In Close (Bulletproof #3)(45)
Author: Brenda Novak

April’s expression bordered on belligerent. “My statement has to be there. I signed it and everything.”

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing from or about you.” At least not in the accordion file Claire had found at the studio. She’d read everything twice.

She blinked. “How do you know? The police might not be telling you everything.”

“I’ve seen the files.”

“All of them?”

“I think so. What I read seemed pretty exhaustive.” When she explained about what she’d discovered at her mother’s studio, disgust curled April’s lip.

“Why should I be surprised my statement went missing?” she said.

“What does that mean?” Claire asked.

“We live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else.”

“You’re saying you think someone deep-sixed it? On purpose?”

“As a favor to a friend, namely your father. He’s an important figure around here these days.”

Since the inheritance. He hadn’t been important before he became wealthy. He’d worked by the hour in a gun shop. But Claire didn’t like the tone of April’s voice; it made her defensive even though April was right—Tug had more power now than he’d ever possessed. “What did it say, your statement?”

She pursed her lips, studied Claire, then smiled. “You can’t guess?”

“That Roni was responsible for my mother’s disappearance?” Maybe the police hadn’t bothered to keep her statement since it was so obviously sour grapes.

She chuckled as she took the seat opposite Claire. “Bingo. But you’re wrong about everything else.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think I said it just because I hate her and would love to get her in trouble.”

Claire sipped her iced tea. “There’s never been any love lost between you.” Especially after April’s father hanged himself in Copper Grady’s old barn.

“No kidding. Don’t know how you’ve been able to stomach her.”

Roni had her moments, but she could be sweet and surprisingly generous, and she’d been consistently supportive. Even when she was difficult, Claire muddled through for the sake of keeping peace in the family. What good would it do to reject her stepmother? Did she want to end up like April? Bitter and lonely and estranged? “Leanne and I have both gotten along with her.”

She shrugged. “No accounting for taste, I suppose. Still, I expected you to have more sense than your silly sister seems to—”

Claire stood. “I didn’t come here so you could bash my sister.”

April’s palm smacked the table. “You didn’t come here for the truth, either. Your mind’s already made up, so why’d you want to talk to me?”

Because she was trying to expand her search in hopes of actually learning something that would make a difference.

Curling her fingers around the edge of the table, Claire took a deep breath. “Do you have any facts on which you’re basing such an accusation against Roni?”

“You mean other than believing she’s capable of it?”

Claire shoved a hand through her hair. “How can you say that?”

“I saw what she did to my father.”

“Your father had a hard life. I—I’m sorry about what happened. But depression did him in, not Roni.”

“Desperation did him in. The head games she played did him in. And that started when he met her.”

They could argue about this all day, but what was the point? Claire wasn’t close enough to that situation to know what was true and what wasn’t. “Tell me why you think she killed my mother.”

“She wanted her out of the way.”

Claire sank back into her seat. “Why?”

“Roni hated your mother. She was jealous of her years before she acted on that jealousy.”

Shoving the tea aside, Claire leaned forward. “Don’t state it as a known fact because—”

“I’ll state it any way I like,” she interrupted. “And if you really want to do right by your mom, you’ll listen.”

Claire almost stood again, but she figured she’d come this far, she might as well hear the rest. Then it would all be out, and there’d be one less rock to look under. Clenching her jaw, she said, “Tell me what you have to say.”

“They were having an affair. That wasn’t conjecture on my part. I heard all the shit she said.”

“But Tug and Roni weren’t even particularly good friends.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” April touched the condensation on her glass. “They worked at the gun shop together.”

This was it? What she was basing everything on? “Of course I know that, but—”

“They fell in love, Claire.”

“According to you. I’m not sure I believe it.”

“Trust me. Roni wanted him. But there was one problem. Tug already had a wife.”

“And Roni already had a husband.”

“She wasn’t worried about that. She’d toyed with his heart until she had him so beaten down he wasn’t the same man he’d been when I was young. Why he loved her so much, I can’t even guess, but part of his anguish came from knowing he had no chance of keeping her. My dad, God rest his soul, didn’t have the same…prospects as Tug.”

The fan in the other room stirred Claire’s hair as it moved from side to side but did little to cool the kitchen. “You’re talking about the money my parents had just inherited.”

“Yes.”

Claire had expected to hear something like this and yet it grated on her. “Do you have proof?”

“Once I began to suspect, I wanted to know for sure. So I hacked into her email account and read their messages. They were pretty hot.”

“But no one’s ever accused him of cheating.” Except her. Hadn’t she just asked him and Roni at the salon?

“They hid it well. It’s too bad your mother didn’t do the same.”

The burning in her throat threatened to choke Claire. “You’re saying you think my mom was having an affair, too.”

“Of course. Don’t you? Why would so many people point a finger at her if it wasn’t true?”

“Because they’re searching for answers they don’t have, so they come up with the only explanation they can.”