Cuff Me(29)

Holly waved her hand. “You know what I mean, Detective. All the good ones.”

“You’ve been married three times,” Vincent said dryly. “Were they the good ones?”

Holly huffed and gazed at him with sharp eyes.

Then she shifted her attention to Jill. “Your partner’s a cynic.”

Jill smiled. “A bit, yes.”

Holly’s hand glanced to Jill’s left hand. “I see you’re not. Married?”

“Engaged,” Jill responded.

Holly’s face lit up. “Oh, I do love a good engagement! They’re so much fun. I miss them.”

“More fun than the marriages themselves?” Vincent cut in again.

Jill’s lips twitched, but Vin brought up a good point. All signs were definitely pointing to Holly Adams being spoiled and shallow.

But murderous? She just wasn’t sure. At all.

“So your and Lenora’s friendship ended. What caused the final break?” Jill asked, bringing their attention back to the case.

“Well.” Holly plucked at the skirt of her Chanel suit. “It was over a man.”

“Naturally,” Vincent muttered into his water glass.

Jill tried to kick him under the table, but the massive dining table was too large for her to reach.

“He was my beau first,” Holly said. “We met at Bemelman’s. You’ve been?”

Jill shook her head, and Holly clapped her hands together. “Oh, you simply must. It’s this lovely—”

“So how did Lenora steal him?” Vincent asked, his patience officially frayed.

Holly slumped again. “I invited her out to drinks with the two of us. I wanted her to meet him.”

Or wanted to show him off, Jill thought, taking a bite of rather excellent chocolate mousse.

“Anyway, the two of them fought like crazy,” Holly said. “I’d never seen anything like it. Hate at first sight. Or so I thought.”

Jill saw Vincent sit up straighter and wondered if he was getting one of his premonitions. Although over what, she had no idea. Holly Adams might be a vain snot, but Jill doubted she’d have killed a former friend over a decades-old grudge over a man whom neither had gone on to marry.

“Anyway,” Holly said moodily, “turns out all that ‘fighting’ was really something else.”

“They had an affair?” Jill asked, keeping her voice kind.

“They said they didn’t,” Holly said. “But Henry—that was his name—ended things with me. When I asked him why, he said he had feelings for someone else. Two weeks later, they showed up together at the premiere of Lenora’s latest film.”

“That upset you,” Vincent said.

Holly gave him a vaguely incredulous look. “Clearly you’ve never had another man steal someone of yours, Detective. Of course I was upset.”

Jill should have been watching Holly then. Should have been assessing the older woman to determine whether or not by upset she actually meant homicidal.

But instead she found herself watching her partner.

Something on his face just then. When Holly had said he’d never had another man steal someone of his…

Suddenly, Jill wanted to press. Wanted to know what Vincent was thinking right that very second, because it felt important—vital. As well as she knew Vincent (and she supposed she knew him as well as anyone), she had a sense that she was missing something.

“Ms. Adams, where were you the night Lenora Birch was murdered?”

Jill jumped to attention at that, her attention swerving back to Holly at Vincent’s direct question.

She had to admit, it was well played. Vin had a habit of being a bit too hasty with the accusations, and he could sometimes put suspects on edge too soon, but he was right to try to throw Holly Adams off her game.

And he’d succeeded given that the woman clutched at her necklace with white knuckles.

“Why, I—how dare you—”

“Oh, come now, Holly,” Jill said kindly. “You had a very public argument with Ms. Birch just days before she was murdered. Surely you knew two homicide detectives didn’t drive all the way out from New York just to share a meal.”

Holly glared at her, and for the first time, Jill found herself on the receiving end of a suspect’s irritation. Usually she played the good cop, but Holly was starting to rub her the wrong way.

The woman was lonely, true, but she was also petulant and manipulative—two flaws Jill had always found particularly irritating.

“I was here,” Holly Adams said finally, picking up her spoon and determinedly scraping at the last of her chocolate mousse. “I was here like I always am, alone like I always am.”

“So nobody can verify your whereabouts?”

She lifted a shoulder. “My housekeeper, of course. And Martin. He manages security and the occasional odd job around the house.”

Both were employees who could be easily bought, Jill thought.

Still, it was far-fetched. Possible, yes. Possible that Holly Adams could have found her way to the city, visited an old frenemy, and then, in arguing about old times, pushed her in a fit of rage.

But there was no proof. Not even circumstantial evidence.

Holly was sharper than Jill originally gave her credit for, because the older woman seemed to sense Jill’s lack of conviction and played on it.