214 Palmer Street(12)

“Oh, what a relief.” Her hand went to her heart. “I’ll have to organize something at the office. We’ll send flowers. And maybe a fruit basket.” She took a sip of her drink and looked up to see Gavin staring at her. “What?”

“You seem pretty nonplussed considering your friend was attacked.”

She shrugged. “Kirk is with her and you said she’s fine. Plus, you’re on the case. It sounds like she’s in very good hands.”

Gavin tilted his head and gave her an appraising look. He’d been so certain of her guilt, but now he didn’t know what to think. “I don’t believe you answered the question. How is it that your earring wound up in Sarah’s backyard?”

“I must have lost it when I was at her house, visiting.”

“I talked to Kirk at length. He never mentioned that you’d visited.”

Clarice folded her arms. “Sarah and I went out to lunch last Saturday and I drove. Kirk wasn’t home when I got to their house, but she invited me in and showed me the new patio set before we left for the restaurant, so I was in their backyard. Come to think of it, I noticed the earring was missing later that afternoon.”

“Can anyone back that up?”

She laughed. “Back up that I lost an earring? I doubt it. But Sarah can vouch for everything else.”

“Sarah’s a little confused right now, so I’ve been talking to Kirk.”

“Like I said, Kirk wasn’t home. Maybe he didn’t know we went out to lunch.”

“You know better than that. You know how fixated he is on Sarah. There’s no way she did something he didn’t know about.”

Clarice scoffed. “I don’t pretend to understand you married people. I have no idea what she told him. But I can tell you we had a fabulous lunch over at Café Vin. I actually got Sarah to order a glass of wine, believe it or not. The service was outstanding.” She ran a finger around the edge of her glass. “We had this hot waiter, Cole, who was most attentive. And Sarah and I had the best conversation. She actually got the giggles, which made me start laughing. You should have seen the two of us. An old woman actually stopped by our table to tell us that hearing our laughter brightened her day. We had so much fun.”

“Sounds like quite the lunch.”

“It was.” She smiled. “If you ever go to Café Vin, I recommend the poulet Breton.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Gavin said and sighed. Clarice was a piece of work. She still thought of herself as a head-turning beauty, but under the pendant lights hanging over the kitchen island, he had a more accurate view. The lines around her eyes were prominent, and her eyeliner created dark slashes against her pale skin. His mental image of her had always been that of the popular girl in high school, all fresh-faced and dewy-eyed, but time had passed, and her drinking, cigarette habit, and occasional pot smoking had taken its toll. Of course they’d all gotten older, he just didn’t notice it most of the time, least of all in himself. With Clarice, though, life had been a wild ride and it showed clearly on her face. He said, “I’m going to let this go now, Clarice, but you should know that no one saw the earring but me and I also got rid of the incriminating rock.”

She set the glass down. “I appreciate getting the earring back, so thank you for that, but I have no idea why you’d get rid of an incriminating rock. Just out of curiosity, why would you think I’d hurt my friend?”

“Because of your fixation on Kirk.”

“My fixation on Kirk?” She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. “We had a thing years ago, but once he met Sarah, I cut him off. Frankly, I find Kirk and all his moods to be really tiring. Sarah’s got her hands full with that one.”

Gavin’s years in law enforcement had brought him into close contact with a fair number of criminals seemingly without a conscience. Earlier in his career, when he’d worked in a big city, he found himself driven to even out the odds. One criminal, an asshat named Blake Starkey, looked good for the murder of his girlfriend, but he was one cool customer and wasn’t giving anything up. They didn’t have concrete evidence to pin on him, so Gavin had to exert some force to get a confession out of the guy. Not his finest moment, but it got the job done. The expression on Clarice’s face reminded him of Starkey’s when he’d been sure he was going to get away with it. Confident, smug.

Starkey’s confession had been a defining moment in his relationship with his dad, who, upon hearing the news, gave him a rare compliment. “Well done, son,” he’d said, nodding approvingly. “I’m proud of you.” Gavin had waited a long time to hear those words. Before then his father had made it clear that he thought Gavin had fallen short in so many ways. For one thing, his dad hadn’t approved of his friendships in high school, saying, “Why are you hanging around those losers? You can do better.” But Gavin hadn’t believed that to be the case. Besides, he was the king of these losers and what could be better than that? If his dad was still alive, he’d probably be disappointed that Gavin still socialized with Kirk and Clarice, but old habits were hard to break.

Giving Clarice a steely eye, Gavin asked, “So you don’t have any interest in hooking up with Kirk?”

“God, no. There’s a whole world of men out there. Trust me, Kirk Aden isn’t even on my radar anymore. I’m too busy looking for new conquests.”