Chapter 6 Chapter 06

You would call me weird, but I wanted to know what was going on. I just had to. Plus, Roman had already said I had probably just blocked it. He insinuated that I had actually stabbed that woman, but the detective had been more accommodating.

He didn't just force it on me, and right now, he was the one I felt safer speaking to. That's why I asked the driver to take me to the station, even asking him not to tell my husband.

“He asked me to go home and rest. He would be more upset with you if he finds out I'm not resting at home,” I warned him. “And I will turn this around on you. You know how he is. He will not hesitate to have you fired.”

“Understood, ma'am,” he replied, clearly threatened but knowing it was the truth. Roman would not spare him. He would lose his job for not taking me home.

When we got to the station, I asked him to wait inside the car and then let myself in. Luckily, I met Detective Leonardo by the reception area, and he of course recognized me.

“Mrs. Garcia, what are you doing here?”

“We need to talk. Can we go somewhere private?” I looked around. Of course, people already knew that if I was here, there were probably some legal issues, but I preferred that they didn't know I was a killer.

Detective Leonardo looked at the officers at the reception and then nodded, asking me to follow him.

We went into what seemed to be his private office. I got in first, and he closed the door behind him. He asked me to sit, and I did as he went to the other side and sat down too. At this point, I was already rubbing my hands together.

“What's going on?”

“I just saw on the news. Elise was a reporter?”

“Yes. You didn't know?”

“Roman said she worked for my company,” I said, then thought about whether telling him about the file I found was safe. In the end, I decided not to. “Oscar worked for the company, yes, but not her.”

“Yes, it's impossible for Ms. Davis to have worked for your company. You already have contracts with media stations, and the station Ms. Davis worked for is not one of them,” Leonardo explained. “Mrs. Garcia, do you have any suspect in mind?”

“What? No, I mean...” I hesitated. “Oscar died, then her. It's possible the same person who killed him killed her.”

“That's possible, which is why I'm working hard to know the truth,” he said. “That's why it's important that you share everything you know with us, Mrs. Garcia. This will not only help solve the case, as you might have realized...” He paused. “Ms. Davis was loved by the people. She did good work, and they won't rest until the person who took her life is behind bars.”

When those words left his mouth, my heart skipped a beat.

I was the main suspect.

With Roman confirming the stab wounds, I might actually be the killer.

Right then, I realized coming here had been a mistake. The way Leonardo was looking at me made me want to leave. I stood up, apologizing for wasting his time.

“If you're done with my phone, then please send it over,” I said.

But before I could take a step, he asked me to sit back down.

“Detective Leonardo, I can't. My kids–”

“You are the main suspect in a murder case. Do you think worrying about your kids in this moment is the best thing to do?”

He kind of had a point.

Slowly, I sat back down, my whole body shivering. In my heart, I regretted not listening to Roman. I would have been home by now, calming down and staying away from all of this.

“Here...” He turned his computer around, and there was store footage on the screen.

It was clear.

A woman dressed in floral, mom-friendly clothes was standing inside a kitchen store. She wore a quarter skirt and a colorful blouse. She came up to the register with three items.

A pan.

A big spoon.

And a knife.

The knife was big, with a wooden handle and a silver blade. It looked so familiar, like I had seen it before.

Then I remembered.

The knife was the same one the detective had just shown me not too long ago. The knife he said was the murder weapon.

And strangely, that wasn't all that looked familiar.

The clothes the woman had on.

The flowery green skirt. The sunflower blouse. I had those.

Even more strangely, she had her hair styled in a way I liked.

In other words, someone else could mistake this woman for me, but I knew my own body too well. I knew the way I walked, the way I moved.

That wasn't me.

“Who's this? Why is she dressed like me?” I asked.

Leonardo looked confused for a second.

“You didn't purchase that?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He looked at the computer screen and then back at me.

“Mrs. Garcia, are you sure this is not you?”

“No, that's not me. That's not how I walk. Where did you get this? What's going on?”

“Mrs. Garcia, this footage is from a day before you stabbed Ms. Davis.” My lips trembled. “This is you purchasing the murder weapon.”

“No, that's... that's impossible. I didn't...” I shook my head. “That's not me.”

“Okay...”

He turned the screen back toward himself. After a few seconds, he turned it back to me.

There on the screen was what looked like search history. The name at the top already told me it was my phone.

“The IT team restored your search history,” he said.

I stared at the screen as he read the searches out loud for me.

“Where to stab right in the chest for the person to die.”

“How many stabs usually kill a person.”

“How to deal with your husband cheating?”

“Husband cheating, is killing mistress the best approach?”

“How many years arrested for murder?”

Detective Leonardo continued reading, and I was shaking my head.

I didn't make any of those searches.

This was crazy.

“Mrs. Garcia, what can you say about these searches?” he asked.

I just shook my head.

“You know, I was actually not believing my team when they gave me this information, but the way you just looked guilty a minute ago proved me wrong,” he said.

I was silent.

I never picked up my phone and made those searches. Even after Elise had fallen, I did make a search, but it was more about what kitchen tools could be used to clean up a murder scene.

That's all.

There had been no searches about stabbing someone.

No searches about killing a mistress.

No searches about prison.

Detective Leonardo stared at me quietly, and I stared back at him.

I expected him to tell me I was under arrest.

Instead, he said, “He got you good.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mrs. Garcia, I've been in this for more than twenty years. I know you didn't kill her,” he said.

Relief almost washed over me.

Until he added, “Your husband did it.”