“I haven’t told anyone this,” Theodore said. “But I saw Theo at their house before Caroline died.”

“Wasn’t he out of town?”

“He wants people to think that,” Theodore said. “I confronted him about it yesterday. He denied being there, but I know he was lying to me. He was at the house.”

“Are you positive it was him?”

“Absolutely. I was awake at five in the morning. Theo came by and went into the house. He was only there for a few minutes. I got a very good look at him on his way out. It was him.”

“You need to tell the police,” I said.

“Tell them what? That Theo went to his house at five in the morning? Caroline was still alive when he left.” Theodore shook his head sadly. “I’ve had paranoid thoughts about his visit. What if he did something to one of Caroline’s medications? I have no proof at all. Only fears.”

“What about security cameras? He must be on them.”

“The security system had been disabled,” he said. “Obviously both Caroline and Theo had the codes.”

“Do you think Theo was involved in my sister’s death?”

“I don’t want to think that.” He rubbed his eyes. “When I confronted him, I thought he’d give me an explanation for being there. It could have been anything. But Theo lied about it. I can’t think of any innocent reason why he would do that.”

CHAPTER 22 THEO

CHAPTER 22

THEO

My flight over the Atlantic was miserable. Awake, I obsessed about what Teddy had said to me when I told him I had to go away for a couple of days. You’re leaving again? Okay. Bye. Asleep, Caroline’s face floated through my mind. I don’t want to be married to you anymore. Why is that so hard to understand, Theo? Get out of my house.

All of my options were awful ones.

More than once, I pulled the letter I always carried out of my pocket. Reading it over always made me question my sanity.

Dear Theo Thraxton,

I am writing with reference to an article about you published in Verve Magazine. In it, you are quoted as saying, “The most dramatic episode of my life was when I was three years old and fell into the tiger enclosure at the Berlin Zoo.” As I hope you know, Zoo Berlin (as we call ourselves) has some 20,000 species of animals spread over 33 hectares. At the moment, we have no large felines as our Predator House is under major renovation, and those animals were rehomed to other zoological gardens. However, I felt it necessary to investigate your claim, as it would be unfair to rehome without warning an animal that had attacked a child. At that point, I learned that no such attack ever occurred here.