Mean Streak(98)

She backed up to the built-in sofa and sat down on the edge of the cushion. He pulled a chair from beneath the dining table, positioned it in front of her, and straddled it backward.

“Must say, you didn’t seem a bit surprised to learn that Jeff is the culprit.”

“He tipped his own hand. Last night, he asked me who had repaired my sunglasses.” She told him about her panic attack and the conversation she’d had with Alice. “I had retold the story several times. I began to doubt my recollection. Alice reasonably pointed out that I was exhausted, on medication, and she swore Jeff couldn’t have harmed me. But it continued to nag me. Tonight I confronted him with it. His explanation for knowing the glasses had been broken was plausible, but he became defensive.”

“Defensive how?”

“I’ve long suspected that he is involved with someone else. I asked him point blank if he was having an affair, and he admitted it. He also confessed to resenting me. Not without some basis,” she added. “But to a much greater degree than I realized.”

Hayes frowned. “Problem is, resentment is a motive, but it isn’t proof.”

“The trinket is.”

He shook his head. “You could have taken it off his jacket yourself and made Jeff out to be the bad guy as payback for his cheating. Or do the investigators know about his affair?”

Regretfully, she nodded. “If I raised the question of his missing zipper pull, it would be my word against his as to where he’d lost it and when.”

“Then it’s a damn good thing I kept that rock.”

“I’d forgotten that!” she exclaimed. “You still have it?”

“Oh yeah. A hard fall could have caused a concussion. Even the gash. But you took a blow that left strands of hair on the rock. That bothered me, enough so that I thought I’d better hold on to it. That’s also one of the main reasons I didn’t drop you at an ER when I found you. If that rock had been a weapon, whoever wielded it—”

“Remained a threat.”

“Correct. As it turns out, my hunch was right. Jeff was a threat up until you took my hand on that balcony.”

“Why didn’t you share your apprehensions with me immediately when I regained consciousness? Why didn’t you explain then why you were reluctant to take me to an ER?”

“The shape you were in, would it have calmed you down if I had started asking who in your life might want to kill you?”

She had the grace to look chagrined.

“If there was a villain, I was the logical choice,” he said. “Then you found the damn rock, and that cinched it.”

“It looked so menacing,” she said, remembering her fear when she saw it. “Can fingerprints be lifted off a surface like that? What can it prove?”

“Your blood and hair will be typed.”

“A prosecutor will still have to prove how they got there. An accident? Or with intent?”

“I don’t know what good it will do, but it’s better to have it than not. Who investigated your disappearance?” After she told him about Knight and Grange, he asked, “How much confidence do you have in them? Even with two pieces of evidence that raise questions about your ‘fall,’ will they take you seriously or dismiss you as a jealous and vindictive wife?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied honestly.

“Before you stick your neck out, you gotta be sure of them, Doc.”

“Neither likes Jeff, but they’ve been deferential and apologetic for suspecting him. I lost a lot of credibility when they saw that video.”

“Video?”

“Oh! You don’t know about that.”

By the time she’d finished, he was shaking his head with self-depreciation. “I was worried about an alarm system, motion detectors, and security cameras, but a freaking nanny cam never occurred to me. I’ll have to remember that.”

“For the next time you commit a Class H felony.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You’ve learned a lot today.”

“More than I wanted to. Where was I?”

“You lost credibility.”

“They wanted to know who my accomplice was, and they didn’t believe me when I couldn’t name you. They questioned the Floyds, even Pauline and Lisa. They all came down with amnesia about you, too, which was very frustrating to Knight and Grange.” She told him about their excursion to the cabin.

“I’m sorry you were put through that.”

She smiled sadly. “The worst part about it was seeing your cabin ransacked.”

“It’s just wood and metal, Doc.”

“I know, but it had…significance. I was glad Jeff never went inside.”

“Afraid he would have seen your guilt?”

“I don’t feel any guilt,” she replied calmly. “I didn’t want him to taint my memories of our time together.”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment before she continued. “Throughout the day, he pretended to be a pillar of support for the wife-gone-bad. Tonight when we were alone for the first time, he vented his anger.”

“What he’s really angry over is that you showed up alive. He’s out millions.”

“I don’t think it’s about my inheritance. That’s almost too hackneyed for him. It’s about pride.”