As Emma leads Webster from the den to the living room and toward the front hall, the detective’s whole manner seemsto soften a bit. “Your home is amazing,” she says, stopping midroom and sweeping her gaze around the space.
Emma ekes out a smile. “Thank you.”
“You seem to have landed on your feet. I’m sure these past couple of years haven’t been easy.”
“They’ve been very hard, yes. I’m not sure you ever get over something like this.”
“How did you and your current husband meet? Dating can be so difficult these days.”
Emma tries to take a deep breath without making it obvious. “Through work, actually. Tom—my husband—runs an ad agency here in Westport. I do research and trend forecasting, and the agency hired me two summers ago to consult on some of the brands they handle.”
“It’s always nice meeting someone at work,” the detective says. “You get such a better sense of who they are compared to someone you meet online or at a bar.” She starts moving toward the door again, and once they reach the hall, Emma notices that Addison swept away the broken glass, after all.
“Thanks again for your time,” Webster says.
“Thankyou. I mean, I appreciate that you’re opening the investigation again.”
“I can’t make any guarantees,” she says, holding Emma’s gaze, “but we’ll do our best to finally get the person who did this.”
After Emma closes the door behind the detective, she waits for the muffled sound of a car engine firing, but hears only silence.Is Webster making a call?she wonders.Reviewing her notes?
Finally, the car starts and she sinks against the door, exhaling. Webster appeared polite enough, even empathetic at moments, but Emma knows it was a charade, as it was with the first detectives on the case. The whole time Webster was here, she was clearly assessing Emma, wondering whether there was something she’d stood to gain from Derrick Rand’s death.
Wondering whether Emma was actually the one who’d set the murder in motion.