Seconds to Live(41)

He was playing the devoted spouse well, but Adam Miller set off Stella’s creep alarm. There was something about him that just wasn’t right, as if he straddled the line between love and obsession.

Stella met his aggressive posture with a small step forward. “Did you get angry with her? Did you hit her?”

Tension sharpened his tone. “Why would I hurt the woman I love?”

Not quite a denial. It happened all the time.

Stella watched his eyes as she delivered the next statement. “You said you left the restaurant at two-thirty yesterday, but the club says you paid your bill two hours before that.”

“I walked my client to his car. We talked for a while in the parking lot.” He waved off her comment as trivial, but his gaze held hers. Behind his anger, Stella saw arrogance.

“Can you give me your client’s name and number?” Stella asked.

“No.” Adam’s face darkened. At his side, his right hand curled into a tight fist. The knuckles whitened. “I won’t have you ruining my career. I didn’t have anything to do with my wife’s disappearance. I’m the one who called you to find her.” The veins in his neck protruded and his mouth went tight with fury. “What is wrong with you? Why don’t you understand how much I love my wife?”

Just how violent was Adam Miller? There was one way to find out. Stella let her voice rise. “You’re missing two hours yesterday afternoon. Did you and Dena have a fight? Did you hurt her and call us to cover your tracks?”

“How dare you!” Adam exploded. Two rapid strides brought him across the six feet of space that separated them.

Balanced on the balls of her feet, Stella prepared to counter if he actually struck out at her. But a fast-moving body collided with Adam and knocked him out of the way. Adam careened sideways and landed in a sprawl on the tile. Mac had been so quiet, she’d forgotten he was in the next room, but obviously he’d been paying close attention. He’d knocked Adam on his butt.

“What the fuck?” Rolling onto his back, Adam rubbed his hip.

Stella tugged on Mac’s arm, but she might as well have been trying to move an oak tree. He glared down at Adam. “I could ask you the same thing. Assaulting an officer will get you arrested.”

“I didn’t touch her.” Adam scrambled to his feet. Leaning around Mac, he jabbed a finger at Stella. “I’m calling my lawyer. Your boss is going to hear about this. Next time you want to interrogate me, make an appointment.”

Stella ignored the threat. With Mac impossible to budge, she walked around him to confront Adam. “You came right home after you left the golf course yesterday?”

Fuming, Adam leaned closer. Then with a quick glance at Mac, he backed off. “You’re wasting your time questioning me while my wife is in danger.”

“In that case, the faster I rule you out as a suspect, the faster I can pursue other lines of investigation,” Stella said in a quiet voice. “Lying to me complicates the process.”

“My wife is missing, and you’re fucking around investigating me instead of looking for her.” Despite his protest, Adam scrawled the name and number of his client on a business card. “Find my wife.” He thrust it into Stella’s hand as she and Mac turned toward the door.

“Why didn’t you bring him in?” Mac asked when they were settled in the car. “Questioning him at the station might take away his arrogance.”

“Because thanks to you, he’s already screaming for his lawyer.” Stella turned to face him. “I don’t have any evidence that he had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance.”

“He’s lying.” Mac’s voice flattened.

“The two discrepancies in his original statement are explicable,” Stella reasoned. “Or at least that is what an attorney will say.”

Mac snorted. “He’s hiding something.”

“Thanks to your reflexes, I can’t arrest him for assaulting an officer. You body-blocked him before he touched me.”

“Sorry.” But Mac’s tone didn’t sound apologetic. “Instinct.”

“I appreciate the gesture, but you can’t feel as if you have to protect me. I provoked him intentionally. I wanted to see if he’s a violent man. If he had taken a swing at me with you standing a few feet away, that would have told me he was impulsive and doesn’t have a good handle on his temper. I would have known he was capable of hitting a woman. I would have taken him to the station. A possible assault charge would have given me leverage.”

“I didn’t want him to hit you.”