“The security camera footage at the Maxwells’ home says otherwise, Miss Hill. We also ran toxicology on the Maxwells. Turns out they overdosed on antidepressants and traces of rat poison were found in their blood. A witness said they saw you dumping something into the Maxwells’ drinks while they were arguing.”
“A witness? Who?” I snapped. “The only person who was there other than me and Lola and Corey was the household manager, Georgia. Why aren’t you questioning her?” I demanded. “She’s the one who did this! S-she had to have sent me the text to come to Lola’s house! She set me up!”
I’d been questioned for hours, going back and forth with Detective Hughes with a lawyer at my side. Though the lawyer told me I didn’t have to answer some of the questions if I didn’t want to, some of them I couldn’t help but speak up on, especially when they mentioned Georgia.
“Georgia McNeil gave a full confession. She told us everything. She told us that you’d been coming by the Maxwells’ home, even when Mrs. Maxwell wasn’t there, and that you were having an affair with Dr. Maxwell. Lola was your friend, was she not? Why would you sleep with your friend’s husband? What were you going to get out of it?”
“She was never my fucking friend,” I seethed.
“So, you admit to killing her because she didn’t want to be your friend?”
“No—I didn’t kill her!” I shouted.
“But you wanted to.”
“No!”
Detective Hughes let off an irritated sighed and sat forward, opening a maroon folder. “We received the Maxwells’ home security footage an hour ago. Can you tell me what you see in this picture?”
I blinked away my tears and looked down as he slid a photo across the silver table. It was an image of me in the pool, my curly hair wet and sticking to my face, my hand gripped around the back of Corey’s neck. Corey was facedown in the pool, his arms stretched out wide, as if he’d drowned long ago. It looked as if I’d drowned him. But I hadn’t. I couldn’t have. There was no way he could have drowned that fast.
The pills—the antidepressants. They were in his drink too. Georgia had to have made those drinks. She always made the drinks, always served them, always asked if we wanted more. She’d even asked me if I wanted a drink. He was probably dead as soon as his body hit the water.
“Tell me what you see, Miss Hill,” Detective Hughes said, his voice harsher than it was a moment ago.
“It’s a . . . it’s a picture of me with my hand around Corey’s neck.” A tear slipped down my cheek.
“And what were you doing to him in this photo?”
“I was—I was angry with him. I was mad because he’d used me, but he wasn’t even in the water that long,” I pleaded, looking into the detective’s gray eyes. “I swear I didn’t kill them! I was framed for this! You have to believe me! G-go ask Detective Jack Shaw in St. Petersburg! Lola bribed him, and then there’s Georgia, who went to Marriott to tell her to give me Lola’s name!”
“Ivy,” my lawyer whispered, laying a hand on my arm.
“I didn’t do this!” I sobbed, turning my head and looking him the eye. “I didn’t.”
Detective Hughes was clearly fed up. “We contacted Detective Shaw, as you suggested last night, and he said there is no file of any kind with Lola Maxwell’s name in it.”
I wanted to die right then and there. Take Detective Hughes’s gun out of the holster and blow out my own damned brains.
“Back to this image.” Detective Hughes stabbed a finger on the black-and-white picture. “You’re telling me that you had an affair with Dr. Maxwell, found out he’d used you, and suddenly he was facedown in the pool the same day? Please tell me how this adds up, Miss Hill? Lola was found facedown on her kitchen floor. A witness stated that you seemed unbothered by Lola’s blood on your hands, that you were sitting in it until she screamed that she was calling the police.”
I groaned. A witness. Georgia.
I know what this looked like, Marriott. It looked like I killed them. But I didn’t. You believe me, don’t you? I guess this was what I deserved. You told me not to obsess over Lola and I did anyway. Now look at me. Set up. Framed for two murders I didn’t commit.
There was no way they were going to believe me at this point. I couldn’t quite explain why I drove by Lola’s house so many times before really getting to know her. I couldn’t explain the testimony against me, and why Lola’s friends thought it was strange that she had suddenly just taken me under her wing. I couldn’t explain why I’d moved nearly four hours away from my hometown to live in Lola’s and then become her friend two months later. I couldn’t explain getting the boob job from Corey. No, if anything, I looked obsessed to the detective.