Kate’s investigation petered out after her interview with Alonzo Cortes. Rick knew it hadn’t amounted to anything as soon as she got home that night, the frustration etched into the lines of her face. She snuck upstairs to give their already sleeping girls a goodnight kiss, helped him get Oliver down because he wasn’t as successful the second night, and poured herself a large glass of wine. She sat with it on the couch, her head thrown back in defeat, her eyes closed to block out the world around her as she thought.
Rick sat down next to her, his fingers playing with the ends of her hair, his eyes studying the tension on her face. “What if your suspect has an evil twin?” Her mouth twitched, just a hint of a smile forming, spurring him on. “And that evil twin really wants to take over his life, so he sets Alonzo up to take the fall!” At this, her eye popped open, just one. Green with flecks of gold studying him, trying to gauge how serious he was. “And as soon as Alonzo is taken down, he’ll swoop in, making nice with Alonzo’s wife, bonding with his children, taking over the business, being a better Alonzo than the real one would ever be!”
Her eyebrows arched, her face a mixture of disbelief and amusement as she rose her head to look at him. Her mouth was pursed as she figured the best way to respond, and her hand reached for his and held on tight. “Babe. You’ve got all these crimes running around in your head, crimes that you write about and actually make them sound convincing, and the best you can come up with for my case is ‘evil twin’?”
“Kate, it’s a concept that has been around for ages. The fear had to come from somewhere.” Her eyes rolled in that spectacular way that seemed to be only reserved for him, so he took the opportunity to reel her in now that he had her listening, hoping to bring some sort of joy and happiness to her day. “Besides, how long has it been since someone had a real-life evil twin? Law of averages would suggest that it should probably happen again in the near future. Why not this case?”
“Rick!” Her voice was sharp and exhausted, and the hint of her smile had disappeared. “He had a pretty solid alibi. Don’t you think an evil twin would have at least tried to make sure that Alonzo was in the same state?”
This made him pause. Because of course it made sense. If Alonzo number two wanted to frame Alonzo number one, making sure Alonzo number one didn’t have an alibi would be high on his list of priorities. “Out of state?” Her grimace told him everything he needed to know. “And I guess it checked out?”
