Twenty-eight miles north, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, Nicole Melling heard the click on the other end of the telephone line but couldn’t bring herself to hit the disconnect button on the handset. She was staring at the phone in her hand when it started to make a loud beeping sound.
Her husband, Gavin, appeared in the kitchen. He must have heard the sound all the way from his home office upstairs.
He came to a halt when he spotted the phone, which she finally returned to its base. “I thought it was the smoke alarm.”
“Is that a critique of my cooking?” she asked.
“Please, I know better.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You are absolutely the best cook—make that chef—I have ever known. I’d rather eat three meals a day here than go out to the finest gourmet restaurant in the world. And besides that, you’re beautiful and have the disposition of an angel.” He paused. “Is there anything I forgot?”
Nicole laughed. “That will do.” Nicole knew that she was no beauty. She wasn’t unattractive, either. She was just ordinary, her features unremarkable. But Gavin always made her feel like, in his eyes, she was gorgeous. And he was gorgeous in her eyes. Forty-eight years old, always trying to lose a few pounds, average height, starting to bald. He was a dynamo of brains and energy whose stock picks for his hedge fund made him a formidable figure on Wall Street.
“Seriously, is everything okay? It’s a bit troubling to find my wife standing in the kitchen staring at a phone off the hook. Honest to God, you look as though you just received a threat.”
Nicole shook her head and laughed. Her husband had no idea how close this joke came to the truth in her case.
“Everything’s fine. That was Rosemary Dempsey.”
“She’s doing okay? I know you were disappointed when she didn’t accept your invitation to join us for Thanksgiving.”
She had told him about the possibility of this program. But she certainly hadn’t told him the full story about where she was in her life when she had shared a dorm room with Susan.
She hadn’t meant to conceal anything from him. She really had managed to convince herself that she was a different person now than she was before she met him.
If this program happened and someone dug deeply enough, would it be better to have told him the truth now?
“Do you know that show called Under Suspicion?” she began.
His expression was blank, then changed. “Oh sure, we saw it together. Sort of a true-crime reality show; the Graduation Gala Murder. Got lots of attention. It even ended up solving the crime.”
She nodded. “They’re thinking of featuring Susan’s case for the next one. Rosemary really wants me to be a part of it.”
He plucked a few grapes from the crystal bowl on the kitchen island. “You should do it,” he said emphatically. “A show like that could break the entire case open.” He paused, then added, “I can only imagine what it’s like for Rosemary—not knowing. Look, honey, I know you don’t like the limelight, but if it could bring some kind of closure for Rosemary, I’d say you owe it to her. You always tell me that Susan was your best friend.” He grabbed several more grapes. “Do me a favor, hang up the phone at the end of the next call, okay? I was afraid you’d fainted.”
Gavin took the stairs back to his home office. He had the luxury (and curse) of being able to run a hedge fund wherever he happened to be as long as he had a phone and Internet connection.
Now that she had spoken the possibility aloud, Nicole knew that, of course, she had to be part of the show. How would it look if Rosemary asked Susan’s college roommate to help solve Susan’s murder, and she refused? How could she sleep at night?
Twenty years was so long ago, but it felt like a minute. Nicole had left Southern California for a reason. She would have moved to the North Pole if necessary. In the Bay Area, with Gavin, she had a wonderful husband. With the marriage, she had also changed her last name. Nicole Hunter had become Nicole Melling. She had started over again. She had found peace. She had even forgiven herself.
This show could ruin everything.