Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [125]
Maggie sipped coffee and listened while Eve talked freely about the men in Mary Theresa’s life. “It’s like she could never really settle down. Between Thane and Syd there were a few boyfriends and after Syd quite a string. No one special, though, all more or less the same—mindless pretty boys. It seems that she was throwing it in Syd’s face that she could date younger and better-looking men—” Eve waved a finger in Maggie’s face “—including his ex-son-in-law, oh boy, did that one tick him off.”
“What was his name?”
“Let’s see.” Eve snapped her fingers, and her eyebrows knitted thoughtfully. “Oh, crap.” She leaned back and sighed, her face pulling together thoughtfully. “Now, I know it. Let’s see. Inman, that’s it. Robert Inman. He’s not quite thirty and he and old Syd used to play golf together, until he tossed Syd’s daughter over for another woman.”
“Mary Theresa?” Maggie asked, feeling sick.
“Mmm.” Eve nodded and smiled a bit, as if she extracted a bit of pleasure in the Gillette family’s pain. She took a gulp from her cup. “Marquise should never have done it, I know, but Robby—that’s what she called him—was a real lowlife, always running around. If ya ask me, Marquise did his ex-wife, Tanya, a big favor.”
“I don’t suppose Tanya saw it that way.”
“’Course not. She was pregnant at the time. It broke up the marriage.” Eve’s expression darkened. “Syd had to find himself a new golf partner.”
The coffee soured in Maggie’s stomach. She set her near-empty cup on the table.
“Anyway, eventually Mary Theresa gave up on Robby and found someone else. Her latest boyfriend, that Pomeranian kid, only wanted to ride her coattails and hoped she would get him into films or television with her connections. Fat chance. That new agent of hers, Ambrose King, was always, well, at least in my estimation, pushing her in the wrong direction. So that leaves her slime of a cohost. In my book Craig Beaumont is a snake.” She frowned into her cup. As if she finally realized that she sounded as if she was gossiping, Eve waved off anything else she might have thought. “Well, I’m the kind of person who believes in calling ’em as I see ’em, and I’m worried about your sister, Maggie. This isn’t like her—well, it is, but she hasn’t pulled a vanishing act like this for a while. And never for this long. It’s…unnerving.” She finished her coffee and set the cup aside. “I just hope she turns up alive and well, and we can all get this behind us.”
“So do I,” Maggie said, though she was feeling more ill at ease with the passing of each day. “Do you think she was bothered by anything in particular?”
“Besides her life in general?” Eve laughed. “No, don’t think so.” She wagged a finger at Maggie. “Now, before you start asking me if she was suicidal, the answer is an emphatic ‘no’ again. The police seem to think she might have gone off somewhere and done herself in, but I doubt it.” She looked directly into Maggie’s eyes. “That wouldn’t be Marquise’s style.”
They talked for a while, and Maggie left feeling frustrated, learning little more than she had already known, sensing she was no closer to finding out what happened to her sister than she ever had been. The snow was melting under a bright southwestern sun, and the air was clear and fresh, but Maggie couldn’t help the sense of foreboding that clung to her like a shadow.
“You’re sure?” Thane hugged the receiver to his ear and ignored the country-western music and loud conversation that emanated from the bar.
“That’s right,” Roy said, his rough voice as clear as if he