Page 34 of Stay Away from Him

Melissa leaned forward. “Did you ever look at Amelia as an accomplice?” she asked.

“Or—could she have killed Rose without Thomas’s knowledge?

” She realized as she said it that she almost hoped it was true.

If Amelia killed Rose, if Melissa could prove it, then she could clear Thomas’s name and get rid of Amelia in a single stroke.

“We looked at a lot of theories,” Derek said. “That’s one. It is strange. I mean, if it was just therapy Thomas was going to her for—well, the neighbor said he was sneaking over there practically every day. Who goes to therapy once a day?”

“Someone who’s really going through a terrible time,” she said. “Someone whose beloved wife is missing. Someone who’s close to a breakdown himself but needs to keep it together for his kids.”

“I suppose,” Derek said. “But there were other strange things about it. Like the fact that Amelia seeing Thomas as a patient was technically a major breach of ethics. A lot of counselors wouldn’t see someone they’d had a prior romantic relationship with.

It’s a conflict of interest. Oh, they both had their explanations: Thomas was so stressed out by Rose’s disappearance that he couldn’t handle the stress of finding someone to talk to, Amelia was right there, she was a family friend, their prior relationship was ancient history… ”

“It makes sense,” Melissa said. “Doesn’t it? You could argue it wasn’t a good idea. But I understand why Thomas would’ve pushed for it. And why Amelia would’ve agreed.”

“You could look at it like that,” Derek said. “But to me, it looked like two people who had a mutual reason to want Rose Danver gone had figured out a way to be together but not answer questions about it—by calling it therapy .”

Melissa winced. Derek was right. There were two ways to look at this—one looked good for Thomas, and the other very much didn’t.

“And then the tip from Kelli came?”

“Yeah. Though it didn’t come as a tip. Kelli made the allegation on social media. Tagged a few local news stations, said it on air.”

Melissa frowned. “Isn’t that odd? Sounds to me like she wanted the spotlight more than anything.”

Derek made a pained face, drew air through clenched teeth. “Yeah. She can be like that. It doesn’t mean what she said wasn’t true. She had pictures and everything. Rose’s face, all bruised up. Cuts on her cheek, on her eyebrow.”

Melissa sat back as if pushed, held to the back of the booth by the shoulders.

But then her mind kept moving, thinking about all the reasons Kelli Walker might have had photos of a beaten Rose Danver on her phone.

Kelli and Melissa had gone through a reconciliation, of sorts, but Melissa still thought Kelli was a little unhinged.

And she had no idea what the friendship between Kelli and Rose was really like.

Thomas swore that they weren’t friends, that Kelli was obsessed with Rose, but Rose only tolerated Kelli.

Who was to say it wasn’t Kelli who attacked Rose, maybe after Rose told her what she really thought of her?

Then took her to the ER, tried to gaslight her that it was Thomas who’d attacked her.

And Kelli was, by her own admission, the last to see Rose alive.

Could she have killed Rose, disposed of the body, then made a public stink about Thomas being abusive, smearing him on the local news, to throw the police off her trail?

“After Kelli’s accusation, we started looking at Thomas more seriously,” Derek said.

“Found out about his purchases, the shovel and the tarp. His long absence up north—enough time to dispose of a body. Him turning off his phone so his movements couldn’t be tracked.

It was after we found some traces of Rose’s blood in their kitchen that we declared Rose presumed dead, then brought charges against Thomas.

It was so long after Rose’s presumed murder that a lot of the physical evidence was gone or contaminated.

Thomas had had the house deep cleaned, the car detailed.

We still thought we had enough to get a conviction, though. Until it all went to shit.”

“Because Thomas and his lawyer went public with the stalker theory,” Melissa said. “And you got fired.”

Derek looked down, stared into the mouth of the coffee cup. “I know both of those investigations were as rigorous as they could be—I know because I led them. But it didn’t matter. To the public, it looked like incompetence.”

“Incompetence that had led to an innocent man being charged with murder.”

Derek gave Melissa a sharp glare. “That’s how they saw it. But I know he’s not innocent.”

Melissa sighed. She wasn’t sure if this could be a productive discussion.

Derek seemed unshakable in his belief that Thomas killed Rose.

And part of what he was saying was convincing.

But he didn’t seem to realize how desperate and untrustworthy his story made him appear, how much he seemed like a person who had something to prove.

“Here’s what I see,” Melissa said after a moment, speaking slowly, trying to choose her words carefully. “I see a guy who messed up.”

Derek’s composure cracked, and Melissa could tell she’d hit a nerve. “That’s not—”

“Just let me finish,” Melissa said, raising a hand. “You messed up. You didn’t take Rose’s stalker complaint seriously enough. Then, later, when she went missing, you focused on Thomas and never really considered anyone else. You just figured it was the husband.”

“That wasn’t lazy police work,” Derek cut in, his voice rising angrily. “There’s a reason you look at the husband or boyfriend when a woman goes missing. More than seventy percent of female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner.”

Melissa closed her eyes, not wanting to hear it—Thomas was currently her intimate partner—and repeated herself. “ You figured it was the husband . And when new information came out that exposed your sloppy police work—”

“I wasn’t sloppy…”

“Your sloppy police work,” Melissa said again, her voice rising to meet Derek’s, “you fixated on the guy who’d made you look like an idiot.

And you’re still fixated. It’s unethical, what you’re doing, sharing information on an open case, but you don’t care about that, do you?

Because you can’t let go of the case. Can’t let go of Thomas. Can’t admit you were wrong.”

Derek was silent a few moments, just looking at Melissa. Hearing it laid out like that seemed to have taken something out of him, deflated him of his righteous anger, his defensiveness, his bluster.

“Maybe,” he admitted, then lifted a finger. “Or. You’re in love with this guy. And you can’t see the truth about him. Because you don’t want to.”

Now Melissa was the one who was quiet, and Derek was the one who’d struck a nerve.

“We’re at an impasse,” Melissa said. “I don’t want to believe Thomas is guilty. And you and Kelli don’t want to believe he’s not.”

“But one of us is right,” Derek said. “ Something’s true.”

“Yes,” Melissa said. “We just have to prove it one way or the other. You really don’t think there’s anything to the stalker theory? You couldn’t have missed anything back when you investigated it?”

Derek shifted in his seat, uncomfortable.

“I suppose I could have,” he admitted. “Rose reported seeing a white sedan a lot—parked on her street, following her around town. But there’s a lot of white sedans out there.

She could never come up with a make or model.

No license plate. I couldn’t do anything with it. ”

“She never got a look at the guy she thought was following her?”

“Once,” Derek said. “White guy, forties, a sort of scraggly beard, and a scar on his chin.” Derek made a cutting motion across his face with the side of his hand.

“That’s pretty specific.”

“Yes, but who knows if this guy was even following her?” Derek said.

“Rose was a paranoid woman. She thought the world was out to get her—largely, I think, because Thomas made her feel that way. But this guy? Who’s to say he wasn’t just driving one of the many hundreds of white sedans on the road, and Rose got a look at him as he passed?

Anyway, without more to go on, I couldn’t find him. ”

“Okay,” Melissa said. “It’s not much, but it’s something. A white guy with a scar on his chin who drives a white sedan.”

“And what about you?” Derek asked.

“What about me?”

“You say I need to consider the stalker theory, to look at it more closely—but what about everything I’ve told you? That Kelli has told you? Are you taking any of it seriously? What are you doing to get to the truth?”

The anger that had been boiling just beneath Melissa’s breastbone came once more to the surface, burned the back of her throat, and flamed white-hot at the corner of her vision until it was the only thing she could feel.

What did this man know about her? He had his suspicions, his grudges, his need to prove himself.

But Melissa had her whole history, her divorce, her hopes and dreams and fears for her son and herself.

She also had a man who claimed to love her, a man she was beginning to love in turn—and the misgivings that still prevented her from trusting him fully, because people like Derek and Kelli wouldn’t leave her alone, wouldn’t stop plaguing her with the things they thought they knew.

And then she thought of the event that was looming in just a day’s time: the dinner. Taking things to the next level. A further invitation into Thomas’s home, his family—his life.

“I think we’re done here,” she said to Derek Gordon, then scooted out of the booth and stood. “I’m the one who’s actually in this. Me, my son, our future. There’s no one who wants to get to the truth more than me.”

Then she turned and walked away, not looking back. Close to the door, the server who’d brought them their drinks—Melissa hadn’t touched hers—gave her a smile.

“All done?” she asked.

“Yes,” Melissa said, then jerked a thumb angrily over her shoulder. “He’ll get the check.”