Leslie Parrish - Black at Heart

"Please, have a seat." She didn't go to her own, behind the desk, instead gracefully lowering herself to a small love seat in the corner, grouped with two comfortable chairs. He assumed the coffee-klatch setup was designed to make skittish patients feel more at ease before submitting their laugh lines or extra chins to the knife.

"Thank you," he said, taking his time, as if keenly interested in the office. He glanced around, noting the degrees, the awards, the thank-you letters from grateful patients. There was only one photograph, the same huge portrait of the Underwood family in front of their beach house that hung in the outer hallway. He recalled it also graced one of the walls in Dr. Kean's office-the senior Dr. Underwood's contribution to the building's decor, perhaps?

He also realized one more thing. There was no photo of Roger Underwood. Not a single snapshot to remind the grieving widow of her dearly departed.

That was all right. He had something else that would bring the man to mind.

The understated flirtation had relaxed her. She had correctly interpreted the intimacy in his smile and that second-too-long handshake, felt comfortable and mildly flattered at his attention. Meaning it was time to pull the rug out.

Wyatt unceremoniously pulled the digital recorder out of his pocket and set it down on the coffee table, hitting the play switch even as he sat down across from her. Roger Underwood's voice emerged from it.

The color dropped from Judith's face. "What is that?"

Lifting a brow, as if confused by the query, Wyatt replied, "I believe it's your husband's workshop on a new piece of laser equipment, isn't it? From a speech he gave in 2007?"

The woman moved as if to stand, but Wyatt put a hand on her arm, not restraining, still intimate. And he threw her off balance again. "Judith, I understand," he said softly.

She hesitated.

"Of course you would want to protect your husband."

She didn't settle back in her seat, but she did at least stop trying to get up.

"You loved him."

The muscles beneath his hand tensed.

"Or at least you wanted to protect his reputation. For the sake of the family, of the business."

She finally leaned back in the chair. Which was when he knew he had nailed it.

Wyatt let go of her arm and sat back himself, eyeing her with sympathy. "It can't have been easy."

"What is it you want?"

"I mean, knowing what he had been planning to do.

It must have been so difficult. How long had you known the truth about him?"

Blinking, she simply stared and he could almost see the wheels turning in the intelligent mind. How much does he know? What is he asking? What do I say?

Wyatt tipped the balance again, intentionally leaving her to wonder. "Forgive me; we can discuss that later. Let's talk about the night in question. The night he took your sister-in-law's car. Did you notice he was missing?"

Judith hesitated before finally admitting, "Yes. Right before the banquet."

"He hadn't told you he was going anywhere?"

"He mentioned something about having to make some calls."

"Did you find that strange?"

"Of course. Roger usually made an effort to keep his daddy happy, even though Alfred would forgive him absolutely anything." Judith glanced out the window, staring at the blue sky beyond. "I later wondered why he didn't just claim he was sick, but I suppose Ben already had the corner on faking illness to cover what he was really up to that night."

"Ben?

She pulled her attention back to his face. "Benjamin Kean. Angela's husband. He backed out of the entire conference at the last minute, claiming illness."

Wyatt suspected he knew the answer, but he still asked the question. "Do you know why?"

"Of course. He was down here screwing the little receptionist who just escorted you back here and filled your head with lots of rumors and speculations."

Wyatt didn't try to deny it, staying on the offensive. "Was that a frequent occurrence?"

"Ben's a slave to his own penis and his own legend. He nails any woman who will say yes, singing the poor-put-upon-husband song to anyone who will listen."

"Including you?"

The woman shrugged. "Occasionally. If I was bored or was angry at my husband for some reason and wanted to punish him."

Wyatt allowed himself a second to process it-Ben Kean sounded like a slime; the condition obviously spread like a cancer in this family. But he did not sound like a man who shared his late brother-in-law's tastes. That didn't mean the men hadn't been friends, and he hadn't helped Roger in his moment of utmost need, but Wyatt doubted it. He couldn't see Underwood turning to a man who'd had an affair with his wife. Men like Roger tended to dislike it when other people played with their possessions.

"When did you next see your husband after the night of the banquet?"

Judith met his eye directly. "About forty-eight hours later, on Monday night. He showed up at the house looking like he'd been at a Roman orgy."

"You hadn't reported him missing?"

She shrugged, as if to say it had not been the first time. Probably it hadn't.

"Any explanation as to where he'd been?"

"None."

"Did you have any suspicions?" he asked, making no insinuations either way. He wasn't sure how much Judith knew, and didn't want her to clam up now by his bringing up the one subject she wouldn't touch.

To his surprise, she didn't just touch it; she hit it with a sledgehammer. "Sure. He was probably out at some sick party where rich perverts paid lots of money to partner swap, to see someone being tortured, or to have sex with helpless little children."

Wyatt didn't react with as much as a blink. She might have thought she was going to shock him, might have worded her answer to do exactly that. But it hadn't worked. "So you did know."

She nodded once. "He'd gotten tangled up in a role-playing Web site a few months before and I found him acting out the kinds of fantasies that would land most people in a mental ward."

Satan's Playground.

"You hadn't known before then?"

She finally rose, her slim body graceful and elegant, innately sensuous. How on earth had she ended up in Roger Underwood's bed? "His cruel streak was a thing of legend, though of course nobody filled me in on it until after we were married." She wrapped her arms around herself. "I don't know if I can explain it. Some people are just… magnetic. Sadistic-you can see it in their eyes-but seductive just the same. They become almost an addiction."

Wyatt began to see the answer to his own unasked question. For a while, anyway, Roger had been her obsession.

"He cared about no one and could be utterly vicious, which just made you want him even more."

Underwood had obviously been a charming sociopath. Wyatt had met a few like him. Manson, so they said, had possessed that same quality to inspire utter devotion to the point of insanity, his cruelty never driving away those who were madly in love with him.

"There was no depravity too low. I found out things about him after we married____________________" She shook her head, glancing toward the door, then back at Wyatt. This time, she lowered her voice, visibly shaken for the very first time since she'd opened up. "No one was off-limits if he wanted that person. You understand? No one."

He understood. It made him sick, but Wyatt understood.

"How long had it gone on, do you think?"

"Oh, years. I know he started in with his stepbrother, Philip, when the boy was eight years old and Roger was in medical school. Philip's teenage sister, too."

And his own sister? The one who'd hated him, loved him?

Vile. But not impossible.

So Roger had been molesting children for decades. He'd found his victims close at hand. Which led Wyatt to believe that his plans on the night he'd attacked Lily had involved far more than a sexual attack. Had those children really existed, Wyatt truly believed Roger would have kidnapped, then slaughtered them, choosing strangers with whom he had absolutely no connection in an effort to cover his crime. The homeless man who'd assisted him would more than likely have been found dead the next day, too.