Ann Major - The Secret Lives of Doctors' Wives

“Crime of passion,” the admissions clerk continued. “A woman did it, if you ask me.”

“Why do you say that?”

Lowering her voice even further, she said, “Dr. Carver had a real reputation with the young nurses around here. I’d see him come in here, smiling at the prettiest women. He thought he was God’s gift.”

Oh, my God…What if I really was the last person to see him alive…I mean, besides the real murderer? My bra and panties!

What if the police found them?

Why did I have to tell everyone last year every vengeful fantasy I had about him, including joking about wanting his head on a platter?

“Be careful what you wish for,” her daddy used to say before the tragedy, back when she’d been a kid and they’d still been pals. “Because it’ll come back and bite you in the butt. Every time, sugarbun.”

What was she going to do?

“There’s damn sure no page-turner as good as reading about the vicious murder of your ex, is there?” Yolie said, fluffing her spiky blond hair.

Yolie’s big white house was located in a posh, central Austin neighborhood. Todd, her seventeen-year-old son by Pierce, occupied the pool house when he was in town, which wasn’t often, since he went to boarding school. Darius, her twenty-five-year-old stepson, Pierce’s son from Vanessa, his first wife, who’d killed herself, stayed in the pool house as well on the rare occasions when he was in Austin. A college dropout, he did a lot of drifting.

The sun beat down on the pool as Rosie swam frantic laps. Yolie avidly read the newspaper in a chaise longue next to the pool house, which the maid was readying because both boys had called and said they would be arriving soon due to their father’s demise.

Yolie looked up from the paper. “Hey, can you believe this? It says right here that Michael Nash is the detective in charge of the case. Wasn’t he the guy you used to date, the hottie who gave you that ticket last year?”

Yolie tossed a section of the newspaper onto the ground and grabbed another.

At the mention of Michael, Rosie felt sick and faint as she emerged dripping from the pool. She toweled off before sinking back onto her own chaise longue. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

“You damn sure got your wish. You should be a happy camper.”

“What?”

“Pierce getting himself murdered and all. It’s what you wanted.”

“No. How can you say that?”

“You do remember telling everybody you wanted his head on a platter?”

“I was joking.”

“Frankly, I loved the image.”

“Yolie! Listen to me! I went over there last night. To Pierce’s! And then Michael Nash…who must have already known about Pierce by then…answered the call about Alexis.”

Slowly, Yolie set the paper down and stared at her.

“Pierce called me. Not Jennifer. I…I let Harry think it was Jennifer.”

“You went over there? Were you out of your mind?”

“He owed me money.”

“That is so lame. That’s not why you went over there, and you know it.”

“He was alive and furious at me, but he was searching the house for an intruder when I left him.”

“What time did Nash show up over here?”

Rosie froze. “I…I think he already knew. I think that’s why he came. He kept asking me if I’d seen Pierce…And I lied.”

“You should talk to a criminal attorney first thing,” Yolie said in that maddeningly decisive way of hers—like there was no other opinion in the universe.

Despite the intense heat, Rosie shivered. “A criminal attorney?” She moaned. “But I didn’t do anything!”

“But the police—that Michael guy—obviously thinks otherwise. You were there last night. Lucky thing Joe Benson’s right next door.”

Joe Benson was both a criminal attorney and the stepfather of Jennifer.

Rosie flung the last of the articles about Pierce she’d devoured earlier onto the litter of newspapers that lay between her chaise longue and Yolie’s. At least there’d been no mention of a bra or panties being found at the scene.

Guilt struck her. She should be with her mother, not lying out by the pool under the leafy shade of the towering pecan trees, consumed with fear for herself.

How could all this be happening at once? Pierce calling her? Going over there and stupidly quarreling with him when she should have just walked out? His getting himself stabbed? Michael being involved? Not to mention Hazel’s having another breakdown?

Oh, God! This meant Michael would be back in her life big time. What if he found out about Carmen, too?

Rosie’s nerves began to jump. Her inner thermostat went haywire. Suddenly she felt as if she was freezing.

“So, tell me, why do I need to see Joe?”

“For advice, sweetie. Just for advice.”

“Which will cost a bundle.”

“You’d rather have free room and board in prison?”

Rosie’s chest went tight. “I really should go check on Hazel.”

“Forget Hazel. She’s got round-the-clock doctors and nurses.”

“They are not her daughter. She wants me. Only me.”

“You were the last person to see your murdered exboyfriend alive!”

“Except for whoever really killed him.”

“What exactly happened at Pierce’s?”

Rosie hissed in a deep breath. “Okay, like I told you, he called about eleven.”

“And you just had to run over there.”

“When I saw his name in the Caller ID window of my cell, I popped the rubber band on my wrist three times. I swear I tried not to answer. But Ticia Morgan had already told me Anita had left Pierce, and maybe I wanted to gloat a little.”

Yolie nodded almost wearily. “Ticia? John’s child bride?”

John Morgan was Pierce’s new plastic surgery partner.

“Yes. So, Ticia called yesterday to tell me that Anita had phoned her. Apparently, Anita was telling anybody who would listen that Pierce was an obsessive-compulsive, alcoholic monster.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Anita kept screaming that he’d threatened to send her daughters back to Guatemala because they wouldn’t follow all his nit-picky rules.”

“What did they do—wear their shoes in the house?”

“Yes, and they wanted credit cards, cell phones, driver’s ed lessons, television sets, and cars, too.”

“Hello? Why did he think they married him? Still, you should never have talked to Ticia. Or Pierce.”

“I know.”

“So, what did he want?”

“He wished me a happy birthday. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about me. He said Anita was a mistake and that he wanted me back.”

“He wanted you back? After you sent him that painting where you made his Mr. Willie look like a shriveled peanut, and his entire staff laughed when he opened it? He wanted you back? And you bought it?”

“Well, not at first, but he was totally sober.”

“You could tell that over the phone?”

“He said he wanted a new warehouse key. And I said he’d have to pay the rent. He said he would pay it.”

“This from the man who won’t pay for his wife’s kids? And you went over there?”

Rosie nodded miserably.

“And?”

“We drank some champagne.”

“Not good. How much?”

“He kept my flute full while he gave me a tour of the house, so I didn’t really count.”

“Did he touch you? Did anybody take anything off?”

Rosie flushed as she remembered their first kiss on the stairway beneath the chandelier. They’d still been dressed then. Even though their mouths and bodies had fit just like always, something had felt wrong to her. She’d kissed him harder, searching for what she’d once thought she’d had with him, but the soul-deep wrongness had persisted.