Chapter 24 #3
Kinsley noted the tension in Eden’s shoulders, the way one hand gripped the other in her lap with a pressure that turned her knuckles white.
There was something else here, something Eden was holding back.
The conversation had the shape of a confession that kept stopping short of the actual admission, circling the center without ever landing on it.
“You still maintain that you and Richard were at the block party the entire evening?”
“Yes.”
“Neither of you left? Never went back to the house for anything?”
“No.” Eden’s answer was firm, but her eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking me this again?”
“Because Shannon Utgoff was parked down the street that night,” Kinsley revealed, watching Eden’s face for the slightest fracture. “She claims she was waiting for Richard to come out and meet her. According to Shannon, he never left the party.”
“If Shannon claims she was waiting for my husband, that’s between them. I was at the party. I saw Richard there all evening, so she’s telling you the truth.” Eden’s voice was steady, but the steadiness itself came across as a performance. “Richard was very much present.”
“Eden, if there’s anything you’re not telling me, now is the time. If you’re protecting someone—”
“I’m not protecting anyone.” Eden’s voice rose slightly, the composure cracking at its edges. “My daughter is dead. Grant Tatlock killed her. He was found at the scene, for God’s sake. Why are you trying to complicate this?”
“Because ten thousand dollars in cash was found hidden in Iris’s room.
Because she was blackmailing half the neighborhood.
Because your son was in the vicinity that night and lied about it for thirty years.
” Kinsley softened her voice, pulling back from the pressure just enough to keep Eden from shutting down entirely.
“And because I think you know more than you’re saying. ”
Eden was silent for a long moment.
“My daughter thought she was invincible. Thought she could manipulate anyone, control any situation. She pushed someone too far, and they pushed back. That’s what happened.
” Eden met Kinsley’s eyes, and what Kinsley saw there was not defiance but something closer to resignation.
“Whether it was Grant or someone else, the result is the same. Iris is dead, and nothing you uncover will change that.”
Whether it was Grant or someone else. The phrasing was a crack in the wall, so small it could have been accidental. But Kinsley didn’t believe in accidental word choices from a woman as careful as Eden Bell.
“But it might give you the truth.”
“The truth.” Eden laughed bitterly, and the sound was hollow enough to echo.
“The truth is that my daughter was brilliant and reckless and exhausting. The truth is that I loved her and wished she’d been different, all at the same time.
The truth is that Grant Tatlock was convicted, and he’s dead now, too.
It’s over. Everything is finally over, and I can finally move on. ”
Kinsley studied Eden’s face. The careful mask was back in place, but it didn’t fit as well as it had at the beginning of their conversation. The seams were showing, and beneath them was something Eden had been protecting with a ferocity that went beyond a mother’s grief or a wife’s loyalty.
Pushing harder now would only drive her further into retreat. The wall would go back up, the composure would solidify, and the next time Kinsley tried to have this conversation, there would be a lawyer in the room.
“Okay.” Kinsley stood, tugging the edges of her blazer so the material sat evenly on both sides. “If you remember anything else, please reach out to me. You have my number.”
“Thank you for your time, Detective.”
Kinsley reviewed the conversation in her mind as she walked through the house, out the front door, and across the short pathway to her Jeep sitting in the driveway. The rain had picked up slightly, but she barely noticed it.
Eden Bell was lying.
Not about everything.
Kinsley believed the woman’s grief was real, the exhaustion with her marriage genuine, the complicated love for her daughter authentic in every painful detail.
But she was protecting something. Someone.
She had thrown away those recorders without listening to them, and she’d done it urgently enough to haul the trash to the curb herself to prevent Richard from retrieving them.
That wasn’t the behavior of a woman who was indifferent to what was on those tapes.
That was the behavior of a woman who was terrified of it.
Richard, most likely.
Despite the affairs, despite the resentment, despite the hollowed-out shell of a marriage she’d described with such unflinching transparency, Eden was still playing the role of dutiful wife.
Still maintaining appearances, still enduring.
The habit of protection had become so deeply embedded in who she was that she couldn’t stop, even when the thing she was protecting had long since stopped being worth the effort.
But there was another possibility that Kinsley couldn’t dismiss.
Whether it was Grant or someone else. Eden had spoken those words as though she’d considered the alternative before.
As though she’d lain awake on nights when the house was too quiet, and the silence was too loud, and allowed herself to wonder whether the man who’d been convicted had actually been the one to push her daughter down those stairs.
As Kinsley drove through Fallbrook’s quiet streets, the rain beginning to fall harder now, she mulled over Eden’s words. Iris was seventeen going on thirty. An old soul who thought she knew better than everyone.
A girl who pushed someone too far.
The question was who had pushed back.