Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [146]
“End of story?” Thane asked, as if he didn’t believe it for a minute.
“End of story. Marquise and I ran into each other once in a while, as we’re part of the same social scene.” He swirled his glass, stared into the clear depths. “But we pretty much avoided each other. Let the lawyers haggle it out between them and moved on. I married Yvonne, and Marquise…well, she got into younger men. Not just Robby.” He tossed back his drink. “She doesn’t like men with children—‘extra baggage’—that’s what kids were to Marquise. She wasn’t too happy when she found out Tanya was pregnant. But then neither was Robby.”
The muscles in Thane’s face tightened perceptibly. He set his barely touched drink on a glass-topped table.
“What do you think happened to her?” Thane asked. “You had an argument with her according to the police.”
“Anytime I talked with her, it turned into a fight. That’s not exactly a news flash.”
“What was the fight about?” Maggie asked.
“What it always was. Money. She wanted more. Thought she got screwed on the divorce because she didn’t end up with any of my hotels. So she always came around, wanting to borrow from me. This time I said ‘no,’ and from there things went downhill.”
Maggie tried to delve further and asked a few more questions, but Syd was vague. Yes, they’d fought, but that was to be expected. They’d been divorced, after all, and Marquise wasn’t known for her even temperament. As he ushered them to the door, he’d made one last comment. “What can I say? You know your sister. Marquise is Marquise.” As if that explained everything.
“I don’t think so,” Maggie replied. “The way I see it, Marquise is really Mary Theresa.”
“What do you want first?” Hannah asked as she slipped into Henderson’s tiny office. He’d just returned from the site of the accident and was tired as hell. This case was going to drive him into early retirement, back to Camel straights, or both. Right then, he didn’t really give a damn. “The bad news or the good news?”
“Didn’t know there was any good.” Henderson reached for his baseball. “Let’s have the bad.”
“Guess who’s lined up to be the next guest on Denver AM?”
He gave the ball a quick toss, caught the damned thing, then, only slightly calmer, set it back in its holder. “Okay, I’ll bite—who?”
“Wade Pomeranian.” She offered him a cat-who-just-swallowed-the-canary grin.
“Is that so?”
“Uh-huh. It isn’t a secret that he’s wanted to be on the show for a long time. He even stormed down to the station one day and fought with Marquise about it in front of witnesses, including Craig Beaumont.”
“So now he gets his shot.”
“Yep. And here’s the kicker. Beaumont and the executive producer were opposed to Pomeranian being on the show, didn’t like his connection with Marquise. Even when they had a fashion show last spring and Wade could have modeled men’s clothing, Craig Beaumont put the kibosh on the idea. Nixed Pomeranian specifically, but now that Marquise is missing…voilà, Beaumont and the executive producer have changed their collective tune.”
“Now they want Wade.”
“To interview him as a friend of Marquise’s.”
“Jesus H. Christ.”
“Ron Bishop insists that they’re helping locate Marquise, as opposed to exploiting the situation.”
“Maybe they are.”
“Maybe. Anyway, they’re not stopping with Pomeranian. The producer wants other people who know her as well; they’re dedicating at least one segment to her and going to remind the viewers that there’s a reward for information that leads to finding her.”
Henderson leaned back in his chair. “So who else are they inviting to be Beaumont’s guest?”
“First of all, they’ve approached Maggie. Want her to dress and act like Marquise.”
“Shit. Don’t tell me they want the ex-husbands, too.”
“Possibly.