How could she ever love him the way he loved her when part of her heart still belonged to her husband?
How could he love her the way she deserved when he had let his own son walk out of his life?
How could he apologize for making this difficult time that much more difficult by kissing her one day and then pushing her away the next?
July 29th
9:36 A.M.
“Good morning, Ms. Leroy,” Matthew said as they opened the door to the interview room where she was waiting for them. They had asked her to come in to see what she could tell them about Hendrick Mint. Although she hadn’t mentioned much about him when they’d asked her about the gardener, perhaps now that they knew he was obsessed with her they could ask some more specific questions and hopefully get something more useful out of her.
“I don’t have anything else to tell you,” Whitney said. Her eyes and her voice were dull, and her long blonde hair hung limply around her shoulders. She obviously wasn't coping with her friend’s death, or the guilt she felt for being the one to suggest that Georgia try online dating.
“We wanted to talk to you about Hendrick,” he told her as he took a seat. He was doing this interview solo as he, Allina, and Jonathon had split up the family members of the victims to re-interview with a focus on their two suspects.
For a moment Whitney’s face was confused, then she said, “The gardener? Do you think it’s him?”
“We’re looking into him,” he acknowledged.
Whitney paled. So dramatically that he was afraid she was about to pass out. She knew something. Something she hadn’t told them. Whether because she hadn’t known it was important or because she was deliberately keeping it from him, he didn't know, but he intended to find out. “You said that he and Georgia never interacted but what about you and him?”
“Meand him?” she repeated, her voice shrill with panic. “Why are you asking about me? If he’s the killer, it’s Georgia who he killed.”
“Hendrick was the man who broke into your home, only he wasn't interested in Georgia, he was interested in you.” He tried to break the news gently, wondering if she already knew this.
From the look on Whitney’s face and the shock in her blue eyes she hadn’t known that. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“He took a pair of your underwear,” he told her, watching her carefully for her reactions, he needed to know what she knew.
She shook her head in denial, her whole body began to tremble. “Are you saying he was really after me?”
“I don’t know. Could that be a possibility?”
“It was Georgia he was talking to online. He knew it was her and not me, he saw pictures of her. This has nothing to do with me.”
Matthew might have believed her had it not been for the look of wild panic in her eyes. “Did you know Hendrick Mint was interested in you, Ms. Leroy?”
Whitney shook her head again, but this time her eyes dropped to stare at her hands, which she had clamped tightly together in her lap.
“Do you know him, Ms. Leroy?”
“I didn't know it was him,” she whispered so softly he barely heard her.
“You’d met him before?”
“A little over a year ago I found out my husband was cheating on me. I should have known, he was cheating on his second wife with me when I first met him. I was devastated. I loved him so much. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. He broke my heart into a million pieces when I came home and found him in our bed with his twenty-two-year-old secretary. I didn't know what to do so I just left. I walked and walked for hours and ended up in the park. It was dark, I couldn’t walk anymore so I just sat down under a tree and cried. I don’t know how long I sat there crying, but the next I remember was a man. He came and sat beside me, asked me what was wrong, and I told him everything.”
“The man was Hendrick Mint.”
“Yes.” Whitney finally lifted her eyes to meet his. “But I never knew his name. I never even knew what he looked like. It was late—dark—I never saw the man’s face, but the first time I heard him talk I knew it was him. I thought it was a sign. I thought he might ask me out, but he never said anything, so I assumed he either didn't recognize me or that night really didn't mean anything to him.”
“What happened that night?”
“I was upset, I've never done anything like that before, but he seemed so sweet, he listened to me, told me I was too special to allow anyone to treat me that way, it just happened,” Whitney said in a rush.
“You had sex with him.”
“After I felt guilty. I was still married, and no matter what my husband did I had promised to love him and forsake all others. I wanted to make my marriage work, but my husband told me he wanted a divorce.”