Sarah Armstrong - 01 - Singularity Read Online Free PDF

our bedroom here at the house with two pistols, and hekept another at the beach house, in a box in the nightstand next to our bed. Why do you ask?”
    “The murderer used your husband’s gun to shoot him through the forehead,” Nelson said, not even feigning sympathy.
    “Oh,” she said, stunned, the remaining color draining from her already China-doll face.
    Before she could recover, Nelson shot out another question, “And where were you last night, Mrs. Lucas?”
    “Last night?” she asked, abruptly looking away from us and staring at her hands, folded on her lap. They trembled slightly as she toyed with an impressive emerald-cut diamond solitaire. “Why should that be important? Edward and Ms. Knowles were murdered this morning.”
    “We have reasons,” Nelson answered, smiling.
    This time, I didn’t interrupt. I wanted to hear her answer as much as Nelson did. Priscilla Lucas hesitated, obviously considering her response. For my liking, she paused too long, leading me to wonder why, unless she was trying to hide what we’d been told via phone on the drive into Houston. Annmarie’s neighbor had ID’ed her photo. Mrs. Lucas was the woman arguing with Knowles the night before. The woman who’d left in a huff.
    “Last night I was out until about nine, and then I came home and discussed today’s menu for the meeting with the cook. You can verify that with her, if you must,” she said, defensively. “Edward was home, going over paperwork from the office when I got here. I didn’t feel well. I had an excruciating headache. I went straight to bed.”
    “Where were you earlier in the evening?” I prodded, needing to pin her down for the period of time the two women were heard arguing. “Say, between seven and eight.”
    For a moment, the room felt uncomfortably silent. Priscilla Lucas hesitated, once or twice appearing to be ready to talk. Finally, sherose to her feet, her smile as painted on as the hand-stenciled ivy covering the sunroom walls.
    “That’s something I’m not free to discuss.” I wasn’t surprised when she said, “This interview is over.”
    “Mrs. Lucas,” I said. “Detective Nelson and I know you were at Annmarie’s condo arguing with her last night. You were seen leaving by a neighbor. What you need to tell us is why you were there. What was the quarrel about?”
    Beautiful, cultivated Priscilla Lucas, mainstay of Houston society and a woman used to controlling not only her emotions but, by virtue of her vast fortune, the actions of others, frowned, and I noted what might have been her first tears of the day collecting in her eyes. Were they for her dead husband or for herself?
    “Lieutenant Armstrong and Detective Nelson,” she said, her voice stoic and exuding perfect politeness. “Please leave, and direct all further inquiries to my lawyers. Right now, my children are in the other room. My father and the therapist will be here soon, and I need to tell my children their father is dead.”

Five
    D etective O. L. Nelson and I left the Lucas house and parted for the night. We’d cover our phones for the weekend, but for now the uniformed officers, the lab techs, and the coroner were in charge, processing the evidence in hopes of finding leads. It was late when I arrived home, and the house was dark and quiet, everyone asleep. In bed, I mentally retraced my steps, back to the beach house and over and over again through the bedroom door to the foot of the canopied bed, where in my half-dreams the two bodies remained frozen in time.
    I thought of the Lucas children and the conversation that must have taken place after we left: their mother, grandfather, and a therapist attempting to explain the incomprehensible, that their father was brutally murdered, that they would never see him again.
    About three that Saturday morning, I gave up on sleep and went to my workshop over the garage. In college, I had a double major, psychology and art. After graduation, I thought I would use art