Intimate Betrayal by Linda Barlow Read Free Book Online Page A

asserted that Francesca’s behavior that night at her party had been an embarrassing
     but oft-repeated feature of a turbulent marriage. She was an alcoholic who frequently had affairs and threatened to leave,
     but when sober she always changed her mind. After the party had ended and all the guests had gone, she and Matthew had reconciled.
     Her death the next morning was a tragic and unexpected blow to her grieving husband.
    The defense had further asserted that it must have been her lover who had murdered her, likely because he was enraged at losing
     the chance to marry Francesca and her $2 billion.
    But the lover, if she’d had one, had never come forward, nor had the police ever figured out who he was.
    Annie had wondered several times about Sid Canin, who had looked so possessively at Francesca on the final night of her life.
     Like everybody else at the party, he’d been questioned by the police, but there couldn’t have been any evidenceagainst him, since Sid had not been called as a witness at the trial.
    Could a person have an affair without anybody ever finding out? Probably, Annie thought. No one had ever questioned
her
about what had nearly happened between herself and Matthew several years ago in England.
    Abruptly, the cameras cut away from the analysts in the studio to the street outside the courthouse. Carlyle was emerging
     with his attorney. Annie expected him to be whisked away into a car, but instead the acquitted billionaire strode right up
     to the reporters whom he had been ignoring for months. They rushed to surround him, sticking their microphones in his face.
    “I have a statement to make,” he said over the voice of his attorney, who seemed to be about to say something himself. “I
     am grateful to the people of California for hearing my case and evaluating the evidence fairly. As far as I personally am
     concerned, justice has been done. But—” he paused for a second, looking intensely into the dozens of cameras pointed at his
     face, “justice has not yet been done on Francesca’s behalf. She was brutally murdered. Her murderer is still at large. The
     San Francisco police, regretfully, stopped searching for him in their zeal to develop a case against me. I consider that a
     travesty.”
    He stopped speaking and was immediately assaulted with questions from the reporters, all of which he ignored. “That’s all
     I have to say at this time,” he said, then belatedly added, “Thank you.”
    He had sounded sincere, Annie thought. He had sounded as if he really thought that the killer was still out there.
    Matthew Carlyle got into the waiting limousine and was driven away.
    A free man.
    That night, Annie could not sleep. Her mind kept replaying memories. She tried to focus them on Charlie and all the myriad
     joys of their life together, but memories can be wild horses, impossible to harness. And that night her memories were all
     of Matt Carlyle.
    She had been flying to London for a meeting with a wealthy client who had hired Fabrications to design the San Francisco branch
     offices of his international corporation. The client had sent her first-class tickets and arranged first-class accommodations
     at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
    Annie had never been to London, and she’d hoped that Charlie would accompany her, but Charlie had one quirk that he had never
     been able to conquer—he was afraid of flying. There was no way he would get on a plane and fly ten hours from San Francisco
     to London.
    So she’d gone alone. And seated beside her in the first-class section was Matthew Carlyle, also traveling to London on business.
    The dim interior of an airliner during a night flight to Europe can be a strangely intimate place. You meet a stranger, exchange
     a little personal information—no last names, of course—and sometimes something clicks. You end up saying things to the stranger
     that you would otherwise never say. In most cases, you’re secure in knowing that after the