Page 96 of The Perfect Divorce

“Do you really think Bob did this all alone?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, Bob and Sarah married shortly after Adam was executed. And you’re telling me Bob framed Adam for murder and then went off and married Sarah.” She cocks her head and tosses the report on my desk.

“But Sarah didn’t know any of that yet.”

“Or did she?”

I stand from the desk and pace my office. Why though? Why would Sarah marry and have a child with the man who framed her husband for murder? Unless, of course, she was in on it. Adam was having an affair with Kelly Summers. But Bob turned out to be worse than Adam. He cheated and then abducted his mistress and Carissa in order to frame Sarah. Maybe it wasn’t about their daughter, Summer, after all. Maybe it was about him ensuring he wouldn’t go down for Kelly’s murder.

I squint and look to Olson. “It just seems too far-fetched. Sarah and Bob kill her first husband’s mistress and frame her husband for it? They never get caught, and they just start a life together living happily ever after until they decide to turn on each other? I feel like that leaves a lot of things to chance, especially framing Adam.”

“Not if you’re also the husband’s defense attorney,” Olson quips, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

That is true. It was such an unusual circumstance. But I was in that courtroom every day. Sarah did a phenomenal job. It was some of the best work I’ve ever seen by a defense attorney.

“I think we’re stretching a bit far here. What’s more likely? That Sarah worked with Bob to cook up some evil genius master plan spanning over a decade, or that Bob was just a sick individual that used Sarah?”

Olson shrugs, still not convinced.

“Plus...” I sit back down in my chair. “Even if your theory was true, we’ve got no evidence tying Sarah to this case, not a single shred.”

“Except that knife that showed up on our doorstep.”

“Except that.”

“And it looked identical to the real knife.” Olson leans forward to punctuate her point.

“Thatwasbizarre, but that’s all it is right now. Bizarre. Bob was most likely behind that though, and he would know what the real knife used in the murder looked like. It was probably another scheme of his to frame Sarah.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes before I check my watch, noting the time. “I’ve gotta go fill the press in on everything. They’re going to have a field day with this.”

“What about Scott Summers?”

“What about him?”

“He’s a murderer on the loose. We can’t just do nothing.”

“Olson, you already know the feds took it over, so it’s not BCI’s case anymore, and it’s not ours either.”

She shakes her head. “I just wish we could do something more to help.”

“I do too, but my hands are tied. And look at what we just did. We solved three cases.”

She sighs. “I know, but Scott’s still out there.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Scott’s a danger to society, not unless he thinks there’s another person involved with his wife’s death.”

“It doesn’t, but I’ll leave you to it so you can write up your statement for the press.” Olson stands and walks to the door.

“Chief Deputy Olson,” I call out.

She glances over her shoulder at me. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

A smile cracks across her face. “I love you too,” she says, leaving my office.