Room 215 at the Holiday Inn Express in the middle of nowhere Maryland was a fucking mess.

The beds were disheveled, mattresses half on the floor and sheets tangled and twisted. And in the middle of all of it was the grey, lifeless body of Evie Staller. She was naked, sprawled between the two beds with three bullet holes in her chest. Her eyes were staring at us, already clouded over with the haze of mortality.

I slid on a pair of latex gloves and squatted beside the body, carefully lifting the hair away from her neck to look at the bruises located there. Purple and harsh underneath the skin, they bore the definite marks of a hand. No two. I let the hair fall and examined the rest of her body.

“There was a fight. Her nails are broken. Bruises all over her. Whatever the hell went down here, she was fighting.” I glanced over at Peter, his large frame taking up much of the space in the room not occupied by forensic techs and uniformed officers. “What does Mrs. Marsden look like?”

“Like she did that to her,” he nodded towards the body on the floor and then glanced around the room again. “The clerk says that Evie checked them in but Mrs. Marsden was with her. He said they looked ‘weird’ but he’s seen weirder.”

I huffed out a laugh. “I bet he has.”

“Mrs. Marsden is outside in an ambulance. We can talk to her before they take her to the hospital.”

“Yeah. Let’s do that.” I stood and took in the room again. The place was trashed so it was hard to tell what was what but something was off. “This place doesn’t feel right, Pete.”

“I know what you mean.” He motioned towards the door. “Maybe the widow has some answers for us.”

We made our way down the hallway, dodging the police personnel occupying every last inch of the space and making enough noise to wake up all the people in the hotel. We called the elevator and stepped inside, taking the two floors down in silence. Peter was chewing on his pen cap which meant he was thinking deep thoughts and I wondered if he was zeroing in on the same thing that was bugging me.

The doors opened and the lobby was quiet with pockets of people standing here and there, whispering to each other as we passed by.

Peter snorted out a low chuckle next to me. “I bet they didn’t expect to get a crime scene investigation along with their continental breakfast.”

“Don’t forget the free newspaper and the indoor pool.”

“There’s that.”

“None of this feels right, Pete.” I glanced at him as we walked through the sliding doors at the hotel entrance, the humid air of a summer morning hitting me in the face and raising goosebumps on my arms. “Not a goddam thing.”

“No shit.”

The ambulance was parked in the circular area right in front of the hotel, surrounded by patrol cars and the medical examiner’s van. Uniforms swarmed everywhere, shouting orders and questions at each other as disembodied voices crackled over the comm units strapped to belts and shoulders.

The back doors of the ambulance were wide open and Davina Marsden sat on a stretcher, shoulders draped in a metallic lined blanket with IV tubes coming out of her arm. She was shaking, drinking a cup of coffee with an attentive paramedic hovering close by. Her short, dark hair was a rat’s nest all over her head and the tone matched the dark circles under her eyes and the hollows of her cheeks.

When she lifted her head and looked at us all I saw was emptiness and rage. In my job as a homicide detective I’d seen all kinds of people: hurting people, evil people, just plain assholes. Davina was just crazy. I’m sure Dr. Androghetti would have some kind of official medical diagnosis but it would take a blind person to miss the insanity taking up all the space in Davina’s mind.

With what I knew about Nathan Marsden, he’d been the typical entitled prick who’d felt it was his God-given right to fuck every woman he’d ever met. He’d also been a big enough dick to not even try to hide it from his wife. If I had to guess, the blankness in her eyes was the result of years of hurt and betrayal and pain.

Not an excuse to murder two people.

But I understood why she did it.

Peter approached her first, his face kinder than mine. She eyed him cautiously, glaring over the rim of the paper cup. “Mrs. Marsden, we’ve been looking all over for you.”

She stared at him, flicking her gaze over to me with obvious distaste.

“Mrs. Marsden,” Peter grabbed her attention again, his tone still gentle but more insistent. “Can you tell me what happened here?”

She scoffed, a bark of laughter completely lacking any hint of brightness. “I killed the cheating whore.”

Peter and I both looked at each other and then caught the shocked expression of the paramedic. My partner inched forward, close enough to slip one end of the handcuffs over one of her wrists without even batting an eyelash. Davina gasped, her eyes wide and focused on the silver metal hanging from her wrist.

Peter took the open end and closed it over the railing on the stretcher. “This is just what I have to do Mrs. Marsden. You just told me that you killed Evie Staller, so this is what I have to do.”

She looked up at him then, her gaze shifting between my face and Pete’s, silent tears spilling over onto her cheeks. Her voice was surprisingly clear when spoke, but it was small, almost a whisper. “Am I under arrest?”

“Yes.” He nodded, his smile kind but firm. “Yes. You’re under arrest for the murder of Evie Staller.”

She was silent during the recitation of her Miranda Rights, casually sipping her coffee as the crowd around us churned like white water rapids.

“Do you understand what I’ve just said to you, Mrs. Marsden?”

“Yes, I understand. I understand.” She nodded, her head bobbing up and down and she began a slow rocking back and forth. “I understand.”

“We’re going to take you to the hospital, Mrs. Marsden. To make sure you’re okay and then we’ll talk more, okay?” Peter leaned down to try and catch her eye but she kept shaking her head, the rocking increasing as she kept repeating herself over and over.

When she dropped the cup of coffee he jumped back, trying to avoid the spray of hot liquid. The action appeared to snap her to attention and she ceased all movement, all speech as she stared down at the growing puddle at her feet. Her voice was softer, even and calm but I could hear everything she said even with the noise erupting around us.

“He wanted her. He wanted to be with her more than he wanted to be with me.”

“Who? Evie?” I leaned in closer, hoping my question would get her to look at me. “Nathan wanted to be with Evie?”

“Yes,” she nodded, lifting her head as the rocking began again, this time accompanied by the rhythmic clang of the handcuffs against the metal railing. “He was fucking her. They met at hotels and in his office. It was against our agreement. We had an agreement.”

“So, you killed Evie because she was having an affair with Nathan?”

“Yes.”

“Nathan couldn’t stay away from the whores. Evie . . . Carla . . .”

That got my attention and I cut a look at Peter who motioned for me to continue. “Carla Androghetti?”

“Yes. He loved fucking her and I got in the way. He wanted her too but she said no. I didn’t need to kill her.”

“Because she said no?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Marsden, did you kill your husband?” Peter asked the million dollar question.

She nodded, her eyes cast down at her feet. “I found them at the hotel. Condoms and sex toys everywhere. Nathan naked and laughing at me. Telling me he didn’t want me there.”

Mrs. Marsden looked at us both then, her face smeared with tears and mascara. She looked sad and hurt and scared and I had an involuntarily quick pang of pity for her. She started crying, huge violent sobs shaking her entire body. “I didn’t know there would be so much blood.”

The paramedic took over, making soothing noises as she eased her down on the stretcher and strapped her in for transport. Peter and I backed away, closing the doors and giving it two big thumps to let them know that they could take off.

I slid my keys out of pocket and my sunglasses down on my face turning towards the car with a motion for Peter to follow. I walked slowly, my anger gaining steam with every deliberately placed step I took towards our unmarked vehicle. Pete came up beside me and I felt the impact of the look he leveled at me.

I slid behind the wheel and cranked on the engine, my anger causing me to rev it a little bit more than necessary.

“You gonna drop me off at the station first?” He asked, not wasting his time telling me to calm my ass down.

“Yep,” I said, turning slightly to back out of the space and the lot. “And then I’m going to Dr. Androghetti’s house and ask her why she lied to me.”