Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [72]
I shoved her away from me, sending her reeling into the leather chair. “Don’t lie to me, Anne; for God’s sake don’t lie to me!” I wanted to shake her, force her to tell me the truth. I started toward the chair, but the look on her face stopped me. In seconds her face had been transformed. She might have put on a mask. A calm, cold mask.
“It was business,” she said, her voice flat and toneless.
“Yours or mine?”
“Mine,” she said.
“Why did you tell me it was a wrong number?”
“I was upset.”
I turned back to the couch and sat heavily, the weight of the world crushing my shoulders. When I looked at her again, she was under control and so was I, but something was dreadfully wrong. I forced my tone to be gentle, made the words come slowly, the way you might if you were speaking to someone who didn’t know the language. “Was it about the newspaper article?”
She blinked, puzzled. “What article?”
“Maxwell Cole’s. In today’s paper. It talks about Milton Corley. Tell me about him.” I handed her the paper, open to Maxwell Cole’s column. She read it quickly, then dropped it in her lap. She looked up at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Anne? You left me wide open to attack.”
Her eyes, fixed on mine, didn’t waver. “I didn’t think it mattered,” she said.
“But it does matter. You should have told me. Yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about Milton Corley. Why did you marry him?” It was not a question I had expected to ask. It was the wounded cry of a jealous suitor, not a professional cop with his mind on his job.
“Because I loved him,” she answered.
“Loved him or used him?”
“Used him first, loved him later.”
Maybe she was being honest with me after all. “What about J. P. Beaumont? Is it the same with him?”
She raised her hands in a helpless gesture, then dropped them back in her lap. She nodded slowly. “At first I only wanted information.”
I felt my heart constrict. “And now?”
“I love you.” They were the words I wanted to hear, but I couldn’t afford to believe them.
“Why?” The word exploded in the room. “Why do you love me?”
“Because you found the part of me that died when Milton did. I told you that last night.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes. It’s the truth.”
My gaze faltered under her unblinking one. “Tell me about your book. I want to read it.”
“All right,” she said. “After I get it back from Ralph. I sent it to Phoenix with him. He’s having it typed for me. I have to revise the last chapter.”
“Why?”
“I made a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
She looked at me as if puzzled. “The kind that shouldn’t be made if you’re any kind of writer. Why all the questions?”
“I wanted to hear this from you, Anne. You should have told me. I shouldn’t have had to read it in the newspaper. It makes you look suspicious.”
For several long minutes we sat without speaking. “What about us?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to give it some thought.” I got up to leave. I had touched the personal issue and skirted the basic one. I had to ask. I had to have the answer from Anne Corley’s own lips. “Did you have anything to do with Angela Barstogi’s death?”
She heard the question without flinching. “So that’s what’s bothering you,” she said in a monotone. She dropped her head in her hands. “No, Beau, I didn’t. I was in Arizona. Check with United. Check with anybody.”
“Do you know someone named Uncle Charlie?”
She shook her head. I went to the door and stood there uncertainly, my hand on the doorknob. I didn’t know whether to leave or apologize. “I didn’t think you did, but I’m getting some heat thanks to Maxey. I’d better go back to the office,” I said at last. “I’ve got work to do.”
Chapter 20
Work was a tonic for me that day. I worked like a fiend. I dove into every statement and every file with absolute concentration, finding comfort in the necessary discipline. Anne had said she had nothing to do with Angela Barstogi. I wanted to prove it to the world and to myself. There