Dead to Her(96)

Marcie sat back in the seat, her heart racing. There was definitely a case there. Jacquie hated Jason and Marcie, everyone knew that. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. If they arrested her would they let Jason and Keisha go? Would Jason get bail? Maybe they’d wonder if Jacquie and Jason were in it together. Her stomach tangled in knots at the thought of both her lovers being freed. Who did she want to see the most? Jason was a lying bastard, but he was her husband and maybe there was a way they could wriggle out of this financial mess if he wasn’t under suspicion of murder—maybe she at least could keep this life while he did whatever time they gave him. Perhaps the status quo could be maintained.

But what about Keisha? She was wild and unbalanced but she did something to Marcie’s insides. She made Marcie crazy in the way Jason used to, but could she stand the scandal of coming out with Keisha and starting again somewhere? Did she really want to live the kind of life Keisha would now she was in her mid-thirties?

She was still turning over her limited options when a flash of umber on the sidewalk ahead distracted her. She stared as she drove by. The tall old black woman, cane in hand, was shuffling along the street around the corner from Alessi’s. Marcie had passed her in a nanosecond but she was sure, when she looked in the rearview mirror, that as her car drove by, the old woman had paused and beaten the ground with her stick three times, her head thrown back in laughter. Was this another of Jacquie’s games? Was she trying to send Marcie as mad as she’d driven Keisha with all this voodoo stuff so that when the police finally came for Marcie—which she was pretty sure was the plan—she wouldn’t be thinking clearly?

Not me, Marcie thought.

I’m ahead of you, Jacquie. You won’t beat me.





59.

“Jacquie?” Marcie almost dropped the champagne glass she was holding. She’d still been a little squiffy from the martinis, but the phone call with Detective Anderson had gone so well, she was sure she had something to celebrate. But now, with Jason’s ex-wife standing on her doorstep, she realized she’d been premature.

“You thought I set up Jason because I wanted him back and he rejected me?” Jacquie rested one hand on her hip, exasperated. “Jesus. Not in a million years. You’d better let me in.” She nodded at Marcie’s glass. “And we’re going to need something stronger than that for what I have to tell you.”

Marcie didn’t move. “Detective Anderson told you about our call? After everything you’ve done?”

“I haven’t done anything, Marcie, except up front tell her to look at Jason’s finances—but not because I wanted him back. Trust me, I’m not your enemy. Now let me in. We don’t want to do this on your doorstep.”

Marcie stepped aside, nodding Jacquie through to the kitchen while noting how effortlessly elegant she looked, even in jeans and a sweater. Born to this life. Marcie felt dowdy beside her, even though she had a ten-year youth advantage over Jason’s first wife. Marcie couldn’t help it. She hated her. And Jacquie had been the tip-off about Jason. What else had she done?

“So what is it you’ve got to tell me?” Marcie poured her rival a glass of champagne, ignoring the earlier request for something stronger. She didn’t want Jacquie in the house any longer than she had to be. It had to be Jacquie behind all this. It had to be.

“Let me ask you something.” Jacquie perched on a stool at the kitchen island and studied Marcie, thoughtful and cool as a cucumber. “When you found out he was stealing from client accounts did he say he’d done it for you? He was trying to keep you in love with him? Trying to give you everything you wanted?”

Marcie opened and closed her mouth as she looked for words of denial that she couldn’t find. “How do you know that?” The world was spinning again, turning events once again on their head. She knew the answer before Jacquie spoke. Because he’d said it before.

“How do you think I know? He used all that bullshit on me. A long time ago.” Jacquie sipped her champagne. “When I was young and stupid and should have seen through it.” She shook her head, annoyed at her younger self.

“When I came back for Eleanor’s funeral, she was buried in those beautiful South Sea pearls of hers. Elizabeth told me how she’d gotten so confused she’d lost them and then Jason found them somewhere. That was the first warning light in my head—hugely expensive pearls going missing around my darling ex-husband. I know Jason. He probably stole them on a whim and then realized he wouldn’t be able to sell them in town so put them back. When I heard about this big new house and his plans for buying William out, and Emmett told me he’d been making some high-risk investments, I knew it. I knew he was doing it all over again.”

“Doing what?” Marcie pulled up a stool of her own. What now?

“Everyone in town is saying like father, like son about what Jason’s done. Bet you’ve even thought it.”

Marcie couldn’t argue that, so she stayed quiet.

“But it’s not like his father at all. Michael Maddox was a good man. A kind man.” She smiled wryly. “The kind of man William might have called weak. He certainly called him weak in the aftermath. When he wasn’t around to defend himself.”

“But Michael stole money from his client accounts,” Marcie said. “Jason told me all about it. He was going to prison,” she insisted. “And so he killed himself.”