“It’s a missing persons case. You might have seen it on the news. The couple who went missing from Arlington—Harris and Patricia Mickler?”
My mouth went dry. The floor creaked at the top of the stairs in the hall where Vero must have been listening. “I think I may have seen something about it.”
“I don’t have any leads on the wife yet, but we know the husband disappeared from a bar in McLean twelve days ago. We found his car in the parking lot, along with his wallet and phone. Apparently, he met a woman for drinks, but she had some kind of an emergency and ended up in the bathroom for a while. A waiter remembered seeing him leave with someone else. We believe we’ve been able to identify her.”
Ice trailed down my spine. “You have?”
He nodded. “She was a member of a social media group that Harris was part of. He was at the bar for some kind of networking event. The woman never RSVP’d or confirmed her attendance online, but the name of the woman at the bar matches the one on the social media group profile, and she fits the description given to us by the waitstaff.”
A shaky sigh of relief slipped out of me. They had a suspect. And it wasn’t me. “So what does any of this have to do with me?”
“That’s where things get a little weird.” He set down his drink, trailing a line of condensation with his thumb. “I’m not saying she’s a suspect. But she’s definitely a person of interest in the case.” His dark eyes lifted to mine. “We think Harris Mickler may have left the bar with your ex-husband’s fiancée, Theresa Hall.”
I knocked over my glass, soda spreading over the surface of the table. The detective and I jumped up at the same time, both of us reaching for the napkins in the holder. I grabbed a wad of them, muttering apologies, my hands shaking as I mopped up the mess.
What had I done?
I braced myself against the table. Nick reached to steady me as I sank into my chair.
I’d told Julian my name was Theresa. I’d told him I was in real estate. I’d been wearing a blond wig and Theresa’s black dress. I hadn’t even looked to see if I recognized anyone else on the networking event page when I’d vetted Harris. There had been seven hundred members in that group. Even this week, I’d only been searching the roster for names that matched the ones I’d seen on Harris’s phone.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, that isn’t much to go on.”
“If that was all I had to go on, no. But Harris’s cell phone pinged a tower later that night, within a three-mile radius of her house.”
No. Not from Theresa’s house. From here. Harris’s phone pinged from my garage. Right down the street from Steven and Theresa’s town house.
“Have you talked to her?” I heard myself ask.
“I caught up to her at her office this morning. She vehemently denied that she was at the bar that night. A bartender there remembered serving a woman meeting her description. He gave us her first name and said she was a real estate agent, but he never asked for her ID, so we can’t confirm it’s actually her. All the evidence we have is circumstantial at this point, but it’s piling pretty high, and Theresa has no verifiable alibi for the night Harris disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” Theresa wasn’t at the bar that night. I’d combed every inch of that place looking for Harris. If she’d been there, I would have seen her.
“Wherever she was, she doesn’t want to tell me. She’s insisting she was home alone. And your husb—” Nick corrected himself. “Steven says he was out entertaining clients. He can’t confirm she was home that evening.”
“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t.” I couldn’t believe I was actually defending her. But the woman was about to become my children’s stepmother and she was dangerously close to being charged with a felony.
He gave an emphatic shake of his head. “I’m telling you, Finlay. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’m pretty good at reading people. Theresa was definitely hiding something. She was so nervous she was practically tripping over herself.”
“You’re a cop,” I said, gesturing to his gun. “Cops make people nervous. And even if she had been at the bar, what possible reason would she have for kidnapping Harris?”
“That’s where I’m stuck.” Nick scrubbed a hand over his stubble. There was a weary edge to his voice when he said, “We found some photos on Mickler’s phone. He’d taken pictures of himself with dozens of women, some of them of an … intimate nature, and we suspect some of them may not have been taken with the women’s consent.” I schooled my face into a neutral expression, careful not to let on that I already knew. But Theresa hadn’t been in any of those photos. I’d made myself look at every single one, terrified I’d see someone I knew. “About a year ago, a woman called the tip line at the FCPD. She claimed she’d been drugged and sexually assaulted after meeting Harris for drinks.”