“Did you see anything suspicious in the last two days?” He taps his fingers against the top of my dresser. “Any suspicious strangers coming in or out of the hotel?”
“No.”
“Anything suspicious at all?”
I close my eyes for an instant, and I can see my husband disposing of something in the dumpster in the middle of the night. I open my eyes again and stare at the detective. “Nothing I can remember.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Did you ever meet Christina Marsh?”
Christina Marsh. That’s her name. I shake my head no.
“Do you know if your husband was friendly with her?”
My heart is beating so fast, it’s making me dizzy. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Detective Esposito’s black eyebrows draw together. “What’s your relationship with your husband?”
“My relationship with my husband? What do you mean? He’s my husband.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Seven years.”
“And he… takes care of you?”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes. I mean, sort of.”
“He told me he helps you get dressed, shower, get in and out of bed. He makes your meals too. Is that right?”
I imagine the conversation Nick must’ve had with the detective, and I feel sick. “Yes… sort of…”
“So really, he’s more of your caregiver than anything…”
My eyes snap up. “What are you saying?”
“Mrs. Baxter, I’m just trying to get an accurate picture of your marriage.”
I hate what he was implying. Even worse, I hate that he’s right. Even though Nick and I reconnected for a night, things still aren’t the same as they used to be. It’s not anything like before. It never will be.
“Mrs. Baxter,” he says, “I have to ask you this, and I hope you’ll tell me the truth.”
My heart sinks. “Okay…”
“Was your husband having an affair with Christina Marsh?”
“No,” I say, but the lie catches in my throat.
“Are you absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
I try to adjust myself in my wheelchair, but it sets off a spasm in my right leg. I grab it with my hands, trying to calm my jumping limb. Because of the lesions in my spinal cord, my legs sometimes do what they want to do and I can’t control it. It takes me almost a minute of readjusting my leg until it stops jumping. When I look up again, I see pity in the detective’s eyes.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Baxter?”
I swallow. “Yes. I’m fine. I think I’ve answered all your questions.”
He hesitates, then finally nods. “I’m going to go downstairs and talk to your husband again.”
After Detective Esposito leaves the bedroom, I watch him again through the window, talking to Nick. Even from here, Nick is visibly upset. At any moment, I expect the detective to snap a pair of handcuffs on my husband. But he doesn’t.
The police cars linger for a long while, but eventually, they all take off. It isn’t until nearly one o’clock that Nick raps on the door to our bedroom with a plate of food in his hand. My lunch. He brings it to me every day.
“How are you doing?” he asks me.
“Been better. How are you doing?”
“Been better.” He sinks down onto the bed and puts the plate down next to him. “Rosie, you don’t think that I…？”
I wasn’t going to say anything. I planned to keep my silence till the day we died, but I can't do it. I have to tell him. “I saw you.”
“You…”
“I saw you at the dumpster,” I say. “In the middle of the night two nights ago. At three in the morning. What were you doing there?”
The panic spreads across his handsome features. “I was taking out the garbage.”
“At three in the morning? Do you think I’m stupid?”
“I was.” His hands are shaking as he tugs at his T-shirt hem. “Look, I got distracted by, you know, what happened with Christina, and I forgot to take it out to the dumpster. The truck arrives early in the morning, and I was worried if I didn’t put it out then, I’d miss it.”
He’s looking me right in the eye when he says it. Is it possible he’s telling the truth? That he was up at three in the morning simply taking out the trash? “But how come you told me you were getting some air? You lied.”
“I know.” He squeezes his knees. “I lied to you. But I didn’t want to remind you about what I had done—why I’d been too distracted to take out the trash—and it just seemed easier.”