Chapter 4

My wrist still ached where Frank had grabbed me — a dull throb that wouldn't quit, like it was still locked there on that rain-soaked highway.

Seattle Police Department. Interrogation Room Three.

Fluorescent lights overhead, bright enough to kill shadows.

Steel table, steel chairs, that one-way mirror on the wall. No telling how many eyes were behind it.

I'd been sitting here two hours straight, nothing but the drone of the air conditioning and my own breathing.

The door opened. Miller came in with a thick folder under his arm, his face set hard. He dropped the folder on the table — didn't set it down, dropped it — scraped his chair back, and sat.

His eyes swept over me like I was already convicted.

"Ms. Holloway. Let's talk."

"Did you check?" I stayed still, arms crossed. "Frank's story — you actually buy it?"

"What I believe doesn't matter. Evidence does." He flipped the folder open. "Catherine, I'm not saying you killed her. Not yet. But right now? Every piece of evidence we have is pointing at you."

My stomach dropped. Under the table, my hands curled into fists.

"First. Prints." He slid a forensics report across the table. "We pulled two sets off that black trash bag. Frank Rhodes. And you."

"That's impossible." I kept my voice level. "I never touched that car. Never touched that bag."

"Your prints say different. Clear as day."

I stared at the report and forced my brain to work.

Prints. When? How?

I replayed the night frame by frame. Frank lunging at my window in the rain. His hand clamping my wrist, going for my phone. But that was seconds. Not enough time for a transfer.

Then it hit me.

Frank had my prints before tonight. This didn't start today.

Sarah had been in my head longer than I'd realized — and Frank had been watching me just as long.

A coffee cup. A door handle. Anything I'd touched in public. He could've lifted a clean set and planted it on that bag whenever he wanted.

This wasn't spur-of-the-moment. This was a setup.

"Second." Miller didn't wait for me to respond. "Frank says you hired him. Says you killed your competitor Sarah over some business deal gone bad, paid him fifty grand to clean it up."

He paused. Let that settle. "We ran your accounts. Yesterday afternoon, you pulled fifty thousand in cash."

Another drop in my chest.

That money went to a freelance consultant. Digital security work, off the books — his rule, not mine. I thought it was a pain in the ass. I did it anyway.

Frank had known. He'd known every detail.

"That's a coincidence," I said. "One you can fake."

"Maybe." Miller gathered the papers, tapped them straight. "Let's move on. You told me to run the pickup truck. Registration, GPS, the works."

"Right."

Miller looked up, and what I saw wasn't suspicion anymore. It was almost sympathy.

"Catherine, there's nothing to run."

He stood, leaned across the table, palms flat on the steel.

"VIN's been filed off. Plates are cloned. That truck doesn't exist in any database we've got." He held my eyes. "It's a ghost."

The room went dead quiet. Even the hum of the AC seemed to fade.

"Gets better." He pulled a photo from the folder and slid it in front of me. "Three hours before you called this in, that truck passed under a traffic cam on I-5. Driver's seat wasn't empty."

I looked down.

Rain had blurred the shot, but the figure behind the wheel was clear enough. Dark coat. Sunglasses. And on one ear — just visible through the grain — a small red stone.

My jaw tightened.

"Height. Hair. The earring." Miller tapped the photo. "Catherine, if I didn't know better, I'd say this was you."

"It's not me."

"I know you'll say that."

He sat back down. "Last thing. You drove from your office to the airport tonight on the old coastal road. No cameras. You said so yourself." His hands folded on the table. "Which means for three hours before that body turned up—"

"I've got no alibi." I finished it for him.

"No. You don't."

Miller reached to his belt, unclipped his cuffs, and set them on the table. The metal hit steel with a sound that seemed to hang in the air.

"You had time. You had motive. Your prints are on the evidence. There's footage of someone dressed up as you. Fifty-thousand-dollar cash withdrawal the day before. And a vehicle that doesn't exist, with every lead ending at your door."

He waited one beat.

"Catherine Holloway, you're under arrest."