Killer Deal by Sheryl J. Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

“Emile!” in the general direction of the doorway and I swore I heard it echo through the immense apartment. She turned back to me with a practiced smile. “It’s his party, he should be here.”
    Her anger crackled across the gap between us like static electricity. It’s wrenching to be suspected of murder—been there, felt that—and I can only imagine how much more difficult it is when you have a deep emotional connection to the victim. But the statistics do bear out looking at the spouse or significant other first; they usually finish quite high in the motive-means-opportunity trifecta. But Gwen Lincoln was casting herself neither as a wounded innocent nor as a potential liar covering her tracks. She was flat-out furious.
    Not the smooth, polished beginning to the interview I’d been imagining for the last eighteen hours. I could feel the
weight of my expectations, Eileen’s doubt, and Kyle’s worry sitting right on my chest, making it difficult to take a deep breath, so I sat up as straight as I could and forced myself to inhale slowly and evenly. “My understanding from Mr. Trebask was you were interested in talking to me,” I said diplomatically, not wanting the interview to evaporate before it even began.
    “Emile thinks he can take care of me. That can be highly entertaining in a man, but it can be tiresome as well,” she said. She opened a heavy silver box on the end table next to her. “Cigarette?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Mind if I do?”
    “It’s your home.”
    “That doesn’t stop people from lecturing me,” she said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it with a dramatic flourish. “Everyone thinks they know what’s best,” she said, with a chill that made me fret for anyone who tried to tell her anything at all.
    Emile Trebask chose that moment to enter, wearing crisp trousers and a perfectly pressed shirt from his new collection, with a cashmere sweater over his shoulders, frat-boy style. I wondered if he ever wore anyone else’s clothes, which then raised the question of underwear, since he didn’t design any. Not wanting to dwell on that, especially as I shook his hand, I switched to wondering if I should have put on some of his perfume. No, too calculating. And Emile was the one to leave the calculating to, as best I could tell. “Molly, thank you so very much for coming.”
    “Stop pretending any of this is voluntary, Emile,” Gwen said, blowing smoke in his direction.
    “I am so glad we have our party manners on,” he responded, arranging himself on the arm and back of her chair like the spineless cat in Peanuts. “Thank God this isn’t the story Molly came to tell.”
    “Why don’t you tell it, then, so she gets the right one?”
    There was a flash of anger in his eyes, but it vanished quickly as he leaned over and kissed her on top of the
head—ever so lightly, not mussing her hair at all. “You can relax, Gwen, you’re among friends.”
    “That’s the real horror of a situation like this, you know,” she said to me with a new urgency in her voice. “I can think of better ways to learn who your real friends are. Some of mine should have been given speeding tickets for how fast they distanced themselves when Garth got himself shot.”
    An interesting way of looking at being murdered—something he’d brought upon himself through provocation or perhaps carelessness. Definitely lacked even the lawyer-recommended dose of sorrow at the passing of a spouse, estranged or not. “You feel your friends have abandoned you?”
    “They’ve given her space in which to grieve,” Emile amended.
    “Or they’ve gone out of their way to insist on my innocence to all who’ll listen.”
    “That must be comforting,” I attempted, watching Emile out of the corner of my eye. At the rate his body was stiffening, he was going to be back on his feet in moments.
    “I should be flattered that a friend is so eager to prove me innocent of murder?” Gwen’s eyes narrowed