My Stepbrother's Regret novel · Chapter 13 of 32
Chapter 13: Alibi
I unlocked the door.
I didn't have a choice. Half of Wabash was watching a barefoot girl in a man's shirt through the glass.
The detective stepped in and looked at me, and then politely at the ceiling.
"Ms. Dutton. Do you want to get dressed?"
"Yes."
"Take your time. I'll wait."
My mother didn't wait. She walked past me into the shop, past the cases, and stopped at the curtain to the back room.
Roarke was standing behind it in his jeans, buttoning nothing, because I was wearing his shirt.
"Oh," my mother said softly. "Oh, Roarke."
He looked at her.
"Morning, Charlene."
The detective cleared his throat. "Mr. Gibbons. I didn't know you'd be here."
"Nobody did," Roarke said. "That was sort of the point."
I got dressed behind the clock wall with my hands shaking so hard I put my blouse on inside out.
I didn't fix it.
The detective wanted to see the house.
He wanted to see the box, the closet, and my boxes in the garage. Most of all he wanted the door logs.
Roarke drove me. My mother rode with the detective.
Neither of us said a word on the Edens.
At a red light in Glencoe he reached over and turned my blouse collar the right way out.
The whole house was in the kitchen when we got there.
Myles stood at the island in his golf shirt, gray in the face.
The housekeeper was at the sink.
The man who did the lawns stood by the back door in his boots, holding his cap.
Nobody had asked them to stay.
Nobody had asked them to leave, either.
The detective stood at the panel by the kitchen door and scrolled.
"Mrs. Gibbons says the ring was in the box Saturday afternoon," he said. "She noticed it gone Sunday night. So I'm looking at Saturday night." He tapped. "Guest suite."
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