White Lies (The Arcane Society #2)(45)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Elizabeth winced. “But it turned out okay in both cases. You’re not a suspect.”

“Thanks to the Glazebrook name, probably. Trust me, there’s nothing I’d like more than finding out that I’m wrong and that there is no conspiracy. I’ll sleep a lot better at night if that is the case.”

“I have a feeling this is a really, really bad idea.”

Clare smiled ruefully. “Wouldn’t be my first.”

Elizabeth turned thoughtful. “What about you and Jake?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t give me that whatever-are-you-talking-about look. Something is going on between the two of you, isn’t it? I can tell.”

“You’re guessing.”

“No,” Elizabeth said firmly. “I am not guessing.”

Clare nodded. “Well, you are a level-five sensitive. That means you get lots of points for intuition.”

“You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?”

“Let’s just say I have discovered a new hobby.”

“What kind of hobby?”

“Skinny-dipping. Now will you answer my question?”

“About Brad’s girlfriend?” Elizabeth swiveled back and forth a couple times in her chair. “I don’t know who she was. I certainly don’t have a name to give you. To tell you the truth, I was so doped up most of the time and so afraid I was having a real nervous breakdown that I didn’t really care who she was. I just knew that he was seeing someone.”

“Do you remember how you first found out?”

Elizabeth massaged her temples with her thumbs. “Brad and I stopped having sex about a month and a half into the marriage. I told you, before the wedding and for a while afterward, he was the perfect lover. He used his sexual skills the way he did his looks and charm.”

“To manipulate people.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. But he also liked sex. A lot. That part of our life came to a halt, although Brad acted as if we had a normal relationship. He claimed that I forgot our lovemaking the next morning; that I was somehow blocking it psychologically.”

“The fugue state thing.”

“Yes. That was when he insisted that I start seeing Dr. Mowbray.” Elizabeth shuddered. “It was awful. Brad used to wake me up in the morning with coffee in bed and tell me how passionate I’d been during the night. Then he would act hurt and concerned when I couldn’t remember the sex.”

“But you knew he was getting laid,” Clare said.

“Oh, yes. As I said, sex was very important to Brad. He wouldn’t have gone without it for long. Not willingly, at any rate. But I didn’t find any strong evidence until after he died. By then, of course, I didn’t care.”

“What was the evidence? You never mentioned it.”

“You know the old saying ‘Follow the money’?”

Clare nodded. “Sure.”

“After Brad was killed I had to go through a lot of his papers and files. Even though he had moved out and I had started proceedings, we were still technically married at the time of his death.”

“I remember that you had a lot of work to do to settle his estate.”

“I turned everything I could over to the lawyer. Valerie got the bulk of Brad’s money. Lord knows I didn’t want it. Anyway, for months afterward, bills and credit card statements kept turning up in the mail.”

“I think I’m getting the picture here.” Clare was suddenly aware of her pulse. “Hard to carry on an affair without spending money.”

“Turns out Brad had a credit card that I knew nothing about until the bills started arriving after his death. There was one recurring charge on the statements that caught my eye.”

“What was it?”

“Once, sometimes twice a week for almost the entire time we were married he evidently spent an afternoon at a spa in Phoenix. My intuition tells me that is probably where he went to screw his lover.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

“What the hell is going on between you and Clare?” Archer asked.

Jake dropped the club back into the bag and got behind the wheel of the golf cart.

He had been expecting the question since they teed off at the first hole. The only real surprise was that Archer had waited until the third hole to ask it. Glazebrook could be astonishingly nuanced and roundabout in his business dealings, but when it came to interpersonal relationships he was usually about as subtle as a brick.

It was Sunday morning, going on six o’clock. The temperature was still pleasant but the sun was climbing rapidly. So was the brilliance of the light. He and Archer had already put on their dark glasses.

Since his arrival in Stone Canyon Jake had begun to look forward to his rounds of golf with Archer. It wasn’t only because it gave them a secure place to talk, the golf itself was an interesting challenge. They had agreed from the beginning that, when it was just the two of them, they would play with all their senses wide open. When they were both running hot, the matches became an intriguing contest between his hunter talents and Archer’s unique strategic abilities.

The outcomes were unpredictable. There were upsides to both talents, Jake reflected. There was no question that his hunter talents gave him an edge when it came to coordination and timing. But Archer’s preternatural ability to plot strategy paid off just as often. Take today, for instance. They were both on the green in two. Now it all came down to the putting. And putting was half strategy and half timing and coordination. It could go either way.

“You don’t really expect a detailed answer to that question, do you?” Jake asked, steering the cart along the narrow path to a point close to the green.

“Damn right I do. You haven’t shown any interest in women since you got here. I was starting to wonder if maybe you weren’t the type who likes ’em.”

“Would that have been an issue for you?”

“Let’s get something straight. I don’t give a frigging damn who you sleep with so long as it doesn’t create a problem for me or someone in my family.”

“You’re worried that a relationship between Clare and me might create a problem?”

“Yeah,” Archer said. “That’s exactly what’s worrying me. This thing between the two of you blew up like a storm out of nowhere. A few days ago she hadn’t even met you. Now she’s living with you.”

“That’s how it happens sometimes.”