take less than ten minutes. We know he didn’t use his key card to gain access to the garage, but she might have buzzed him in. ”

“What’s the motive though?” Kilgour asks.

She says tiredly, “Maybe one of them was having an affair—we both got the sense that Paige was lying. We need to talk to her again, tomorrow, first thing.” She continues.

“If it was Sam, and he didn’t use his card to enter the garage, that speaks to planning.

He knows there are no cameras in the garage, or on the floors or elevators.

And he knew she was working at home that day.

He kills her in the apartment—probably smothered her, no mess—puts her in his suitcase, and takes her down and puts her in the open storage locker behind the boxes and leaves the way he came.

No cameras. Except he could have been seen.

And why use his own suitcase and leave her in a storage locker in the building?

She was certain to be discovered eventually, from the smell.

” She looks at Kilgour. “Is he just stupid?”

Kilgour says, “On the other hand, does finding her in the storage locker really make him look any more guilty than if we’d found her in his suitcase in a ditch somewhere? He might have been afraid of being seen or caught on camera dumping it, and he knew there were no cameras in the garage.”

“Maybe he’s innocent,” Jayne says wearily.

“Anyone who lived or worked in that building could have gone to her apartment, killed her, found the suitcase, dumped her in the storage locker, and returned to their own unit or even left the building.” She pushes her coffee away.

“The storage area is kept locked,” Jayne says, “so whoever it was would have needed a key. All the residents have keys. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless the storage area wasn’t locked at all. Maybe sometimes it’s left unlocked or propped open, in which case the killer wouldn’t have needed keys. I’ll talk to the manager again.”

Kilgour nods. “If that door wasn’t locked, it could have been anyone at all, somebody she might have buzzed in through the parking garage.”

Jayne says, “Ravi is adamant that no one entered the building through the main floor that didn’t belong there.

Every person on the CCTV is accounted for.

We need to have officers speak to everyone in the building again and ask them whether they saw anyone with a large suitcase yesterday.

And we need to look into Bryden’s life and find out who she might have let into the building.

” Jayne thinks quietly for a moment, then asks, “Why move the body at all?”

“Maybe to implicate the husband? By using his suitcase?”

“Perhaps a lover,” Jayne says. She looks at the other detective. “Go home. Tomorrow is another day. And it’s going to be a long one.”

···

Jayne drives home to her apartment. Michael isn’t there. They don’t live together, not yet. But perhaps soon. She calls him when she gets there, as soon as she sets down her bag.

“Hey,” she says.

“Looks like you’ve had a busy day,” Michael says.

“You can say that again.” She finds the remote and turns on the TV for the news, but keeps it muted. It’s almost eleven thirty. “We found her,” she says, her voice catching. She can let her guard down with Michael. It’s something that she needs him for, that she loves him for.

“I heard. I saw it online. Pretty awful.”

“Pretty awful,” she repeats.

“Do you want me to come over and give you a back rub?” he offers.

There’s nothing she would love more. But she really needs to sleep, and she has to be up early. “You’re the best,” she says, meaning it, “but I should go straight to bed. I’ve got an early start.”

“Okay. I love you, Jayne.”

“I love you too, Michael, more than you know.”

“Sleep well.”

She kisses into the phone and disconnects. She’s lucky to have Michael in her corner. Hers is the kind of job that sucks your belief in the goodness of people right out of you. She changes into her pajamas and goes into the living room. The news is about to come on and she turns up the volume.

And there it is, the photograph of Bryden Frost filling her television screen. The details are sketchy, just that her body had been found in a suitcase in the basement of the building where she lived. There is mention of the husband, Sam Frost, being taken in for questioning and released.

As she climbs into bed, she wonders what they will uncover in the coming days. Maybe the news coverage will shake some skeletons out of the closet. Maybe someone saw somebody with that suitcase.