“Did he try to talk you out of encouraging Elizabeth’s divorce?”
She tipped her head to one side, thinking. “No, he didn’t, as a matter of fact. Elizabeth was very firm about the decision. And Archer and I were both stepping very cautiously around each other at that point.”
“Go on with your story.”
“A couple of weeks after that, Elizabeth invited me down for a long weekend. I was due to arrive Friday evening. But that afternoon Elizabeth got an e-mail telling her that something had come up on my end and I wouldn’t be able to get to Stone Canyon until the following morning. She attended a reception for the Stone Canyon Arts Academy with her parents, instead.”
“The e-mail changing your arrival time was not from you, I take it?”
“No,” Clare said. “I arrived on schedule Friday evening, picked up a car, drove to the house and found Brad’s body.”
“What about the e-mail message you supposedly sent?”
“It looked perfectly legitimate. The return address was mine.”
He contemplated her across the table. “You think Brad sent that fake e-mail, don’t you?”
“It isn’t that difficult to use a phony e-mail address. Spammers do it all the time.”
“You think he wanted to lure you to the house that night in order to murder you because you were ruining his scheme.” Jake’s voice was disturbingly cool and very, very neutral.
She gripped the tea mug tightly. Maybe he wasn’t going to believe her after all. Well, she could hardly blame him.
“Yes,” she said.
“But someone else got to him first?”
“Yes.”
“Sort of a large coincidence, isn’t it?” Jake asked.
“Not if you go with the possibility that Brad’s murder was deliberately timed to take place while I was here in town,” she said.
“You think someone wanted to throw suspicion on you?”
“Maybe. Or maybe the killer staged things that way in case the police didn’t buy the interrupted burglary scenario. Maybe I was just the fall gal.”
“If you’re right, it means that both Brad McAllister and his killer knew your flight schedule that Friday,” he said.
“I’m sure it was no secret around Elizabeth’s office that I was coming into town to see her.”
“It also implies that someone knew Brad was planning to kill you.”
“Someone he trusted,” she agreed. “A partner in crime, maybe, who betrayed him that night.”
“You’ve really been working on this theory, haven’t you?” he asked.
“I’ve had six months to think about it but I had nothing to go on until now.”
“You’re referring to Valerie’s death?”
She nodded. “I don’t care what the autopsy says, I’m going to have a hard time believing it was an accident or a suicide.”
“Murder by drowning is notoriously difficult to prove. Just ask any insurance company.”
“I know,” she said.
“Okay, how about a motive? Got one of those?”
“Not for Valerie’s death,” she admitted.
“All right, moving right along, I’ll grant you that it’s theoretically possible that Brad and his partner-killer knew your schedule six months ago. But how could anyone know that you were planning to go out to Valerie’s house this afternoon?”
Restless, she stood and went to the window to look out at the pool. “I think that my finding the body this time probably was a genuine coincidence. The killer didn’t have to worry about pointing suspicion elsewhere. Everyone knew Valerie was drinking heavily and using meds.”
“In other words, your finding the body was just plain bad luck.”
“Yes.”
“All right, I can go along with that reasoning. Still, if Valerie was killed, it’s damn interesting that the murderer chose to do it while you were here in town.”
“I know. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Why kill her now?”
“Why kill her at all?”
She turned suddenly to face him. “Jake, you were right the other night when you said that someone should have gone looking for answers six months ago. It’s a little late, but I’m going to do it now.”
His eyes narrowed faintly. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“The problem is, I’m not sure how to go about it. I don’t have the cash to hire a private investigator, and even if I did, I doubt he’d get far in Stone Canyon.”
“That’s a given,” Jake said. “I can’t see the fine folks out at the Stone Canyon Country Club talking to a PI, especially if they think it might involve them in a murder investigation.”
“There’s a lot of money in this town and that means there’s a lot of dirty laundry. No one is going to want it aired.”
He looked thoughtful. “Maybe you should talk to Archer before you do anything rash.”
She shook her head. “He made it clear six months ago that he wants this whole thing to go away. I can’t blame him.”
“You’re serious about looking for answers, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“In that case, I’ll help you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re with me now and I can’t talk you out of this project. Doesn’t leave me much choice.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Got a feeling we’re going to be opening up a jar of scorpions here. We’ll probably both regret it.”
Clare waited. But Jake did not say anything else. Instead, he reached for the morning paper lying on the table. He opened it to read the headlines.
Clare cleared her throat. “Uh, got any idea where we should start?”
“Sure.” He turned to the business section. “First we find out who Brad was sleeping with last year when he was killed.”
Chapter Twenty-six
The doorbell chimed just as Clare removed her panties and T-shirt from the dryer. Jake’s footsteps sounded in the hall. She went to the door of the laundry room and listened.
“Where’s Clare?” Archer’s growl rumbled down the hall.
“She’s doing her laundry,” Jake said. “Come on into the kitchen. I’ll make some coffee.”