French Silk(91)

"Then what's the problem?"

"I think they might have quarreled the last time they were together."

Cassidy gazed at a point beyond her shoulder for a moment. "She's taking the van?"

"Hmm."

"Does she ever drive your car?"

"You're losing your touch, Cassidy." His eyes swung back to hers. "The reasoning behind that question is amateurish and transparent. You want to know if Yasmine was driving my car the night Jackson Wilde was murdered. You fail to recall that she was in New York that night and that I was driving my car."

He bore down on her. "I'm relieved that you remember that, Claire. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten that your car connects you to Wilde's murder."

"It appears to."

"Temporarily. Sooner or later a clue is going to mark you as a killer."

She shuddered, spoke low. "Excuse me. I'm going in now." She got through the front door without being apprehended, but he caught up with her in the foyer. He covered her hand where it rested on the balustrade.

"Claire, why do you do that? Why do you just turn your back and walk away when I make those kinds of allegations? Why don't you deny them?"

"Because I don't have to. I'm innocent until proven guilty, remember? I've got nothing to fear from you."

"The hell you don't." He leaned forward, straining the words through his teeth. "You can't continue to simply walk away. I didn't follow you to Mississippi on a whim, you know."

"Then why did you come here? Why impose yourself on me, why interfere with my work? To bully me about nonexistent affairs with Jackson Wilde? To try to place a wedge between Yasmine and me? Divide and conquer? Is that your current strategy?"

"No. I came because I had no choice. The evidence against you is no longer circumstantial. We've got something tangible in those carpet fibers. So far I've kept you from being formally arrested."

"Why?"

"Number one, because I don't want to look like a fool before the grand jury and get you no billed for lack of more solid evidence."

"And number two?"

The pendulum inside the grandfather clock swung back and forth, ponderously ticking off the seconds they spent staring at each other. Finally he replied, "Because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. But Glenn and everybody else in a position of authority is getting antsy to close this case."

"They're responding to the ranting of a hysterical woman."

"Who happens to be pregnant."

Claire's breath left her body in an audible rush. "Pregnant?"

"Ariel Wilde collapsed last night during a prayer service in Kansas City. If you'd watched the news you would have seen it." There were no TVs in the guest rooms at Rosesharon. During a guest's stay, he was virtually incommunicado with the outside world unless he read the local newspaper, which carried very little national or world news.

Claire's head was spinning. "She's pregnant?"

"That's right," he said tersely. "That practically eliminates her as a suspect."

"Not necessarily."

"Not to you, maybe. Maybe not even to me. But to everybody else's way of thinking, she's off the hook. Which way do you think public sympathy will swing? To the lady epitomizing motherhood and goodness, or to the woman who publishes dirty pictures?"

"It might not be Jackson's child," Claire said, sounding desperate, like someone grasping at a lifeline. "It could be Josh's baby."

"I know that. And you know that. But Joe Average Citizen doesn't. All he sees on his color Panasonic is a saintly, weeping, pregnant widow, who looks like the last thing on her agenda would be adultery with her stepson and the cold-blooded murder of her husband.

"Be prepared, Claire. Ariel will play this for all it's worth. Twice you've experienced the kind of media manipulation she's capable of. The threat of libel suits doesn't faze her. She'll verbally paint the picture of an immoral, opportunistic monster taking her husband's life and imposing tragedy on her and her unborn baby. Because of the groundwork she's already laid, whose face do you think that monster will wear in the minds of most people?" He leaned down closer to her. "Are the grim implications of her pregnancy beginning to sink in?"

They weren't only sinking in—they had found a nesting place in the recesses of her heart where her deepest fears were lodged. It would be folly, however, to let Cassidy see that she was afraid. "What do you want from me?" she asked defiantly.

"A confession."

She made a scornful sound.

"Then, dammit, don't let me accuse you without putting up a fight. Stamp. Scream. Beat on my chest with your fists. Become outraged, incensed. Don't retreat behind that cool fa?ade; it only makes you look guiltier. You can't remain aloof any longer, Claire. Fight back, for God's sake."

"I wouldn't lower my dignity to such a level."

"Dignity!" he bellowed. The features of his face turned stiff with rage. "Jail is undignified, Claire. So is a murder trial. So is life in prison." His breath fell hotly on her face. "Damn you, tell me my suspicions are wrong. Give me something absolute that will shoot down all the facts I have working against you."