Chills roughened her skin, and she began shivering. She pulled her coat on and huddled in it. So it was shock, just as Richard thought, her body’s reaction to something upsetting. Probably when she painted the scenes she was at least partially protected by sleep, but when she woke up, the reaction hit with a bang.
“Ms. Sweeney, where were you night before last?” Ritenour was staring at her, pale eyes hard, his tone cold.
“At home.” Her teeth chattered. “The weird stuff started happening about a year ago. Little things. Traffic lights changing, the parking spaces, things like that. I didn’t notice at first. Like you said, lights turn green all the time. Everyone catches a green light occasionally. And my plants began to bloom out of season.”
“Ms. Sweeney.” Ritenour’s voice had gone as hard as his eyes. “Do I look like I care about your plants?”
No, he looked as if he had wanted to add a copulatory adjective in front of “plants.”
She opened her mouth to tell him about the ghosts, then shut it. That wouldn’t help her case at all. “I began the painting several days ago; I don’t know exactly when. I don’t keep track of days. When I woke up, I found I had painted shoes. Two of them, a man’s and a woman’s. Every morning I’d find s-something new added.” She clamped her teeth together to control their chattering.
“Would you like some coffee?” Aquino asked, and she nodded gratefully. He left the little room. Sweeney looked back to Ritenour.
“After a c-couple of days, I knew I was p-painting a murder scene, but I didn’t know who—I hadn’t gotten to the f-faces. Yesterday m-morning, when I got up, I saw I had painted C-Candra. I tried to c-call her, to warn her—at the gallery, but no one answered. Her home number is unlisted. S-so I called Richard’s office, to get her number, and his assistant told me Candra was d-dead.” She was shaking violently, teeth chattering. Her bones and muscles began to ache. Her hands, resting on the table, had turned a transparent bluish white, as if she had no blood in her body.
“If all that’s so, why didn’t you tell us about it this morning?” Despite himself, Ritenour was interested. People came forward all the time claiming to have special, prior knowledge of crimes, calling themselves psychic and looking to get their names in the news. In his experience, they were usually the perps. People were weird.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe m-me.”
No shit, he started to say, but controlled himself. What in hell was wrong with her? She acted like they had her in a freezer, huddling in that damn coat when it had to be at least seventy-five degrees in here. She wasn’t faking, though; even her lips were blue.
He frowned and left the room without explanation. Aquino was just coming back with the coffee. “Something’s going on with her,” Ritenour said to his partner. “She’s freezing cold. I’m beginning to think we might have to get the medics to treat her for hypothermia.” He was only half-joking.
“Shit.” A medical condition would bring the questioning to a halt. Of course, all she had to do was ask to see a lawyer and they wouldn’t be able to ask her any more questions unless the lawyer was present, but for some reason she hadn’t done that. “Maybe the coffee will warm her up.”
They reentered the room. She was sitting exactly as Ritenour had left her. Aquino put the coffee down in front of her. She tried to lift the cup, but her hands were shaking so violently the hot liquid slopped over on her fingers.
“We got any drinking straws around here?” Ritenour muttered. Aquino shrugged. They both watched as she wrapped her hands around the polystyrene cup and leaned forward, awkwardly trying to sip the coffee with the cup still sitting on the table. Aquino was a real hard-ass, but, glancing at him, Ritenour saw that his partner was looking a little concerned.
The coffee seemed to help her a little. After a couple of sips she was able to lift the cup without sloshing the coffee all over her.
Ritenour began again. “Ms. Sweeney, were you aware that Mr. and Mrs. Worth had signed a prenuptial agreement?”
“No,” she said, bewildered. “Why would I be?”
“You’re involved with Mr. Worth. A man’s financial situation would normally be of interest to a woman, especially if she thought he stood to lose half of everything in a divorce.”
“I—We—” Sweeney stammered. “We’ve just begun seeing each other. We haven’t—”
“You’re involved enough that you spent last night with him,” Aquino said. “Money’s the reason behind a lot of things people do.”
“But Candra had agreed to sign the papers.” Sweeney looked up at them. “I knew she wasn’t happy about the settlement because she wanted me to get Richard to increase the amount, so even though I don’t know the exact amount of the settlement, it c-couldn’t have been half of everything he has.”
That at least was logical. She could see them acknowledge the point.
Ritenour rubbed his jaw. He wore an interesting wristwatch, the kind that let you check the local time in Timbuktu, with all sorts of buttons and gadgets. Sweeney stared at it, an idea glimmering.
“What time is it?”
Ritenour glanced at the watch. “Six forty-three.”
“I can prove I’m—” She couldn’t say psychic. She shrank from it herself, and she could tell they automatically rejected anything connected with the word. “You saw what happened with the traffic lights. You saw. And it happens every time. But there’s another way I can show you I . . . know things ahead of time.”