In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson (ebook reader for pc and android TXT) 📕

be the men who broke into our house? I stare at the one with the shaved head and instantly I’m back in June’s room, seeing her there, on her knees in front of him, the man turning towards me with the gun in his hand.

Dots start to dance frantically in front of my eyes and a sheen of sweat breaks out all over my body. I feel as if I’ve been hit all at once with flu.

‘Are you OK?’ Laurie asks.

I take a few deep breaths, waiting for the dizziness to pass. Laurie throws some dollars at the newsstand guy and we walk a few paces away to study the photograph under the light.

‘Is that them, do you think?’ Laurie asks.

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. They were wearing masks.’

My phone rings and I pull it out. It’s Nate. I take the call as Laurie and I enter the elevator.

‘Did you see the news?’ he asks me, straight off the bat.

‘Yes.’

‘We found the guys. We’ve brought them in for questioning. Can you come down to the station? We need you to do an ID.’

‘I told you, I didn’t see their faces.’

‘But you heard their voices. We want you to see if you recognize them by their voices.’

Can I remember their voices? I don’t know anymore. It all feels like it happened so long ago. There’s something though – something that keeps nagging at me – something in the foggiest part of my brain that I know I’ve forgotten and that I need to remember.

‘Ava?’

‘Yes. I’ll be there.’

‘Great.’

I make to hang up but I stop because I can hear Nate on the other end of the line, hesitating. ‘Ava?’ he finally says.

‘Mmmm?’

‘How are you doing?’

His voice is soft as a caress, low – as if he’s trying not to be overheard. He’s not asking as the Sheriff.

‘I’ll see you later, Nate,’ I say, and then hang up.

Chapter 25

‘In your statement you said that when you were in the kitchen the second man said the words ‘‘Get over here’’.’

‘Hmm?’

I glance at Nate. He’s been talking and I haven’t been listening.

Nate looks up from his notebook. ‘Sorry, I know this must be hard.’

I study him and in my head I’m thinking, You have no idea. No one does. No idea at all. ‘What happens?’ I ask, turning my attention to the two-way glass and trying to compose myself. ‘I give a correct ID on these guys and you arrest them?’

‘We’re checking their alibis. If you can ID them and we can find a hole in their alibi, then yes, we’ve got enough to charge them. If we can match DNA to traces left at the house, then we’ve got an even stronger case. The lab are running tests but they’ll take a month, maybe longer, to come back with results.’

I stare through the glass at the empty room on the other side. It’s the same room I sat in with Robert when he told me he knew about me and Nate. I can’t tell Nate that Robert suspects something is going on between us, as I’m sure Nate would use that as further evidence against him – another motive – and until I know for sure that Robert isn’t guilty, I’m not about to give Nate more evidence to use against him.

‘Did they admit Robert hired them? Did they say he hired them to kill me?’ I ask.

‘They haven’t admitted to anything,’ Nate says. ‘But that’s because they’re lawyered up better than OJ and their lawyer’s counseling them to say nothing.’

So they haven’t admitted it. ‘And if I manage to identify them by their voices, then what?’ I ask.

‘We can’t hold them. It won’t be enough for the DA. The defense will punch a hole right through it in court.’

‘So what’s the point of this then?’ I ask.

‘Because it’s something,’ Nate says. ‘If you can ID them, at least we know we’re looking in the right direction. We can discount other lines of enquiry. We’re looking into their alibis for the night of the break-in right now. If we can tear those apart and put them at the scene with DNA evidence, we’ve got enough to charge them.’

‘And Robert too.’

He gives an awkward shrug. ‘Don’t you want to know the truth?’ he asks me.

I nod. I do. I need to know if Robert is guilty. I wish I could swear blind that he’s innocent, but I can’t. If he lied to me about the bankruptcy and the fact he’d blown through three million plus dollars, then what else could he lie to me about?

‘Let’s do this then,’ I say impatiently to Nate. ‘I need to get back to June.’

Nate bangs on the door. An attractive Latina woman strides into the room wearing an expensive suit, stiletto heels and a slash of red lipstick. She gives me a once-over that makes me shrink about three inches. If I had balls they would have ridden up somewhere inside my body.

‘Their lawyer,’ Nate whispers under his breath to me. I eye the woman with a frown. How the hell can they afford a lawyer who looks like she just walked off the set of The Good Wife?

A minute later six men, all wearing ski masks that cover their faces, troop into the room on the other side of the glass. I take a deep breath, feeling a tremor run through me. I sense Nate glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. I wasn’t expecting the masks but of course it makes sense. Nate and I watch as the men are lined up in front of a height chart. I immediately discount number six because he’s tall, almost six feet one, but the others are all shorter.

‘They can’t see or hear us,’ Nate reminds me.

I scan the men in turn. With the masks over their heads it’s almost impossible to tell which two I saw in the paper. But it’s just as hard to know if any of them were the two men