Love You to Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

witnesses.”

    There was a sudden silence in the offices of Maine Life magazine. Unusual. Which meant everyone had stopped in midsentence to listen.

    Ben glanced around. “Is there somewhere we could go to talk more privately?” he asked. “A conference room?”

    “You can use conference room A,” Gray Finch, my boss, said, appearing behind the detectives. “Second door on the left. I’ll have my admin bring coffee.” He paused. “Officers, our Abby isn’t in any kind of trouble, is she?”

    Fargo smiled. “I sure could use that coffee.”

    Finch’s eyes widened and he glanced at me, then hurried off.

    “Lead the way, will you, Miss Foote?” Fargo asked.

    I would have led if I could’ve moved. I stared down at Fargo’s shoes. Scuffed black Rockports like the ones Henry wore.

    “Whenever you’re ready,” Ben said, and I looked up at him.

    “I’m just—” I shook my head. “I’m just so shocked.”

    “I’m sure you are,” Fargo said. “Why don’t I lead the way. Second door on the left, the man said. We cops are trained to listen carefully,” he added, tapping his ear.

    Now my eyes widened. I trailed behind him; Ben trailed behind me. I felt my coworkers’ gazes on me until I opened the door to our small conference room. Fargo sat at the head of the long table. Ben sat adjacent. I sat across from Ben. I could smell someone’s cologne.

    “Let’s start at the beginning,” Ben said, flipping open a small spiral notebook. He clicked his pen, and I jumped.

    “You sure do startle easy,” Fargo said.

    Easily, I wanted to correct. I didn’t.

    Ben smiled at me. “We’d like to ask you a few questions. Is that all right?”

    I nodded.

    “Your hair’s dripping,” Ben said, reaching into his breast pocket for a pocket of packet tissues. He held it out to me.

    “Uh, thanks,” I said, squeezing the ends of my hair with the tissue, which disintegrated into shreds immediately. My hair was coated in tissue guts. Ted Puck was dead. Benjamin Orr was sitting across from me. Talking.

    “You and Ted dated some months ago?” Ben asked.

    I nodded.

    There was a knock at the door. Fargo said, “Yeah,” and Marcella opened the door and peered in, her round blue eyes ever rounder. She held a tray with two mugs of coffee, a pint of milk and sugar packets. She set down the tray, then slowly backtracked from the room, clearly hoping to eavesdrop.

    “You can close the door on the way out,” Fargo snapped, and she bolted.

    Ben took his coffee black. “So, Abby, you were telling us about your relationship with Ted. When did you start dating and when did you break up?

    “Um, we broke up in July. On my birthday. The seventh. We started seeing each other in April.”

    “Why did you break up?” Detective Fargo asked. “We think we know,” he added with a snicker, “but we’d like to hear it from you.”

    “Um,” I said. And that was all that would come out of my mouth.

    Fargo raised an eyebrow. “According to witnesses, Ted brought Mary-Kate to your twenty-eighth birthday party, introduced her to you and your family and friends as his cousin from out of town, and then you, along with your mother and half sisters, came upon the two of them participating in a sexual act in your bedroom, which—” he f lipped a page in his notebook “—was supposed to be off-limits to guests.”

    My entire faced burned. “Um, who told you that?”

    Fargo ignored my question. “You must have been very angry at Ted,” he said, tapping his pen against his notebook.

    That was an understatement. At the party I’d taken my mother and sisters to my bedroom to show them the gift Ted had given me when he and his “cousin” had arrived. Just a half hour earlier Ted and I had gone into my bedroom. Close your eyes and hold out your hand, he’d said. And when I opened my eyes, there was a small wrapped jewelry box on my palm. The size of a ring box. I’d almost fainted. If he’d asked me to