WILESON: I asked him for money.

PUHL: Money in exchange for what?

WILESON: I’m sorry. I asked him for money in exchange for the cell phone. And for me not to say anything about what I saw that night. I saw him going into 115 to meet up with who I thought was Emma Bentley.

PUHL: You thought?

WILESON: I thought so, yes. And he let me think that, because he realized I didn’t know the entire truth. But it wasn’t Emma who he was having an affair with. It was Beverly Brighton. She worked at the law firm that’s been representing him. I guess that’s how they met.

PUHL: And how do you know this?

WILESON: Because I saw them. I saw them in the kitchen that night. I thought it was Emma, but when I saw her face in Bolton’s apartment, it struck me. She wasn’t the woman I saw Hooks with that night. It was Beverly.

PUHL: In Emma Bentley’s apartment?

WILESON: Yes.

(Inaudible—13 seconds)

PUHL: Okay, let’s back up. So at first, you thought Ryan Hooks was having an affair with Emma. Tell us what you did then.

WILESON: I sent him a tweet, and then he called me, and we arranged to trade the phone for the money.

PUHL: You do know that’s illegal.

WILESON: Yes, I do, but I don’t have it anymore.

PUHL: The money?

WILESON: The day he broke in, he took it back. I can’t prove it, but I know it was him. He’s a violent man. That’s what I’ve learned over the past week. But he didn’t kill Beverly Brighton.

PUHL: What do you think happened, Mrs. Wileson?

WILESON: Actually, it’s not about what I think. Emma Bentley did it. She admitted it to me at Reg Bolton’s, right before she smashed the laptop. She killed her because all this time, she’s been seeing… (Inaudible)

PUHL: What? I need you to speak up.

WILESON: (Difficult to hear) The man she’s been seeing. It was Andrew Brighton all along.

Chapter 34

Claire

Five days after

Claire and Greg stepped out of the interrogation room where they’d been talking to Paula Wileson and walked over to their desks. Greg flopped down in his chair and crossed his arms in front of his chest, stretching as he leaned his head far back.

“Can you believe this shit?” he asked as he sat up straight. “Talk about a case of she-said, she-said. Where’s Reg Bolton’s nanny cam when you really need it?”

Claire didn’t say anything. She paced back and forth in front of her desk; she was too on edge to sit down. After a moment, she leaned forward and placed her hands on the mound of file folders that she was accumulating for the Brighton case.

It all meant nothing.