Chapter 2
Eden stared at the detective, her bottom lip trembling, then sat down on the kitchen chair hard.
“You have to be wrong,” she cried out in disbelief.
This wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be possible.
She tried to pick up her coffee, only her hands were trembling, and some coffee spilled.
She set her cup down, her gaze focused on it.
“When I left the retreat, left Chattanooga, she was totally fine.”
“We have a confirmed ID.”
How? The question reached her mind before she could finally get it out.
“How did she die?” Did her new lover kill her?
What if Debbie had ended up dead because Eden had left her behind?
She couldn’t breathe as all these thoughts went through her head, her gaze now locked on to the detective’s face.
At least now she understood why he was here.
She shook her head and looked away. “No, it just can’t be.” She glanced back, as she picked up her coffee cup, then put it down right away since her hand trembled even worse than before. She spun to look at him. “You didn’t answer my question. How did she die?”
“That’s unknown at this point. Potentially suicide. Pill bottles were close by, but we’ll have to wait for the findings from the medical examiner. We are still waiting for an official cause of death. Her records do point to a long-standing heart condition though.”
She stared at the spot of coffee she had spilled, fascinated by the puddle still morphing.
It was something for her mind to focus on, rather than thinking about Debbie.
Eden turned her gaze to the detective and said, “The heart condition started as a childhood thing. As for suicide? That’s not Debbie.
I told you what our fight was about. No way she would commit suicide—especially not right after finally meeting her perfect partner. ”
She said it again, but this time there was more sorrow than shock in her tone, more bewilderment than anything. She bit down hard on her lip and said, “Please, I need to know more.”
He nodded quietly and said, “She was found at her own home here in Nashville. In her own bed. Alone. The house was locked, and we found no sign of forced entry.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Well, I guess she got home somehow then.” He frowned. “But who called it in? How did you know? Someone must have—”
“A wellness check was called in for her by—” Eric looked down at the notebook in his hand, a small compact pad, and he read off, “Richard Santino.”
“He’s the guru guy. He led the meditation retreat,” she said. “Him and his brother, Richard and Rinaldo Santino. They ran the program we signed up for.” She frowned again. “So, Richard wasn’t with her?”
“No. He said that she was supposed to call in as soon as she got home, but she never did.” He reached out a hand and then slowly withdrew it when Eden instinctively pulled hers away.
She stared at him and shook her head. “I need information, more information … please.”
He sat still for a moment and sighed. “We don’t have a whole lot of information at this time, but I can tell you that we found no easily definable cause of death. We’re waiting for the final report.”
She blinked. “What does that mean?” she cried out, staring at him in shock. “I thought you said she took pills.”
He frowned. “We found pill bottles near her body, but, without the autopsy, we don’t know if that was a factor at all,” he said. “We saw no obvious indication of a cause of death otherwise.”
“So, she wasn’t hit over the head?”
“Not obviously, no.”
“She didn’t fall down the stairs?” He shook his head. Yet Eden’s mind couldn’t make sense of the lack of information and couldn’t stop thinking of probable scenarios, even if impossible.
“As I told you, she was found in her own bed. The wellness check was called in by Richard.”
Eric kept his voice calm, even as she stupidly continued to question him. “How did he know?” Another stupid question. God, she needed to just shut up. Yet couldn’t.
Eric replied, “That’s the point of a wellness check. He didn’t know. He just said that he hadn’t heard from her as planned, and, as far as we know, he was very concerned. She was supposed to contact him as soon as she got in, and there was no reason why she wouldn’t have.”
Eden sat back in her chair and said, “No, there wasn’t. She was absolutely head-over-heels bonkers about him. I can’t even believe she left him and came home. She told me that she wasn’t going to.”
“What do you mean, she wasn’t going to?” he asked.
“Well, her story changed a few times, but, at one point, she told me that she had quit her job via text with no notice. However, the boss was making her come back in, something about needing to give proper notice or to give time to finish up jobs or something. But then Debbie said she wasn’t going to. ”
“That’s two different things you are telling me.”
“That’s what I am telling you. Debbie was off her rocker, smitten with the guy, and wasn’t making any sense.
You’ll have to check her phone. By the end for her ranting, I wasn’t exactly listening,” she said.
“I was too livid, and I assumed she would come home and move at some point because she also said that she ended her lease on her rental and that she was moving in with him. I don’t even know where he lives,” she cried out, staring at him.
“I mean, he was there for the weekend retreat. For all I know, he could live in a whole other country.”
“He has a home in Seattle but is always traveling. He has regular seminars across the country including Nashville,” Detective Eric confirmed, “and he was supposed to see her today, but he was off doing something else for a different business trip.”
“So how did she get home last night?” she asked, her gaze narrowing. “Maybe he killed her and then waited a few hours to call in for a welfare check.”
His lips twitched, and he said, “Until we get a detailed autopsy report, we won’t know much more.”
“You better check him out.”
“We already did. He has an alibi for the night. He was back home, and apparently his brother was with him.”
“Yeah, but then they just alibied each other,” she pointed out immediately.
He stared at her and said, “You really don’t like them.”
She groaned, closed her eyes, and said, “Look. I don’t have any reason to like or dislike either one of them.
I’m just telling you that the whole thing was beyond odd, and this just continues that reality.
And, other than her heart murmur or whatever that seemed to be controlled with her prescription, she was otherwise very fit and healthy.
So I can’t believe her death would be from natural causes. ”
He nodded. “All I can tell you is that she was dead in her bed, and, for all intents and purposes, she went peacefully. It appears she passed in her sleep.”
Eden just stared at him.
“Hey, it happens. Not very often, but it does happen.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“And that may be the case,” he said, “but I was hoping you could give me information about any trouble she may have had at the retreat.”
“Yay, me,” she said bluntly. Eric looked at her, his eyebrows shooting up. “Like I said, it was a pretty wild case of love-at-first sight, followed by I’m completely flipping my life around, and, by the way, I hate you for ruining my moment of true love.”
“So, you said you two had words?”
“Don’t get me started on that,” she said, then sobered, her flare of anger immediately draining away to be replaced by sadness.
“I was trying to talk her out of leaving her job and giving up her apartment, you know, to give the relationship some time. But she blew up and basically told me that she hated everything about me. You’re not my friend, and Everything about me is wrong. That’s what she said to me.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, plenty more where that came from. She told me that she was just with me because she was lonely and needed somebody, but now that she found her soulmate, blah, blah, blah, I was no longer needed. That was pretty much my weekend.” She took a deep breath and said, “It was godawful. She didn’t hold back a bit and made some raw, ugly comments. ”
She turned to stare off in space, her mind still blanking on the concept that Debbie was dead.
She turned and looked at him and asked, “You’re sure it’s her, right?
” She grabbed her phone and pulled up one of the most recent pictures of her former best friend.
She held it up. “This is Debbie. Is it her?”
He nodded. “Yes, that’s her.” And he gave the address for her apartment, and Eden’s mind buzzed with shock again.
“Yeah, that’s—that’s her apartment.”
“How long has she lived there?”
She grimaced. “Only two months now, I think.”
“And was she month to month?”
“I think so.” Then she frowned and added, “I’m still in shock over the weekend as it is. I hardly got any sleep. I was so upset, and I don’t really understand what happened to her. However, I believe whatever happened to her happened to her much earlier.”
He frowned at her. “What do you mean by that?”
“She wasn’t herself. She was not in any way, shape, or form the person who I drove there with. And I know that it sounds like jealousy.”
“It does,” he agreed, with a nod.
“Yeah, that’s what she told me all weekend long too,” she confirmed, trying hard to calm down. “Yet I’m telling you that whoever was there was not Debbie. She didn’t look like her. She didn’t act like her—not at all.”
His gaze intensely drilled into hers. “And you do know—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “It sounds as if I’m absolutely nuts. I get it. And I’ll probably never say it again because obviously nobody’ll believe me, but I’m telling you. It’s like she went through a personality change, just as soon as she met him.”
“Was it reciprocated?” he asked.