Page 118 of Take Your Breath Away

Albert’s lips looked ready to form words, but nothing came out. He was stupefied, and his hands, resting atop his desk, began to shake.

“Are you okay, Mr. McBain?”

“I—uh—I don’t understand. Candace is dead?”

“That’s correct.”

“What—what happened? An accident? Was she in a car accident?”

“No, Mr. McBain. She was murdered.”

Albert looked as though he might choke. He put a hand to his throat and coughed. “How … That’s impossible.”

Hardy said, “I’m afraid it’s not. I’m sorry. I’m assuming, given that she was part of your theater group, she was a friend.”

“She—yes, she was a friend,” he said. He scanned the top of his desk as though looking for something.

“Mr. McBain?”

“I need … I need a drink of water.”

There was a plastic water bottle on the other side of his computer monitor. Hardy pointed and said, “There.”

Albert found it, twisted off the cap, and took a swig. “This is just … this is horrible. This is unbelievable. Who … what happened?”

“We have someone in custody. The thing is, Mr. McBain, it appears that her death and her little performances on Saturday are linked. I want to ask you again, why do you think she might have posed as Brie?”

“I … I …”

Albert was too shaken to speak.

“Mr. McBain, what was the nature of your relationship with Candace DiCarlo?”

“She … she was in our production.”

“Was that the full extent of your relationship?”

He turned away from the detective, looked at his screen, the mortgage numbers blurring beyond his tears.

“We … we were … we were seeing each other.”

“Seeing each other? Romantically? An intimate relationship?”

With considerable difficulty, as though there were an iron rod in his neck, Albert managed to nod. “Yes,” he said.

“If you were involved romantically, is it possible Ms. DiCarlo confided in you as to why she was pretending to be Brie?”

Albert’s nose twitched at the question, as though Hardy had asked him the wrong thing. She picked that up and asked, “Or maybe it was the other way around. It was your idea, something you talked her into doing.”

“That’s … that’s a little closer.”

The detective said nothing. Waited.

“You see,” Albert began slowly, “when Candace first auditioned with the company—this current show was not her first with us—I found myself very attracted to her, and, well, we began to see each other. Quietly, secretly, because I’m still working through a separation with my wife, Dierdre.”

Hardy, content to let Albert fill the silences, continued to remain quiet.

“It’s been a very difficult time, you know. I mean, never knowing what happened to Brie has weighed so heavily on the family, first of all, and then these last few months my mother has been so ill. Candace, she’s been the one port in the storm for me, who’s supported me through this, and I noticed, at times, that there was something about her that reminded me of Brie. She’s about the same size, holds herself the same way, and from certain angles she almost looked like her. She even did her hair almost the same way.”