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His voice went up an octave. “Me? What are you talking about?”
Josie reached into her back pocket and pulled out a folded sheaf of papers. She spread them across the narrow coffee table. “Please look at these.”
Beau looked as if it physically hurt him to view the blown-up text messages that Denton PD had gotten from Eve’s phone. Josie said, “The killer left Eve’s phone behind. We were able to access its contents. These only go back three months, but I think they are sufficient.”
Margot lowered her hands from her face and leaned in, eyeing the pages.
When Beau didn’t respond, Josie picked one up and read it out loud. “On December third at seven fourteenp.m., Eve texted: ‘I miss you so much. Seeing you only twice a week isn’t enough. I need more. It’s been a whole year. When are we going to be together? For real?’ Five minutes later, you responded, ‘I know. I want to see you more, too, but it’s just not possible. I don’t want Claudia to get suspicious.’ Eve replied: ‘Claudia won’t even notice or care. You can’t possibly love her anymore. Not if you love me, too. Tell me you’re only doing this for the show.’ You replied: ‘All I can think about is you. I’ll see if I can find more time for us to be together.’”
Josie let the last statement hang in the air. Margot stared at the side of Beau’s face, her mouth hanging open. There was only silence. All that could be heard was the hiss of the heating vents and a television playing somewhere.
Beau’s voice shook. “I love my wife. I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but—”
Noah said, “Having an affair with her assistant is a funny way of showing your love, Mr. Collins.”
Beau shot to his feet. His hands balled into fists at his sides. “Eve was fixated on me. She was young and beautiful and yes, I had a lapse in judgment, nothing more. I was trying to find a way to end it with her.”
Josie shook the page she had just read. “This doesn’t sound that way.”
He turned to Noah. “I fail to see how this helps find the killer. Who cares if I had a lapse in judgment? I didn’t kill anyone. This—this monster did! You should be looking for him, talking to him, questioning him.”
Josie said, “If you were not truthful about this affair, it begs the question: what else did you lie about?”
“Nothing!” he said. “I swear to you. Nothing.”
Josie reached down and shuffled the pages again until she found a call log from Friday. She pointed to the call she’d highlighted before they arrived. “This is a phone call received by Eve from your cell phone on Friday afternoon.”
Beau didn’t look at the log but Margot did.
Noah said, “You talked to Eve at four in the afternoon. Not long before your wife was murdered in your home while she was there alone.”
Beau looked from Noah to Josie and back helplessly. “So what? Now you know we were having an affair. You just read those intimate texts. What’s so special about a phone call?”
Ignoring the question, Josie asked, “What did you talk about?”
“I was trying to break things off. Again. It was my fifteenth wedding anniversary, for crying out loud! Eve was going to be there for the taping—in our home, with me and my wife—it felt wrong. Before that happened, I wanted to be clear with Eve that it was over between us.”
“Did you tell Eve not to come to the anniversary dinner?” asked Noah.
Beau’s brow furrowed. “What? No. She’s—she was—Claudia’s assistant. I wouldn’t do that. It would have raised too many questions—”
“My God,” Margot spat.
Beau’s head snapped in her direction. “What?”
Her lip curled. “Do you even hear yourself? You’re so disgusting!”
“Margot, please—”
Josie interrupted them. “When you finished this twenty-three-minute phone call with Eve, you fully expected to see her at your home by five thirty for the anniversary dinner and taping?”
“Of course,” Beau said, looking at Josie and Noah once more. “She wasn’t happy with me, but she promised she’d still be there.”
“On time?” asked Noah pointedly.
Beau threw both hands in the air and let them fall to his lap. “Yes! What is this all about? Stop making this about me and start making it about the killer! I beg you!”
Changing tack, Noah asked, “Does the name Archie Gamble mean anything to you?”
