Chapter Eighteen
EIGHTEEN
Nicole
That was before she came eye to eye with Jenny Smith.
They’d told her the woman’s name at the house, though Tim had made sure to point out she could be lying.
She’d been caught trespassing, after all, and when people felt exposed, they twisted the truth.
Honestly, Nicole didn’t care what her name was, as long as she could figure out what all of this meant for her plan to protect her family.
While recovering in Tim’s car outside, he’d told her several other homeowners had reported invasions, but the fact that Jenny Smith had chosen Mikko’s house made Nicole feel panicky and wired.
It made Nicole wonder if Mikko Helle had wronged Jenny Smith, too.
When the door to the interview room finally opened, it framed Tim and a short, dark-haired woman whose shirt collar looked as sharp as a blade. Maureen had told Nicole about Valerie Ott, the newest investigator on the team. She had a daughter just a few years younger than Alana.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Tim said, introducing Valerie and taking a seat. The room was small, the table too, and Nicole’s knees were dangerously close to brushing against the detectives. She made an effort to keep very still.
“You didn’t want any coffee?” Valerie asked. “Fair warning, it tastes like a cross between baking chocolate and burnt toast.”
“I’m good.” It was late in the day, and Nicole expected she’d have trouble sleeping that night as it was.
“Smart choice. It’s good to finally meet you,” Valerie said. “Mac talks about you a lot.”
“Mac.” Nicole smiled. “I forget you guys call her that. She’s Maureen to me.” Nicole wondered if the nickname was strategic, a way for her sister to separate work from her home life. Keep her two very different personas apart.
“So listen, I’ll be recording our conversation, if that’s OK with you. We might need to check back on some of your answers.”
“OK,” said Nicole, though the sudden transition to cop mode was unsettling.
“You’ve given us a lot of useful information already”—here, Valerie glanced at Tim—“so we really just want to ask some questions about your employer. Mikko Helle?”
Mikko and Eva must have finally gotten back from Kingston. What had Mikko thought when he saw the police cars? Had he wondered if they were there for him? Was he in custody already?
“What kind of questions?” Nicole asked. “I really don’t know him very well. We only met on Wednesday, and he and Eva haven’t been around much. They’ve been touring the area.”
“But you spent quite a while alone in his house, is that right?”
There was a burning sensation in Nicole’s throat. When she swallowed, she found it bone-dry. “A few hours, yeah.”
“And during that time, Nicole, did you notice anything unusual?”
“You mean besides the woman in the ceiling?” Shit. “I’m sorry, that was rude. I think I’m still jumpy.”
Valerie nodded. “That’s understandable. You had a bad scare. Let me rephrase the question, OK? Other than the disturbances you’ve already described, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”
Immediately, Nicole’s mind went to the message.
She hadn’t told her sister about that. Hadn’t told Tim yet, either.
She’d been worried about how the police might interpret it.
Now that she knew why Eva had been acting so strange that morning, Nicole was back to being sure the message was meant for her—and she didn’t need the police wondering whether there was, in fact, a reason why Nicole needed watching.
Knowing what she did about the intruder, though, Nicole realized two things.
The first was that the stranger might have left the message.
She’d been in the house for several days, right there with Nicole.
Hadn’t Shana said some phroggers got off on messing with people?
Maybe she’d done something similar to Eva, too.
If that was the case, Nicole knew she should tell Tim and Valerie what she’d seen.
The more information they had about the trespasser, the better.
The second thing she realized was this: the state police had surely already interviewed Mikko, and there was no telling what he’d said.
If he’d admitted to being suspicious of Nicole’s motives for wanting to work for him, and confessed to writing those words in the dust, withholding that detail would only make Nicole look guilty.
Better to be honest, at least about this.
“I’m watching,” Valerie echoed after Nicole had explained about the warning in the dust. “And you don’t know who wrote it?”
“I thought it might be Mikko. Like maybe he was playing a prank? But now,” Nicole went on, “I’m thinking it could be Jenny Smith. She was in the house when I found it.”
“Did you tell Mikko Helle about it?”
Nicole shook her head. “I cleaned the dust so I had no proof, and it was my first day. I didn’t want to cause trouble.”
Something happened to the detective’s face. Nicole thought she saw a flicker of annoyance, maybe even anger, but Valerie recovered quickly. “Being on the receiving end of a threat isn’t causing trouble,” the woman said through a tight smile. “It’s the person doing the threatening who should worry.”
Nicole knew what Valerie was getting at.
Women like Nicole, and probably even Investigator Valerie Ott, faced an imbalance of power, and that made them vulnerable.
Not a day went by that Nicole wasn’t concerned about unwanted attention and unwelcome behavior toward her girls.
She told them all the time that revealing clothes weren’t a stand-in for consent, insisting they should be free to wear whatever they liked, but she couldn’t scrub away the memory of Blair confessing she’d caught a man taking photos up her skirt at the corner market.
Valerie thought Nicole blamed herself for the message that had caused her such distress, and wanted to alleviate her misplaced guilt. Normally, that would make sense. With Nicole at Mikko’s house, though, the message had been warranted, maybe even deserved.
“What about Mr. Helle’s behavior,” Valerie went on. “Was he ever violent with you?”
Nicole flinched. “Violent? No.”
“What about his girlfriend, Eva?”
“She was acting weird this morning, but I’m sure that’s because of the noises. They were freaking me out too.”
“Did you see any weapons in the house?”
“Weapons?” Nicole repeated. “God, no.” What kind of interview was this? What did the police know about Mikko that she didn’t?
“I know these questions sound extreme, but we have to ask.” Propping her elbows on the table, Valerie Ott said, “Listen Nicole, there’s something you should know.”
Earlier, when Nicole had been pulling out of Mikko’s driveway to await further instructions at home, she’d seen two state troopers string yellow police tape around the front yard.
The tape had surprised her. Whether from talking to her sister or watching cop shows on TV, Nicole had always associated police tape with accident sites. Hazards. Homicides.
Nicole looked to Tim, whose blue eyes were sad.
“A body,” she repeated flatly when Valerie was done explaining. A secret crawlspace in the unfinished part of the basement that someone had turned into a tomb. Skeletonized remains. Suspected foul play.
A piece of hair fell across Nicole’s cheek, tickling her skin, but she made no move to right it. Nicole was fairly certain she was going to be sick.
Someone had committed a murder, and they’d stashed the body in the house.
And if she was following, if Nicole was clueing in at all, the state police thought that someone could be Mikko.