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She dropped her head forward until her chin was resting on her chest. She sensed her mother's disbelief, Dodge's unspoken reproof, the deputy's condemnation. Then she brought her head up and shook back her hair in a small show of defiance.
"Yes, I agreed to be Oren's date to the Christmas party. I thought that if I went out with him once, he would stop pestering me. The party seemed a safer alternative than being alone with him for an entire evening. We would be surrounded by people we knew.
"I accepted his invitation on the condition that we meet there rather than his picking me up at home. I drove myself there and drove myself home. Alone. I told you the truth about being in Oren's car, Deputy Nyland. I never rode with him anywhere."
"What about the party?"
"Oren made certain that everyone knew we were paired for the evening. He didn't leave my side the entire night. He hovered. He treated me with familiarity, touching me constantly. The memory of it revolts me.
"I endured his manhandling, hoping that, once he could boast of having had a date with me, he would be satisfied and go away. But it didn't turn out that way."
She paused, stared into near space for a moment before focusing on the deputy again and continuing. "The last workday before the Christmas holiday, Oren received his dismissal notice. He turned to me for consolation, as though I was his lover, friend, champion." She paused again and gave them each in turn a look. "That's when the stalking began."
Wanting to lance all the boils at once, she looked at Dodge. "During your tete-a-tete with Amanda Lofland this afternoon, she spilled the beans about Ben and me."
Dodge nodded unhappily.
Facing the deputy, she said, "There was a time when Ben and I had more than a working relationship." Noting his lack of reaction, she added, "But you don't seem surprised
to learn that."
He tipped his head slightly. "Ms. Lofland called me late this afternoon, said maybe I ought to know that you'd attended the company Christmas party with Oren Starks and that you and her husband had been lovers."
"He wasn't her husband then," Berry said with asperity. "And until today, I didn't know that Amanda was even aware of it. In any case, it's ancient history and has no bearing on anything, especially what happened here last night." She pried her tight grip from the back of the chair and began to pace.
"Ben and I were working late one night, went for drinks afterward, felt like blowing off some steam, and one thing led to another. Being co-workers, seeing each other every day in the office, added a bit of spice to what would otherwise have been a rather bland attraction.
"Soon even that naughty element wasn't enough to make it worthwhile. We didn't want a pretend romance to damage our solid working relationship, and we realized how silly it was to continue when neither of us was emotionally invested in the affair. So we agreed to return to what we'd been before, platonic friends and co-workers.
"It was a fling that lasted less than a month. He hadn't even met Amanda yet. When he did, I was one of the first people he told about this 'amazing woman.' I was pleased for him. And when they got engaged, I threw them a party. Mother, you remember."
"You rented out the party room at the country club."
Berry nodded and looked at Ski. "That's it. That's the big, bad secret. Until that ugly encounter in the hospital, Amanda has always been cordial toward me. Maybe today's meltdown happened because she's upset and worried about Ben's medical condition. Maybe her outburst was a delayed reaction to the trauma of hearing that he'd been shot."
She raised her hands helplessly at her sides. "I don't know when Ben told her about us, whether it was before or after they married, or this morning when he woke up in the recovery room and realized that he'd been shot while wearing only his undershorts in my house. I don't know.
"What I do know is that my time with Ben was short-lived and forgettable. Nothing romantic has happened between us since it ended. Certainly nothing adulterous happened here yesterday."
Ski got up and rounded the table, coming to stand directly in front of her. "In the guest room, last night when I looked, the bed was still made."
"I can't account for that. Maybe Ben was sitting in the chair reading, maybe he was on the toilet, maybe he was ... I don't know what he was doing because I didn't see him after we went upstairs, said goodnight, and retired to our separate rooms."
"On your bed, the covers had been pulled back."
"Nyland, what are you getting at?" Dodge asked.
Neither she nor Ski responded. She didn't know why this was such a sticking point, but she wanted to eliminate it as an issue between her and the deputy. "I turned down the bed before I went into the bathroom to shower."
Dodge said, "What's the deal with the beds? In fact, what difference does it make if she and Lofland were screwing their brains out? The important thing is that this jerk-off Starks--"
"I know what the important thing is." Ski angrily cut him off but without shifting his gaze away from Berry's.
Dodge fired back. "Then why are you harping on the sleeping arrangements?"
"Her relationship with Lofland might relate to Starks's motive."
"She's told you what their relationship is," Dodge argued. "Now can we move on?"
