Chapter 2

The harsh incandescent lights in the interrogation room stung my eyes so badly I could barely keep them open.

I sat rigidly on the cold steel chair, my hands cuffed to the metal rings bolted to the desk.

"I'll say it one more time. I didn't cut the brake lines! And I sure as hell didn't kill Isolde!" I screamed at Detective Bram sitting across from me, my voice completely hoarse.

Bram flipped through the file in his hands, deadpan, not even bothering to look up. "Sierra, security footage from the night before the crash shows you in the underground parking garage where your husband's car was parked. You were down there for exactly twenty minutes. What were you doing?"

"I was looking for my earring! I thought I dropped it in the car!"

"Do you normally need a pair of bolt cutters to find an earring?" Bram looked up now, his gaze sharp as a knife.

"I didn't have bolt cutters! It was a misunderstanding—what I had were pruning shears for the garden. I just happened to be holding them..."

My explanation sounded unbearably weak. Even to my own ears, it sounded like a lie.

"Motive, opportunity, murder weapon. You've got them all, Sierra."

Bram tossed a report down in front of me.

"You knew your husband was having an affair with Isolde. You harbored a grudge, so you sabotaged the brakes. You wanted to stage an accident and send them both straight to hell. The only thing you didn't count on was your husband being lucky enough to survive."

"No! That's not true!" I struggled wildly, the handcuffs digging into my wrists, leaving bloody red welts.

"If I did it, why would I be asking him all those questions in the hospital? If I killed Isolde, how could I not know she was dead?!"

Bram let out a cold laugh. "Maybe you were just confirming whether your little masterpiece was finished. Or maybe, you're just putting on a show."

"I'm not acting! I really didn't know!" I shrieked in desperation.

Right then, the interrogation room door opened.

Two officers walked in, pushing a wheelchair.

Sitting in it was my husband. He was still wrapped entirely in bandages, a rigid brace locking his neck in place, his eyes staring blankly straight ahead.

"What are you doing? He needs to be in the hospital!" I yelled furiously.

"We needed a key witness." Bram walked over to the wheelchair, gave my husband's shoulder a pat, and then turned back to me. "Sierra, didn't you tell me he's acting as the perfect lie detector right now? Capable only of nodding, or shaking his head."

A sickening sense of foreboding suddenly washed over me.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

"What are you going to do?" my voice trembled.

Bram didn't answer me. Instead, he leaned down to see eye-to-eye with the man in the wheelchair.

"Listen, for these next questions, you just need to nod or shake your head." Bram's voice echoed in the cramped room. "First question. Before the crash, did you realize the brakes were failing?"

Darius nodded, slowly.

"Second question. Was Isolde killed instantly in the crash?"

Darius nodded again.

I stared at him, horrified. Back in the hospital, he had given me a "yes and no" answer. Why was he suddenly so certain now?!

Bram stood up straight, took a deep breath, and asked the fatal question.

"Last question. The person who sabotaged the brakes, the person who wanted to kill you and Isolde..." Bram's finger suddenly pointed squarely at me. "...Was it your wife, Sierra?"

Time seemed to stop.

The interrogation room was so deadly quiet that the only sound was the violent pounding of my own heart. I looked at the man in the wheelchair. My husband. I stared into his clouded eyes, shaking my head frantically at him, begging him with my gaze.

Don't.

Please. Just tell the truth.

But a second later.

Under my watch, under Bram's watch, that man who was supposedly incapable of lying, that broken shell of a body who could only react on raw instinct...

He gave me a heavy, deliberate nod.

My entire world crumbled.

"No! He's lying! How could he possibly know it was me?! He has absolutely zero proof!" I thrashed like a madwoman, the heavy steel chair screeching harshly against the floor.

"He doesn't need proof, because it's the damn truth!" Bram grabbed me by the collar and slammed me firmly forward against the table. "He's a cripple who can't even speak! You tell me, why the hell would he use whatever little strength he has left to frame you?!"

My brain was a chaotic mess. 'Yeah, why?'

I didn't kill anyone. I didn't cut those brakes. So why was all the evidence pointing directly at me? Why did this man, whose physical condition supposedly limited him only to reflexive truths, just deliver the fatal blow against me in front of the cops?

Unless...

I jerked my head up and locked eyes with the man in the wheelchair.

He wasn't running on involuntary reflexes. He was completely conscious!

"You were the one cheating! You betrayed me!" I roared at him. "Why? Why would you frame me like this?!"

He had to be acting—putting on a show to cover up his own affair!