Chapter 6 - The Web Tightens
The interview room suddenly felt like it was shrinking, the oxygen draining from the air as Miller’s words hung heavily between us.
My perfume.
It was a custom-blended scent—rare Bulgarian rose mixed with dark amber and crushed tobacco leaf—a fragrance I had commissioned exclusively through a perfumery in Paris. There was literally nobody else in the state of Connecticut who wore it.
"That's absurd," I said, my voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register. "Elena Rossi is a pathological liar, a home-wrecker, and she is currently recovering from severe cranial trauma. She is hallucinating, or she's deflecting blame because she and Julian were running some kind of criminal scam."
"A scam?" Detective Aris chimed in, walking over to the table and dropping a glossy photograph beside the manila folder. "Is this part of their scam, Mrs. Vance?"
I looked down at the photograph. It was a close-up police-lumol shot taken inside the passenger-side footwell of Julian’s recovered vehicle. Resting on the floor mat, half-hidden beneath a gym bag, was a heavy, industrial-grade brass padlock shackle—the exact kind used by emergency overnight locksmiths.
"We tracked down the emergency locksmith service you hired at 3:00 AM," Miller said, his voice flat and unyielding. "The technician gave us a very interesting statement. He said when he arrived to change your locks, you were already standing on the porch waiting for him, fully dressed, holding a cup of hot black coffee—at three in the morning. And you seemed unusually eager to ensure every single lock on the property was drilled out and replaced immediately."
"Because my husband was trying to break into my house!" I snapped, finally letting a fraction of my fierce frustration bleed through my composure. "Any sensible woman whose cheating husband is pounding on her door at midnight would change the locks!"
"Or," Miller countered smoothly, "any sensible woman who had just staged her husband's murder on Route 9 would change the locks so the police couldn't search her home without a warrant first."
The trap had closed. I was caught in an airtight circle of circumstantial evidence, manufactured timelines, and a betraying mistress’s dying—or rather, surviving—accusation.
"I want my attorney," I said, leaning back in my metal chair, folding my hands together with deliberate calm. "I am not answering another question without my counsel present."
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Miller didn't look angry. He looked like a fisherman who had just hauled a massive shark into his boat. He closed the manila folder, picked up his coffee cup, and nodded toward the door.
"Wise choice, Mrs. Vance," Miller said quietly. "Because as of right now, you are officially being detained under suspicion of first-degree murder and conspiracy. Your attorney is going to have his work cut out for him."
