The Secret Lives of Doctors' Wives

“I’ve got a son by the arrogant bastard and no alibi. Of course I’m going! In situations such as these, appearances are everything.”

“Alibi?” Rosie’s heart jumped to her throat and began to thump.

“The cops are going to want to know where everybody was if his killer doesn’t walk into the police station and hand them the bloody knife. Except for talking to you on my mobile, you and I’ve got zip for an alibi.”

Rosie shivered so hard her teeth chattered. “At least you weren’t actually there! You’ve been happily divorced from him for years. That’s hardly a motive.”

“I hated the son of a bitch. Does that count?”

“I, on the other hand, ran out of his brilliantly lit mansion braless and pantyless on the night he died. Anyone, a neighbor, a jogger, might have seen me. What if he or she misinterpreted what he saw? What if the cops find my bra and panties?”

“Then your underwear is hanging out in plastic Baggies. Call Joe. First thing Monday.”

Feeling too hot, Rosie got up and dived into the pool. She didn’t come up until her lungs were burning for air.

If Michael had her underwear in plastic Baggies and he found out about Carmen, which he would if he hung around at all, he’d nail Rosie just to get revenge.

Unless she solved the murder for him.

Six

A former linebacker for the University of Texas A&M, Joe Benson loomed behind his polished mahogany desk like a sleek, dark bear who looked slightly embarrassed to find himself all dressed up in a three-piece power suit. He had hooded black eyes, heavy brows and a strong jaw. His glossyblack hair might have curled if hadn’t been clipped so close to his scalp. Not that his hushed office, his attire or his military haircut were enough to dispel Rosie’s feeling that he wasn’t quite tame. Still, at least he was sober.

“So, how long have you been living with Yolie?” he asked, his curious voice oddly soft for so large a man.

Control. This man was into control. Just like Pierce had been.

“I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Right. It’s just that she’s such a great woman.” His eyes lit for a second or two at some forbidden memory before he caught himself.

“Yolie told me you two used to date before you married Bridget and adopted Jennifer.”

“Did she now?” His smile was quick and a little uneasy. Then his cheeks reddened and the smile vanished.

No way would Rosie repeat what Yolie had said on the matter.

I never could figure out whether he was attracted to me or to my big house and money. He’s extremely ambitious, you see, but then that’s what makes him good at what he does.

“Well, no hard feelings. Bridget’s great, and Yolie’s like a sister to me now,” Joe said, a little edgily.

Bridget was an ice cream heiress with a large fortune. Joe was her fourth husband. Yolie said Bridget, who seemed all fluff, had had him sign an airtight prenup.

“Yolie mentioned you were in some sort of a jam.”

“Well…not yet. Hopefully, not ever.”

“If I were you, I’d trust her judgment. What’s wrong?”

Without further preamble, Rosie told him about her involvement with Austin’s front-page murder victim. She repeated a few of the most damning things she’d said to everybody about her revenge fantasies. Joe’s frown deepened when she told him about her bra and panties.

When she finished, he propped his big brown hands together and leaned forward. “Rule number one. Don’t say anything to the police unless I’m there.”

“But don’t they have the right to question me?”

He held a finger against his lips and shook his head. “You let me worry about doing right by the police, little girl. All you need is rule number one.”

Little girl? She was forty. Not that she was about to admit her age.

“But…”

At his dark frown, she fell silent. She hated it when terrified patients and their families kept asking her the same questions over and over again.

“I don’t like it that you know Nash, who’s in charge. Or that he took the call about your missing granddaughter. You dumped him, you said. Judging from the time frame, he’d already been at the scene. Obviously, he was suspicious. He could be holding a grudge.”

“From high school?”

“Did you kill the good doctor?” Joe asked, his eyes boring into her, which gave her a worse feeling than when he’d pinched her.

“Of course not!”

“You just told everybody in this town you wanted to.”

“I was joking.”

“A lot of people are going to think it’s odd that you saw him the same night he was murdered. That’s quite a coincidence. Cops don’t like coincidences. Neither do juries.”

Rosie squirmed as droplets of perspiration tickled her spine. “If I had stabbed him, trust me, I would have aimed a lot lower.”

Benson winced. “I wouldn’t share that with anybody else. Understand?” After her nod, he sucked in a long breath. “So, is there anything more you think you should tell me before we call it a day?”

Again she remembered being panicked in her Beamer that night, racing past the fancy houses carved into the limestone cliffs and oak trees of Westlake Hills, each fake palazzo more outrageously posh and ridiculously overdone than the last one—mock Tudors with skylights, Tuscan villas constructed out of plywood.

“Any little detail? A car parked out back? A cigarette butt on the drive? Anything?”

She remembered how she’d heard something in the next room when Pierce had been about to make love to her. She’d made him go check it out, so she could run. But why load Benson down with too much information?

“There is something?” he said, seeing through her.

“Not really.”

He insisted that they go over everything again. Their meeting went fifteen minutes longer than the designated hour, but he never hurried her. Why would he, at his hourly rate? He simply listened, nodding thoughtfully from time to time, looking increasingly dissatisfied as she repeated her story. Once in a while he jotted a note to himself.

She finished with a question. “Is it okay if I go to his memorial service?”

He sat up straighter and shook his head. “I think you should be as inconspicuous as possible. Do what you normally do. Don’t change your habits. Don’t act too interested in this case.”

“That’s going to be hard.”