Suspect Lover

She thought about how Dominic admired her serenity. She wondered how he would feel about her fire.

“You ever been a bridesmaid, Nora?”

Nora’s brow lifted in an exact imitation of Dominic’s. “You thinking of putting a big pink bow on my ass?”

Caroline laughed. “Maybe not pink.”

“I’m in. Anything that makes him happy. I’m in.”

“Because you think you owe him,” Caroline said. “You know he probably wouldn’t like that.”

“Can’t help it. I do. He gave me my life back.”

“You know he came to see you. When you graduated from the academy, he was there. And one of the reasons he wanted to win this government contract was so that he would have a chance to visit you more often. He was going to try.”

Nora’s surprise was evident, and her slow smile told its own story. “Thanks. For letting me know. If I start calling him bro, do you think it will freak him out?”

“I do,” Caroline replied. “And I think you absolutely should. I’m going to go for a swim to try and work off all this extra adrenaline. You want to join me?”

“As in exercise? Tonight? I already had to run to chase you down a flight of stairs. That’s enough physical activity for me for a week.” Nora found the remote and began flicking through the channels on the flat-screen.

“If you get tired there’s a guest room upstairs.”

“I’m cool. My bet is Hernandez will either call or stop by once he has news.”

After changing into her suit, Caroline made her way to the pool, switching on the underwater lights but opting to leave the rest of the room in the dark. She’d found that way she could see the stars more clearly. The rain clouds were finally passing and the stars in the night sky twinkled.

She took pleasure in diving into the water in one clean leap. Hands piercing the surface. Body plunging afterward. No thought. No hesitation.

The water greeted her like a warm massage. She wondered how long she could stay under water. How long could she escape from the noise. How long could she continue to fly. Not too long.

Halfway to the other end of the pool, she kicked off the bottom and found air. Sucking it into her lungs, she dove under once more, determined to swim the rest of the length of the pool. She focused on the light shining from the center of the stairs underneath the water.

Suddenly the lamp went out and she poked her head up. Her first assumption was that the bulb had gone.

That assumption was wrong.

“Hello, Caroline.”

“Anne.” She huffed, trying to recover the air she’d denied her lungs. “What are you doing here?” Caroline didn’t hesitate and climbed the stairs out of the pool.

Anne held a towel out for her. Carefully Caroline took it as ideas ran through her head. She must know about Steven. Maybe he’d already been charged with murder. It was certainly enough to make a wife angry. Desperate. Caroline knew.

Feeling vulnerable and slightly exposed in the bathing suit, she wrapped the towel around her breasts and slicked the wet hair off her face. “What are you doing here?” Caroline asked again.

Anne simply smiled. “I hear Dominic’s back. You must be thrilled.”

“I am.” She didn’t have to wonder what the strange sensation swirling throughout her body was. It consumed her and turned her knees to mush. It was her old friend, fear. “Did Nora let you in?”

Cautiously, Caroline turned her head, but she couldn’t see up to where the couch was on the second level.

“Yes, she’s upstairs watching TV. She told me you were down here.”

The feeling rolling through her gut increased, accompanied by a roaring in her ears. Nora wouldn’t have sent this woman downstairs. She would have wanted to know what the hell she was doing here in the first place and why she wasn’t down at police headquarters supporting her husband.

Anne had done something to Nora. It was the only explanation. And it explained everything else.

“You and Steven are in this together.”

“Wrong!” Anne shouted and then chortled arrogantly. “Come on, Caroline. You’re a mystery writer. Surely, you can do better than that. Steven? You think he was behind this? Please. Steven couldn’t find his way to the executive washroom if I didn’t lead him there.”

Caroline took a step back. “I’m not in the mood to play games, Anne.”

“But aren’t you curious? I mean you’re going to die, Caroline. Don’t you want to know why?”

It wasn’t until she actually said the word die that Caroline saw the gun in the woman’s hand bumping against her hip. Focusing on the glint of steel, she couldn’t look away.

“Ask me,” Anne insisted.

“Why?” It was barely a whisper because there was no saliva left in her mouth.

“Well, there’s Denny’s program. It’s going to be very useful to me when I take over the company. Daddy says we’re going to make more money than we have ever dreamed of.”

“Russell’s involved, too.”

“He knows about the program. He just doesn’t know everything I had to do to get it. And I did have to do a lot. The money I’m going to make will be my reward. In fact, I don’t know that all of this would have been worth it otherwise.” Then Anne seemed to reconsider that statement. “Or maybe it would have been. I’m not sure. Actually this has all been rather exciting for me. I had always heard that revenge could be sweet, but I didn’t know it could be fun, too.”

“Revenge against me for what?” Caroline asked. “I barely know you.”

“Not against you. Dominic, silly. Maybe you weren’t aware of this, but your husband did something no one else has ever done.”

“Rejection hurts,” Caroline said remembering what Anne had said about never being denied.

“I really don’t like it,” she said.

Caroline started thinking about escape. There had been no gunshot, so whatever she’d done to Nora, she hadn’t shot her. If she’d surprised her somehow, knocked her out, maybe she was recovering and calling for help. She had to believe that because physically she didn’t match up with Anne. The woman had arms forged like steel. There was only one place where they might fight as equals.

“I just couldn’t have it. I mean, look at me, Caroline. If Dominic was going to have either one of us, clearly I’m the logical choice.”

“Clearly,” Caroline muttered, her eyes once again falling to the gun. “So this all began when Dominic married me?”

“No. Before then. Right after he turned me away. You see, Daddy always taught me never to take no for an answer. That’s how you get what you want in life. But that wasn’t working with Dominic. It made me very angry. So I decided if I couldn’t have him, I would take the one thing he cared about most.”

“His company.”

Anne beamed. “Bingo.”

She was getting close to the end of her story. There was no sound from upstairs. Caroline was going to have to act soon.

“I started sleeping with Denny. Let me tell you what a chore that was, but it was the only way I could get the information I needed about Dominic. You see, Denny and Dominic knew each other long before Steven came along. I found out all about Dominic’s nefarious past and that’s when I decided how I would get even.”

“Doesn’t seem fair to Denny.”

“No, I suppose it wasn’t. And naturally he almost ruined everything by telling Dominic what he was working on. I wanted to have the program in my hand before I did anything. Not that it mattered. Denny had to die because by doing so, his shares in the company reverted to Steven and Dominic. I fixed the books to make it look like Dominic was embezzling money, then had the files saved on his hard drive. Serena was very helpful for the low, low price of one hundred thousand dollars. Turns out her niece back in Mexico was sick, poor thing. The visa for her brother was taking too long, so Serena was going to use the money to hire a coyote to smuggle her brother and niece across the border. I actually considered letting her keep the money, but of course I couldn’t. She knew too much.”

Caroline wanted to throw up as the woman casually rattled off her reasons for the multiple murders.

“Dominic goes back to jail, a very fitting revenge. He sells his shares to Steven to save the company. I produce a child that guarantees the company gets passed to us. I really mean to me. And I win. The one thing I didn’t count