Page 47 of She Didn’t See It Coming

Jayne is in the incident room late in the afternoon when a call comes in—an officer, acting on a tip, thinks he’s found Bryden’s missing clothes. Jayne and Kilgour quickly climb into a car.

They arrive at a low-rise apartment building on Larch Street and drive around back, as instructed.

Jayne sees two uniformed officers standing over a pile of trash that is spilling out of a small dumpster.

They’re both wearing gloves as if they’ve been picking through it.

Kilgour parks the car and one of the officers approaches them as they get out.

“Might be what we’re looking for,” he says, and signals them to follow him.

Jayne looks down at a clear plastic bag containing what looks like a gray sweatshirt and a pair of black yoga pants, and her heart quickens. “How did you find them?”

“The janitor here called it in.”

“Great. Give him my thanks, will you? I’ll get the forensics team over here. They could be hers. With any luck, that’s the plastic bag used to kill her.”

···

Angela brings Clara back home and Paige stays with Sam and Clara in the condo until early evening. They order in a pizza—the delivery man trying to get a glimpse inside the infamous apartment, but Sam doesn’t let him.

After they’ve eaten, Paige knows she ought to leave. She feels at home here, and her apartment is lonely, but she must go. As long as Sam is under suspicion, better that they keep some distance.

Paige is about to get up to leave when Sam gets a call on his cell. He immediately seems apprehensive. He ends the short call and tells her that they want him back at the station.

“Why?” she asks anxiously.

“I don’t know.”

She offers to stay with Clara while he’s gone. And then she waits.

···

“We have some news,” Jayne says, looking at Sam.

They are back in the interview room, and Sam’s attorney, Laura Szabo, is present with her and Kilgour.

She’s brought Sam back in because she is eager to know if Sam can ID the clothes as Bryden’s.

And because she wants to see his reaction to the fact that they’ve found them.

“We think we’ve found Bryden’s missing clothing.

The clothing that she was wearing the day she was murdered,” Jayne says, watching him closely.

“Where?” Sam manages to say.

She ignores his question. She opens a file on the table in front of her and pulls out a couple of large photographs. She shows them to Sam. “Do these look like what Bryden was wearing that day?”

She watches Sam’s face as he looks at the photographs. One shows some black and gray clothing crumpled up inside a clear plastic bag. The other shows the clothes laid out on a table. His face blanches. “They look like hers, but I can’t be sure.”

Jayne nods. “Forensics will confirm whether they belonged to her or not, but it will take time.” She leaves the photos on the table; they seem to stare up at them accusingly, reminding them of what happened to Bryden.

Kilgour says, “Whoever murdered Bryden discarded her clothes where he thought they wouldn’t be found. He might have been worried about transfer evidence, that fibers or hairs from him got onto her clothes when he held the bag over her head, so he had to get rid of them.”

Sam stares back at them, clearly frightened. He’s suddenly pale, as if all the blood has left his face. He starts to speak. “But—I hugged her that morning—me and Clara and Bryden did a group hug, like every morning. So there might be traces of me on her clothes.”

“You never mentioned that,” Jayne says.

“I forgot. I should have.”

Jayne lets a long silence develop. Then she says, “We’re hoping that the plastic bag in the photograph is the murder weapon. Maybe it will tell us something.”

She ends the interview, turning off the recording. “You can go, for now.”

···

Saturday evening, Derek takes Alice out to dinner at an expensive restaurant—Boccaccio’s, one of her favorites.

He can’t shake the feeling that she’s up to something, and it’s making him nervous.

She should just leave well enough alone.

They’ll be fine, as long as they sit tight, together.

There have been some curious stares at the restaurant when he’s been recognized—his face has been on the news as a “person of interest”—but no one has harassed them, at least.

“You look lovely tonight,” he tells her.

“I know.”

“I can’t wait to take you home,” he murmurs.

“But we haven’t even had dessert yet.”

He hands her the dessert menu, watches her as she studies it.

She killed her mother. You would never know it to look at her.

It had never bothered him before. It had made them rich.

But it bothers him now. Because he knows what she’s capable of, but he doesn’t know what she’s thinking.

He’s slightly afraid that he can’t trust her.

“I think I’ll have the profiteroles,” she says, putting the menu down.

“Same.”

“You’ll never guess where I went this morning,” she says.

He looks at her, curious, and a little worried. “I’ve no idea.”

“I went to the condo where Bryden Frost was murdered.” She leans in closer. “You remember, that woman you were fucking?”

He feels a flush of anger. He’s not going to deny it again, it will just make her angrier. He tries to remain calm, but sometimes that’s difficult with Alice. “Why would you go there?”

“Curiosity, I guess. I just couldn’t stay away.”

He waits for her to say more.

“I saw her sister come out of the building. The journalists told me who she was, but they mostly left her alone. She was with the little girl. Bryden Frost’s daughter.”

What is she getting at? Is she just toying with him, trying to punish him for what she thinks he’s done?

“So I spoke to her.”

He leans in closer to her across the table. “Why the fuck would you do that, Alice?”

“Why do I do anything? I wanted to.”

He swallows. “What did you say?”

“I told her that Sam Frost killed his wife, and he wasn’t going to get away with it. And she told me that she was equally sure you did it.”

“Alice, I think you should stay out of this.”

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”