The Widower's Wife: A Thriller by Cate Holahan Page B

“Why do you think that? She would never.”
    Luis leaned into the screen. He didn’t make eye contact, but Ryan knew that was only because he stared directly at Ryan’s face on his monitor. “Ana would not have taken her life. That bastard is to blame.”
    “He killed her,” Beatriz repeated, blinking hard with each word. “He did it.”
    But he couldn’t have. Multiple people had seen Tom at the pool when Ana went overboard. Ryan tried to sound casual. “Did you know about the policy before I called?”
    Beatriz’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. But that doesn’t matter.”
    “Ana left Tom as the primary guardian. She didn’t try to make you the guardian, despite the abuse.”
    Beatriz now looked at him with bare distaste. If she could have reached through the computer screen and slapped him, Ryan bet that she would have.
    “What could she do?” Her hands flew out toward the camera. “What was she supposed to do? Tom is Sophia’s biological parent and, and . . .” She stuttered, searching for the right words. Ryan watched her fingertips circle the nook in her thin neck. “Ana was frightened of him. He . . . He punched her in the stomach when she was pregnant.”
    If lying was a disease, this woman had all the symptoms. She was overanimated and lacked control of her facial movements or volume. Unfortunately for Ryan, he couldn’t be sure that her behavior wasn’t a result of the underlying circumstances. Severe stress—the kind caused by believing your son-in-law had killed your daughter and now had custody of your grandchild—had similar ticks.
    “Luis, if Tom hit Ana before they married, why did she go through with it?”
    Beatriz answered for her husband. “Ana was pregnant before they married. What choice did she have?”
    Luis’s Adam’s apple bobbed. For a moment, Ryan thought the man might cry. “It’s our fault.” He sighed. “She felt guilty. All the money that she’d sent to help us out . . . his money.”
    Beatriz gave her husband a small approving smile before turning her attention back to the camera. “We plan to challenge the . . .” She turned to her husband. “How do you say . . .”
    “Custodianship,” Luis said. A lawyer’s word. They must have already consulted someone. “You will help us?”
    Ryan couldn’t settle on a response. On one hand, Tom had seemed more aloof than the typical grieving husband. But that didn’t change the fact that he hadn’t been with his wife when she’d gone overboard. And Ana’s parents had millions of reasons to lie. They knew that if Ana committed suicide, no one would get any money, and they clearly blamed Tom for pushing their daughter over the edge.
    Something else troubled Ryan as well: Michael. Ana’s boss had never mentioned her having bruises or seeming frightened of her husband. He’d been all too willing to portray Tom as adeadbeat. Somehow Ryan doubted that Michael would have kept quiet about spousal abuse if he’d had reason to suspect any.
    “What about Ana’s boss?”
    Luis’s brow furrowed. He looked to his wife and said something in Portuguese. Beatriz shook her head, as if to urge him to stop talking. Her husband continued, becoming more animated with each unintelligible word.
    “Sorry to interrupt,” Ryan said loudly. “Did you know Michael Smith? Did Ana ever talk about him?”
    Beatriz patted her husband’s leg. He settled back into his seat, visibly annoyed. She sighed. “Our daughter worked very hard for him.”
    Luis pointed a finger at the screen. “You check on him too. He’s a bad man.”
    “Because he fired Ana?”
    Beatriz shot her husband a silencing look. He ignored her. “You investigate. That man shouldn’t get away with what he did.”
    “What did he do?”
    “None of that matters,” Beatriz snapped. “The point is that Tom cannot be allowed to raise our grandchild. You have to recommend that we get custody. Tom’s to blame.”
    “But what did Michael do?”
    Luis opened