J. Jance - Cruel Intent

“So all these years later, my mother’s still walking around singing those ‘I missed the big wedding’ blues. As soon as Chris admitted popping the question to you, she went off the deep end. She figured this was her last chance at a big production-number wedding. But that’s her problem, Athena, not yours. If Edie Larson wants a big wedding, maybe she and Dad should plan a whole formal renewal-of-vows hoopla for their fiftieth-which isn’t all that far off, by the way. But for right now, as I told Mom this afternoon, we all need to back off. We’re doing things your way. Period.”

“You told her that?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Is she upset?”

“She was upset,” Ali replied. “Maybe still is, but she’ll get over it.”

“What about your dad?”

“What about him? If Mom is over it, Dad is over it,” Ali answered. “That’s how they work.”

For a moment Athena said nothing. “What about Chris’s other grandparents?” she asked. “He never mentions them. What happened to them?”

That was the other problem with our wedding, Ali thought. My parents wanted a huge wedding. Dean’s didn’t want any wedding at all-at least not to me.

“Dean’s parents disowned him,” she said. “They wanted him to come into the family business. He wasn’t interested. My family didn’t have any money. His did, and they thought that’s what I was after-his money-so they opted out of their son’s life completely. That’s the other reason we eloped.”

“And they never came back?” Athena asked.

Ali shook her head. “Even though Dean asked me not to, I tried getting in touch with them once after he got sick. They never returned my call. I’ve never forgiven them for it.”

“They don’t know Chris?”

“No,” Ali said. “Not at all.”

Athena gave her a wry and still slightly tearful smile. “So at least I’m not the only one with a screwy family.”

The doorbell rang again. Athena leaped off the couch. “Sorry,” she said. “How rude. You were expecting company, and here I am, messing things up. I need to go.”

“Believe me, you’re not messing anything up,” Ali began, but Athena wasn’t listening. She hurried to the front door and flung it open. With a mumbled apology, she hustled past the visitor waiting outside on Ali’s front porch.

“That was Athena, my son’s fiancée,” Ali explained to B. Simpson, who stood there with a roll-aboard computer case stationed behind him. “They had a bit of a disagreement.”

“Nothing too serious, I hope,” he said.

“No,” Ali said. “I think Athena and Chris both have a case of new-engagement jitters.”

“If this is a bad time and I’m interrupting, I could always come back later.”

This whole encounter was one Ali dreaded, but it had to be done. “No,” she said. “Come on in. Let’s get this over with.”

One by one, the last few stragglers left the building. Finally, there was no one left but Matt, who sat there agonizing about Detective Holman’s phone call and struggling to understand how this unforeseen disaster had come to pass.

In the movies, earth-shattering events happened with the hero stranded on steep, rocky cliffs overlooking roiling seas. Matt had always loved those black-and-white romances from the thirties in which star-crossed lovers would dine together in high-class restaurants where they could say their bittersweet goodbyes, all the while sipping high-toned cocktails or champagne. But Matthew Morrison was no movie-worthy hero. He was just a regular Joe whose downfall had started months earlier in the checkout line at his neighborhood Lowe’s.

He had gone there after work with Jenny to pick up some gardening supplies and flats of annuals, mostly petunias and snapdragons, for the pots she liked to keep blooming out on the back patio. As they left the store, Matt did what he usually did: He scanned through the receipt. When he spotted the error-an eighty-seven-cent overcharge on the bottle of slug bait-he had turned on his heel and marched back into the store and back to the cash wrap to have the clerk set it right. It was an error; it needed to be fixed.

As per usual, Jenny was in a hurry. She had been for as long as Matt had known her and for all of the eighteen years they’d been married. She had followed him back into the store, berating him all the way. Despite the long line of strangers at the checkout, she had kept after him the whole time, bitching him out, screeching at him that “only an anal-retentive auditor would waste his precious time and mine for eighty-seven goddamn cents!”

Matt had prided himself on being a good husband. For the whole time they’d been married, he had been unfailingly faithful to Jenny, even though she’d made it clear from the beginning that no matter what Matt did, he would never measure up to her sainted and mercifully deceased father. Matt liked going to work. Compared to what went on at home, work was peaceful and quiet. He had hired on with the state auditor three years after they married. For fifteen years Matt had kept his nose to the grindstone, doing his important but unheralded work in a quietly efficient manner. It bothered him that when it came time for promotions, he was always pushed aside for someone younger-often someone Matt himself had trained-but he never made a fuss about it. That was something Matthew Morrison didn’t do: make a fuss.

In all those years and in all situations, he’d kept a mild-mannered smile plastered on his face and done his best to get along. With everyone. Without realizing it, though, he must have been moving ever closer to the edge. And that fateful night, as the clerk counted out Matt’s eighty-seven cents’ worth of change and with the people in line snickering at him behind his back, something had snapped. After emptying the trunk and carrying Jenny’s flats of annuals out to the back patio, he had locked himself in his home office and gone shopping at Singleatheart, a site for “married singles,” which, Matt decided, was what he was.

A month or so later, he had found Suzie Q, also a married single, separated from her husband, not interested in a divorce, but wanting to put some fun and joy back into her life. That was what Matt wanted, too-some fun in his life, although for him, it wasn’t so much putting it back in as it was having fun for the first time. Ever.

It hadn’t worked. He had never actually seen Susan Callison, had never, as they say, laid a glove on her. But as of this afternoon, his whole nonaffair with her had blown up in his face. He was convinced that Suzie Q was dead, and he seemed to be the prime suspect. Tomorrow morning the detective would be here at his office. Would that be for questioning, or would it be worse than that? Was Holman planning to place him under arrest? Right there? In the office? With everyone around them looking on? Matt’s insides squirmed at the very idea.

The janitorial crew swept through the floor. Ignoring Matt completely, they emptied trash cans, vacuumed a little, and then went away. Matt knew what he needed to do, but only when he was left alone once more, only when there was no one left to see, did Matt Morrison reach for his keyboard.

In talking to B. Simpson on the phone, Ali had forgotten how tall he was-six feet five, at least. He wasn’t particularly good-looking. His most outstanding feature was a pair of gray-green eyes that seemed to change color depending on the lighting. There was a hint of natural curl in his short brown hair, and the smile he offered was engagingly shy.

“Can I get you something?” Ali asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I find it’s best not to eat or drink around computers.” Rather than stopping off in the living room, he headed straight for the dining room table, where he deposited the computer bag. “Mind if we set up shop here?” he asked.