AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"He's mistaken. J. C. deceived him even as he deceived me. Or he's lying," she said with a shrug. "Chris would have cut off his hand for J. C., so lying would be nothing."
"Why lie? Why cheat if, as you just told me, all he had to do was come to you and end the arrangement?"
"I don't know." She pushed an agitated hand through her hair, disturbing its perfect order. "I don't know," she repeated. "Perhaps he was like other men after all and found it more exciting to cheat."
"Don't like men much, do you?"
"As a whole, no."
"So, how'd you find out about this other woman? Who is she? Where is she? How is it no one else knows about it?"
"Someone does," Lisbeth said evenly. "Someone sent me photos of them together, discs of conversations. Conversations where they talked about me. Laughed at me. God, I could kill him all over again."
She whirled around, yanked open a cabinet, and pulled out a large pouch. "Here. These are copies. We gave the PA the originals. Look at him, with his hands all over her."
Eve tapped out the contents, frowned. They were decent shots. The man was very clearly J. Clarence Branson. In one, he sat on what looked like a park bench with a young blonde in a short skirt. His hand was resting high on her thigh. In the next, they were kissing with apparent passion, and the hand was under her skirt.
The others looked to be taken in a privacy room at a club. They were grainy, which fit if they'd been duped from disc. A club could lose its sex license if the management was caught running video of privacy rooms.
But grainy or not, they clearly showed J. C. and the blonde in various and energetic sexual acts.
"When did you receive these?"
"I've given a
ll that information to the PA's office."
"Give it to me," Eve said shortly. And she was damn well going to find out why the PA hadn't bothered to pass these tidbits on to the primary investigator.
"They were in my mail slot when I got home from work. I opened them, I looked at them. I went directly to J. C. to confront him. He denied it. He actually stood there and denied it, told me he didn't know what I was talking about. It was infuriating, insulting. I lost my temper. I was blind with rage. I grabbed the drill and…"
She trailed off, remembering herself and her lawyer's instructions. "I must have lost my mind, I can't remember what I was thinking, what I was doing. Then I called the police."
"Do you know this woman?"
"I've never seen her before. Young, isn't she?" Lisbeth's lips trembled before she firmed them. "Very young and very…agile."
Eve slid the photos and discs back in the pouch. "Why are you keeping these?"
"To remind me that everything we had together was a lie." Lisbeth took the bag back, placed it in the cabinet again. "And to remind me to enjoy every cent of the money he left me."
She picked up her water glass again, lifted it as if in a toast. "Every goddamn cent."
• • •
Eve got back in her car, slammed the door. And brooded. "It might have happened just the way she said. Hell." She rapped a fist on the wheel. "I hate that."
"We can run the photo of the woman, try to get an ID. Something may pop."
"Yeah, shuffle it in when you have time. And when we have the goddamn photos." Disgusted, Eve pulled away from the curb. "No way to prove she knew about the will or that was her motive. And damn it, after seeing her in action up there, I tend to believe her story."
"I thought she was going to try to rip your face off."
"She wanted to." Then Eve sighed. "Anger control therapy," she muttered. "What next?"
*** CHAPTER EIGHT ***
"Snag on system," Eve muttered as she pushed away from her desk-link. "The PA's office said we didn't get the photos and discs on the Branson case because there was an SOS. My ass." She rose to pace. "SOS also stands for sack of shit."
