Page 44 of She Didn’t See It Coming

Lizzie remains glued to the park bench, her heart racing.

She’s so rattled that she forgets to watch Clara.

I’m Team Sam . She’s just spoken to the wife of Derek Gardner, the man who was sleeping with her sister.

Was she threatening Sam with that message?

What does she know? It unnerves her that this woman, Alice, has sought her out, that she must know, somehow, that Lizzie’s on the Facebook group.

Does she know she is posting as Emma Porter?

How could she? Had she been standing, watching, beneath Sam’s windows, waiting for her to come out?

Lizzie shudders involuntarily. She feels like she’s been exposed.

The sun moves behind a cloud, and suddenly she’s chilled.

She gets up off the bench and moves closer to where Clara is wandering around the playground.

After twenty minutes, she calls Clara to her and says it’s time to go.

She takes her hand and prepares to walk back through the media and into the condo.

They take more photos but let them pass mostly unmolested.

Someone calls out, Who were you talking to? She keeps her mouth shut.

“You weren’t gone that long,” Sam says, once they’re back inside the apartment. “Everything all right?”

“It was cold,” Lizzie answers, helping Clara remove her jacket. She suggests to Clara that she go work on her puzzle again. Once she’s gone into the other room, Lizzie tells Sam about Alice and her warning, Tell him he’s not going to get away with it. She doesn’t mention the bit about Team Sam.

“What the fuck?” he says. “How dare she approach you! We should tell the police.”

“Should we?” Lizzie asks uncertainly.

“She’s harassing us! She’s obviously afraid her husband did it. If she wasn’t worried, why would she use you to deliver that message? You have to tell the detectives.”

Lizzie’s not so sure. She’s worried that Alice might know something; she’d seemed so confident. He’s not going to get away with it.

But she would like to talk to the detectives again.

···

When Jayne is informed that Lizzie Houser is here to see her, she summons Kilgour and together they meet Lizzie and take her into an empty interview room.

Does she have something she’s decided she now wants to say?

It’s always helpful when the family surrounding a suspect starts to crumble.

But what comes next is entirely unexpected.

Lizzie says, “Alice Gardner accosted me in the park outside the condo this morning. She knew who I was. “She was…threatening.”

“How do you mean?”

“She told me she had a warning for Sam.”

“Go on,” Jayne urges.

“She told me to tell him ‘He’s not going to get away with it.’?”

“Did she say anything else?” Jayne asks.

“No.” Lizzie asks, “Don’t you think it’s suspicious? I mean, is that the way the wife of an innocent man would act?”

Jayne glances at Kilgour, beside her, wondering what he makes of it. She answers, “I don’t know what’s going through her mind.”

“Well, can you talk to her? Tell her to leave us alone?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jayne says, and rises to show her out. But Lizzie remains stubbornly seated.

“My parents and I want to know how the investigation is going,” Lizzie says. “We’re entitled to that. Bryden was my sister. My parents are going out of their minds. You must tell us if you’re making any progress.”

But Jayne won’t be telling this woman anything. Anything she tells Lizzie will make it right back to Sam. “We’re doing everything we can. We’re making progress. I can’t tell you more than that.”

Lizzie gives her a contemptuous look, one Jayne hasn’t seen from her before. Lizzie stands up. “Thanks for nothing.” On her way out the door she turns back and says, “You know, if it weren’t for me, you probably wouldn’t even have found her by now.”

“Excuse me?” Jayne says.

“I’m the one who asked you to get the cadaver dog, remember?” Then Lizzie asks, “Are you close to making an arrest?”

Jayne regards her. “As I said, we’re still conducting our investigation.”

“What about Derek Gardner?” Lizzie persists. When Jayne remains silent, she continues. “What about other people in the building? Have you found anything? Do you have any DNA from the crime scene?”

Jayne studies the younger woman curiously. “I have nothing more to say.” Once she’s gone, Jayne turns back to Kilgour and raises her eyebrows at him. “She’s pretty intense, don’t you think?”

Kilgour says, “I remember her wanting the K-9 unit. I don’t recall her suggesting a cadaver dog, in particular.”

“It’s an odd thing to say though.”

He shrugs. “She’s pissed off at us, thinks we’re not doing our jobs. It was just a parting shot.”

“She acts like she thinks she knows how to do our jobs better than we do.”

···

Donna is waiting on pins and needles when Lizzie arrives back home, anxious to hear news about her granddaughter.

She sees immediately that Lizzie is in a mood.

It’s in the way she tosses off her jacket, kicks off her shoes.

It’s in the expression on her face. She’s angry about something.

Donna’s nerves almost fail. Is Sam not going to let them see Clara anymore?

Did they have an argument? “What’s wrong? ” she asks her daughter.

Lizzie flings herself into an armchair and says, “Those detectives are useless. I stopped by the police station on the way home and they still wouldn’t tell me anything.”

Donna takes a deep breath. She knows her daughter is anxious for information, they all are, but this is how the police work. “You have to let them do their jobs,” she says.

“Are they?” Lizzie asks. “Doing their jobs? How do we even know?”

Donna says, “We have to assume they know what they’re doing.”

“Why? The world is full of incompetent people barely doing their jobs. Why should the police be any different?”

Before Donna can say anything else, Lizzie gets up and storms into her bedroom, slamming her door. Donna watches after her, worried.

Jim, who’d heard it all, comes up behind her and says, “She’s just upset. It’s a lot to deal with.”

She never even got a chance to ask her about Clara. Lizzie will calm down, Donna tells herself. She’ll ask her about Clara later.

But she’s worried about Lizzie. She seems…different. Not herself at all.