Brian Freeman - Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

Janine smiled as she relaxed. She hadn’t smiled in days. And then she laughed. And then she cried. Life was a crazy, crazy business. She had no illusions that she could hide from the truth forever.

She thought about Texas. Hot, backward, wonderful, awful Texas. Twenty years ago, she’d been a teenager living outside Austin, serving drinks at a country bar to save money for college. Her first husband Donny, who was no older than she was, had looked down her blouse and fallen in love. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he was as hard-working and loyal as a puppy. Donny adored her. She felt bad that, for herself, he was mostly a stepping-stone on her way to somewhere else. The things he wanted — a horse ranch, three kids, vacations in Orlando — simply weren’t part of her DNA. Five years later, Donny was gone with a broken heart, and Lionel took his place.

Lionel was an entrepreneur with a pot of venture capital to pay for Janine’s medical school. They were clear from day one about what they needed from each other. Lionel got a sexy, intelligent wife who could wow his board. She became an MD without a dime of debt. Who else could say that?

There was little emotion between them, but Lionel understood her dreams better than most. He was the same way about his med-tech start-up. Most people didn’t have passion like that — something that consumed them and ate up every waking hour and left nothing in its place. From the time she had been a little girl, Janine Snow had been focused on only one thing. Being a doctor. Being the best surgeon that any human being had ever been. Saving lives.

And she did it.

But the price was giving up a normal life.

She spent two hours alone in the condominium above Michigan Street. Two blissful hours in absolute silence. That was what she needed. When she finally left, she was singing quietly to herself, and the shake had disappeared from her hands. The pain in her ankle was gone. Her confidence was back. She could do anything, defeat anyone, win any battle. After the dark days since Jay’s death, when she had felt nothing but despair, she was floating on air again, and she believed for a moment that she might not lose everything. She could almost see a future for herself through the storm.

Her Mercedes was where she had left it, on the top floor of the ramp. Flurries blew around it. A streetlight cast shadows. It was a pretty night. She walked with a lightness in her heart, breathing in the cold air, until she realized that someone was waiting for her.

A man appeared near her car and walked toward her. Janine froze.

‘Don’t worry, Dr. Snow,’ he called.

She didn’t move. She had no weapon and no rape alarm, and even if she did she couldn’t afford to use them. Not when it meant answering questions. Such as what she was doing downtown at that time of night.

The man seemed to know her dilemma.

‘I just want to talk to you,’ he said. He stopped ten feet away with his gloved hands in the air.

‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Melvin Wiley.’

‘What do you want?’

‘It’s pretty cold out here,’ Wiley said in a reedy voice that was hard to hear above the wind. ‘Would you prefer to talk in your car?’

‘We’ll talk right here. If we talk at all.’

Wiley shrugged, but he wasn’t put off. He was the kind of man who didn’t get noticed in a crowd. You could pass him at the grocery store and not remember he’d been there. He wasn’t short; he wasn’t tall. He wasn’t fat or thin. He had windblown brown hair with a high forehead and a bushy mustache. He had metal glasses that could have been worn by any man on the street. He wore chocolate-brown corduroys, old sneakers, and a blue down coat that he kept half-zipped. Underneath was a flannel shirt. She decided he was in his forties.

‘What do you want?’ Janine repeated.

‘I knew your husband,’ Wiley said. ‘I did some work for Jay.’

‘What kind of work?’

‘You sure you wouldn’t be happier in your car?’ he asked.

Janine said nothing. She waited.

‘People like Jay come to me when they have questions,’ Wiley said.

‘Questions?’

‘Yeah. Typically, the question is, who’s been banging my wife?’

Janine felt the shiver in her body from her feet to her neck. ‘You’re a private detective.’

‘I call it matrimonial research. That’s funny, don’t you think? You have to have a sense of humor for this job. I used to work for the Department of Revenue, but I wanted a career where I could feel good about myself.’

He laughed at his own joke. Janine’s face was dead.

‘Most people are easy targets,’ Wiley went on. ‘You follow them for a day or two, and there they are, kissing outside the motel room or in the car. Stupid. You’re much better. Really, that’s a compliment. You were pretty good at shaking a tail for a doc. I bet it was a month before I found the place across the street. Even when I did, it looked like you were always alone. Smart, you going in the back while he went in from the front. Very smart. So I had to get creative. I put a camera in the air vent in your bedroom. That new HD technology is expensive but amazing. Once I had that in place, things got interesting.’

Janine took two steps and slapped him hard across the face. He took it without flinching and rubbed the red welt she left behind. She didn’t think it was the first time he’d been slapped.

‘Got that out of your system?’ Wiley asked. He dug in the pocket of his coat and pulled out a manila envelope. ‘Here, take a look, these are your greatest hits. I printed stills, but I’ve got video, too.’

Janine opened the envelope and slid out one page. She recognized her own bare skin. And her lover’s. The closed eyes on her face. His naked back and her legs wrapped around him.

‘You’re disgusting,’ she snapped. ‘What do you want? Money?’

‘Well, I’m feeling a little torn here, Dr. Snow. I showed Jay what I got with my camera inside your little love nest. Since the police didn’t find it, I’m guessing he destroyed what I gave him. Or maybe you did, who knows. Anyway, I figure it’s my civic duty to do something with this. Jay’s dead. I should really hand everything I found over to the police, you know? Or heck, if I was a mercenary kind of guy, I might sell it. There are tabloids that would pay big bucks for this kind of thing.’

‘How much do you want?’ Janine asked. Her voice was drained of life.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement. You might want to put me on retainer. A monthly stipend to do research for you. You’d be surprised how handy it can be to have a detective on the payroll.’

‘I’m leaving,’ Janine said.

‘Sure. No problem. Take the envelope with you. I’ve got more where those came from.’ Wiley reached into his pants and slid out a business card. ‘You think about it, Dr. Snow, and then you give me a call, okay? We’ll work something out.’

She said nothing.

Wiley strolled away, disappearing in a cloud of snow. She heard his footsteps descending the ramp. She was alone again. The lightness in her soul had turned to lead, dragging her back into a black hole. Twenty years had passed since she was a Texas blond, dreaming that she would make something of herself. Twenty years, and nothing in between seemed to matter at all.

Cindy slipped out of bed after midnight. Her skin was moist with sweat, and she shivered, because the house was as cold as a drafty barn. Jonny slept heavily, with a bare leg outside the blankets. He always slept like the dead after they made love. Normally, she did, too, but not tonight. She felt restless, but she wasn’t sure why.

She went to her closet and grabbed a robe, which she pulled around her naked body. Her long black hair was a mess. She padded in her little bare feet to the kitchen and switched on the light over the sink. Quietly, she unloaded the dishwasher, pushing up on tiptoes to reach some of the cabinets. There was something about an empty dishwasher that gave her a feeling of accomplishment.