White Lies (The Arcane Society #2)(33)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Chapter Eighteen

“I won’t lie to you, Archer. I can’t. We’ve been friends for too long.” Owen leaned forward in the white leather chair and rested his elbows on his spread knees. He gazed through the wall of windows, contemplating the sparks of sunlight on the swimming pool. “It’s a terrible thing to say but part of me felt a sense of relief when they told me what had happened. My first thought was, at least there won’t be any more scenes.”

“She was in a bad way.” Archer carried the glass of whiskey he had just poured across the white carpet and put it into Owen’s hand.

Owen looked down at the drink as if surprised to see it there. “She was my wife. I failed her. I should have got her into rehab.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over this.” Archer sat down across from him. “You did your best. Myra said Valerie refused to even consider rehab.”

Owen swallowed some of the whiskey and cradled the glass in both hands. “She got so upset whenever I tried to talk about it. I suggested she see a therapist, someone from the Society who would understand the sensitive side of her nature and help her process her grief.”

Archer wasn’t sure what to say so he sat quietly, just trying to be there for the man who had been his partner and friend for so many years.

Owen drank his whiskey. After a while he put down the glass.

“It was suicide,” he said. “Not an accident.”

Archer looked at him. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. She talked about it the night she pushed Clare into the pool. She said she could not stand the sight of her son’s killer. Said knowing that Clare was right here in Stone Canyon, acting as if nothing had happened, was too much to bear.”

“Clare did not murder Brad.”

Owen sighed. “You and I know that, Archer. But Valerie was obsessed, and I think starting to become delusional. To tell you the truth, I was about to warn you that Clare might be in danger from her.”

Archer frowned. “You think she was becoming dangerous?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

A tiny chime sounded. They both looked at Owen’s high-tech watch.

Owen got to his feet. “It’s time for my shot. I’ll be right back.”

He walked across the great room and went down the hall toward the kitchen.

Archer rose and went to stand at the wall of windows overlooking the pool. The strategist side of his nature quickly calculated the odds against Clare walking in on not one but two dead bodies within six months.

He didn’t like the math. But the thing about accidental drowning deaths was that it was very hard to prove murder. The water washed away most of the evidence.

Chapter Nineteen

They went downstairs to the Desert Dawn’s minuscule pool and commandeered the single rickety plastic table and three of the four moldy plastic chairs. It was five-thirty. The late afternoon sun was setting on the far side of the hotel, leaving the pool in the shade. It wasn’t what anyone would call cool yet but there was a light breeze and it seemed more comfortable to Jake than the close confines of the cheap motel room.

He shoved some money into the vending machine next to the stairwell and extracted three bottles of chilled water. He carried the plastic bottles back to the table and put them down.

Clare unscrewed the cap on one of the bottles and swallowed some water. She hadn’t said a word since they had left her room.

“All right, let’s have it,” he said to both women. “I want the whole story.”

Clare sat back in her chair and raised her brows at Elizabeth. “You started this. You tell him.”

Elizabeth put both hands on the table, making a triangle with her fingers around the base of her bottle of water. She faced Jake, earnest and determined.

“We all know that Valerie had a drinking problem,” she said. “And there were rumors that she had found a doctor who was pretty loose with the prescription meds.”

Jake nodded and drank some water. He had discovered long ago that people tended to chat more freely if you left them plenty of conversational space to fill. And in this instance Elizabeth seemed to want to talk.

Unlike Clare, he thought, studying her stony expression out of the corner of his eye. He got the feeling that if he’d had to depend on her to tell him the story, he would have had to pry the information out of her bit by bit.

“At Mom and Dad’s party the other night you saw for yourself that Valerie was obsessed with the idea that Clare murdered Brad,” Elizabeth continued.

“Yes,” Jake said.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but this afternoon at the spa, Valerie tried to kill Clare.”

It was as if he had just walked off the rim of a canyon in the middle of the night. There was nothing but a whole lot of darkness under his feet.

Slowly he lowered the plastic bottle and looked at Clare. She was gazing out at the pool, stoic, impassive. Waiting for him to tell her that she was nuts, he thought. Waiting for him to inform her that no one tried to kill her that afternoon, that things like that didn’t happen in high-end spas.

“Explain,” he said quietly.

Clare rested one arm on the table and drummed her fingers. “She tried to brain me.”

He waited.

“Clare was in one of the treatment rooms,” Elizabeth said quickly. “Alone. Sitting in a pool. Someone dressed in a white robe and a turban with a mudpack plastered over her face entered the room, rushed up behind Clare and tried to hit her with the dumbbell.”

“Shit,” Jake said. He was still falling through darkness. He tried to think. “You’re sure it was Valerie Shipley?”

Clare shrugged. “As sure as I can be under the circumstances. I couldn’t see her features because of the goop on her face but she was about Valerie’s size. Thin. Frail-looking.”

“Don’t forget the turban,” Elizabeth said quickly.

“What turban?” Jake asked.

“The person who tried to clobber me with the dumbbell wore a towel turban around her head,” Clare said. “When I went out to the Shipley house this afternoon I found a turban just like it in the front seat of Valerie’s Jaguar. She must have tossed it there when she was driving away from the spa.”

“Take me through it, step by step,” Jake said.

She looked at him. He saw barely veiled surprise and uncertainty in her eyes. She hadn’t expected him to believe her, he thought.

“It was just like Elizabeth said.” She tightened her grip on the bottle of water. “I was alone in the grotto tub. I heard the door open behind me. I thought the attendant had come to tell me my time was up. But I heard the person’s shoe on the tiles.”