Page 27 of She Didn’t See It Coming

Jayne decides to speak to Bryden Frost’s doctor.

They’d found her contact information in Bryden’s phone.

Kilgour drives them to the medical practice in midtown.

When they arrive, Jayne identifies herself quietly to the harried receptionist at the front desk and asks to speak to Dr. Bonnie Sheppard. The waiting room is full.

“I’ll tell her you’re here. It shouldn’t be long,” the woman says.

A few minutes later, Jayne and Kilgour are escorted into an examining room, and then a couple of minutes after that, the door is opened by a woman in her forties, her hair tied back in a neat ponytail. She looks rather exhausted.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Sheppard,” she says.

“I’m Detective Jayne Salter and this is Detective Kilgour,” Jayne says. “You had a patient by the name of Bryden Frost?”

A shadow falls over the other woman’s face. “Yes, I was her family physician.” She adds, “I had been her doctor for several years “It’s terrible what happened to her.”

“We’re trying to find out more about her. Did you have any—concerns about her?”

The doctor sighs unhappily and admits, “Yes.” She pauses.

“Normally, patient confidentiality would prevent me from disclosing patient information, but it’s different now that she’s dead.

In New York, as doctors, in the case of suspected spousal abuse, we are advised to direct a patient toward all sorts of resources.

We don’t have a duty to report except in the case of child abuse. And in this case, Bryden denied it.”

“She was being abused?” Jayne asks.

“I can’t be certain, but I believe so.” She takes a breath. “She came in with a cracked rib.”

“When was that?” Jayne asks.

“About a month ago,” the doctor replies.

“She’d tried to ignore it, but the pain from a cracked rib is significant.

She ended up coming to me for some painkillers.

She said she’d fallen on some stairs. But her injuries didn’t look consistent with that explanation to me.

I told her it looked to me more like she’d been kicked in the ribs.

We’ve had a pretty good relationship over the years, so I asked her point-blank if her husband was hurting her. ” She pauses.

“And?” Jayne prods.

The doctor sighs, resigned. “And she denied it. Like they so often do, at least in the beginning. I tried to give her pamphlets with organizations she could call, told her she was a smart, strong woman with a little girl, told her she had options, but she got defensive and left pretty quickly. I never saw her again.” She looks back at Jayne, her eyes full of regret. “Of course, I can’t be sure.”

“Thank you, Dr. Sheppard. You’ve been very helpful.”

“It’s so awful. Her poor child.”

Jayne thanks the doctor again as she walks them out.

···

Sam helps Clara do up her little pink jacket before grabbing his own coat while Paige puts hers on. They are taking Clara to the park.

Everyone seems to agree that Clara shouldn’t be parked in front of the television all day, but no one seems to have the energy to give her the attention she needs. Even Lizzie seems tired now, Sam thinks.

As if reading his thoughts, Lizzie says to him quietly, as they’re about to leave, “I think maybe tomorrow Clara should go back to day care. Maybe going back to her routine will be good for her.”

Clara had been kept home today because it seemed inappropriate to take her the day after her mother was found dead. And they were afraid of what she might overhear.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Sam agrees.

He’s Clara’s father, he knows he should be more proactive.

Lizzie seemed so natural taking over as caregiver, but that can’t go on forever.

At some point he must step up. He must do all the parenting now without Bryden.

But the thought of that is overwhelming.

Sam can’t wait to get out of the apartment. There’s something Paige wants to tell him, and she didn’t want to tell him inside. What the hell is it? It’s making him nervous. He’s not sure he wants to hear it. At the park, they will be able to talk freely, while Clara runs around out of earshot.

The tension between them is thick as they ride down in the elevator. Mercifully, the elevator doesn’t stop for anyone else to get on. Once outside, they make it past the clutch of media who mostly leave them alone, probably because they have Clara with them.

The park is right across the street from the condo.

It has a playground with climbing apparatus, swings, slides, and seesaws.

There are only a couple of women there, mothers or nannies with young children.

Sam and Paige ignore them. It all looks so innocent, from another time, Sam thinks.

He and Bryden used to bring Clara here together on weekend mornings, coffees in their hands.

Now, he and Paige coax Clara forward, and she ambles toward the sandbox on her own while they stand on the adult perimeter, Sam waiting for Paige to say something. But she seems reluctant to speak.

“Well?” Sam says at last, turning to her, with half an eye still on his daughter as she plays with the toys littered in the sandbox. “What do you have to tell me?”

He watches Paige’s eyes slide away from his.

“This is going to be hard, but I think you should know,” Paige says. “The police know and they’re going to tell you at some point.”

“Know what, for Christ’s sake?”

She looks at him now and says reluctantly, “Bryden was having an affair.”

“What?” He feels his body turn cold.

“I’m sorry,” Paige says earnestly.

He turns away and watches Clara using a yellow bucket to make a sandcastle. He doesn’t know what to say. What should he say? Finally, he manages, “How do you know?”

“She told me.”

“When?”

“About three weeks ago.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?”

“She was my best friend, Sam!” She adds, “I knew you’d be upset.”

“Of course I’m upset! For fuck’s sake, Paige!” He reminds himself to lower his voice. He asks, after a long beat, “Who was it?”

“It was that guy she hit in the Tesla.”

He turns to face her now. “Seriously?” He feels himself clenching his jaw. “How do the police know? Did you tell them?”

She nods miserably, her eyes watching Clara. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. They kept pushing me and pushing me, and I didn’t want to tell them about us.” She adds, “I—I thought it would deflect them.”

He’s very upset now and doesn’t bother to hide it. He hisses, “But now they’ll think I had a motive to kill her. They’ll think I knew she was having an affair. Did you think of that?”

“I told them you didn’t know about it.”

“They won’t believe that, Paige!”

She moves closer to him and waits for him to focus on her, his gaze furious. “If I’d told them about us, they’d think you had a motive too,” she says defensively.

In the silence that follows, Sam turns to watch his daughter play by herself in the sand.

His mind is racing. Now they will have another suspect, Bryden’s lover.

He lets out a long exhale. But they will be looking more closely at him, too, and Paige could hurt him.

He realizes he will have to be careful with her.

Sleeping with his wife’s best friend has been a mistake. A terrible mistake.