Page 32 of Take Your Breath Away

Jayne’s phone, still in her hand, buzzed with the sound of an incoming text. She glanced down and saw the message from Andrew.

Everything fine. Back in a bit.

“Is that him?” Hardy asked.

“Yes. He’s out running some errands. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“That’s okay. We can talk before he gets here.”

Jayne turned and gestured for the detective to follow her into the house. She led her to the kitchen and pointed to a chair. Hardy sat down, placing her own phone facedown on the table.

“Decaf, if you have it,” she said. “But it’s okay if you don’t.”

“I … yes, I have that.”

Jayne opened the cupboard, brought down a tin of coffee, put a filter into the machine. As she spooned in some ground coffee, some of it spilled across the counter.

“Damn it,” she said.

She cleaned up the mess, and as she ran water into the carafe to pour into the coffee machine, she asked, “Why did you ask for Andrew Mason?”

“Are you married to Andrew?” Hardy asked.

“No.”

“But you’ve been together awhile?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Since the latter part of last year. And I moved in here with him a few months ago.”

“Oh,” Hardy said. “Are you from Stratford?”

“No,” Jayne said. “I moved here a couple of years ago. From Providence.”

“What made you move down to this neck of the woods?”

“I assess properties for insurance companies. The one I worked for in Rhode Island was winding down, the owner retiring, and an insurance firm in Stratford was looking for someone, so I made the move.”

“Just you?”

“I’m not—I wasn’t in a relationship. My family—my father and my brother—were there, but they didn’t move with me, of course.”

“And Tyler is …”

“That’s my brother. He joined me here later. After our father died. You haven’t answered my question.”

“Which one was that?”

The coffee machine was starting to make a gurgling sound.

“Why you called Andrew … Andrew Mason. That’s not his name.”

“That was his name. He had it legally changed four years ago. I can’t say as I blame him, considering.”

“Considering what?” Jayne asked. “A financial failure? A bankruptcy? He had a building company, with someone else, but that got dissolved some time ago. Did it have something to do with that?”