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“She has.” Ortez laughed. “The rest of us haven’t been so selfless.”
“You’re married?” Finley asked. “Kids?”
“Married twice. One daughter, who is about to graduate from Vanderbilt Medical School.” She grinned. “There will be a doctor in the family.”
“Wow. That’s great. What about the other senior partners? Kids? Spouses?”
“Daisy is a widow. She married her high school sweetheart. He died a few years back. No children.” Ortez reached for the water bottle on her desk and took a long draw. “Liz is in a long-term relationship but not married and no kids. I don’t expect that will change. She’s married first and foremost to the job.”
“Jessica is married,” Finley pointed out. She’d read as much in her bio.
“She is. Two years now. She’s still weighing the idea of kids. I believe her husband is more enamored with the idea than Jessica.”
A lot of career women waited to have children. For the first time Finley wondered, If things had been different, would she and Derrick have had children? The thought startled her, almost made her twitch. Finley backed away from the random notion and forced her head back in the interview. She took Ortez through the routine questions she’d asked the others. The answers were the same. Practiced. Careful. Ortez agreed there had been no new hires since Grady.
“I appreciate your time, Vivian.” Finley stood. “Please let me know the minute you learn anything new on Grady.”
Ortez walked around her desk. “I certainly will.”
She escorted Finley back to the bank of elevators in the lobby. On the way Finley surveyed all the busy women going about their work. If there was anything negative to know about Jarrod Grady or his relationship with Ellen Winthrop, Finley had a feeling she wasn’t going to learn it here.
This was a carefully constructed hive, and Winthrop was the queen bee. No one was going to fail her.
Since Winthrop had been summoned to Jack’s office for another interview with Ventura, Finley wasn’t able to chat with her. Ortez had answered the primary question about access to the home office that had occurred to Finley on her tour through the scene. For now, she felt no urgency to follow up with Winthrop. Although she was curious as to why Ventura hadn’t mentioned requesting another interview.
Once Finley got past the horde of reporters and to the parking garage, she slid behind the wheel of her Subaru and started the engine. She adjusted the climate control and hoped it would cool quickly. It was damned hot for late September but not unusual for the South. Tugging her cell from her pocket, she checked her messages.
Nothing from Jack—always a good thing. Nothing from Ventura or any of the other detectives currently working cases that involved her in some way. Like Detective Eric Houser, who had taken over Derrick’s case and occasionally poked around to keep her from concluding that no one was doing anything. Then there was Detective Ronald Graves, who still wasn’t satisfied with her version of the shooting at the convenience store that had taken down the first of the three thugs involved inthatnight. Of course, Graves hadn’t known—still didn’t—that Finley knew the guy. The detective had his suspicions, but he couldn’t prove anything.
Her cell vibrated in her hand. She snapped back to the present. Stared at the screen, then frowned. Blocked number. Oh yay. Her favorite kind of call.
“O’Sullivan,” she said in greeting to the anonymous caller.
“We need to talk.”
Female.
“Who’s this?” Seemed a completely reasonable question.
“I’ll tell you everything you need to know when we meet.”
Like that was going to happen. “Sorry. I don’t do blind dates.”
“I’ll be in that old restaurant that closed down on the corner of Twelfth and Pine at six. Come alone.”
A line straight out of a bad movie. Finley rolled her eyes, glanced around the parking garage. “And why would I do that?”
“If you want to know the truth about your husband, you’ll come.”
Finley sat up straighter. “Who is this?”
“Corner of Twelfth and Pine. There’s a downstairs entrance in the back parking lot. Be there at six.”
The call ended.
Finley stared at the screen. Emotions jabbed at her. Questions hopped around in her brain like popcorn in the microwave. If this woman had known Derrick, was she a friend? Family member? Lover? Wife?
A spear of pain slid through her heart. Maybe the caller was the wife who’d been in love with the murder house—the one the previous owner had said was the reason Derrick wanted the house so badly. Maybe the caller was the one who knew all his secrets. Why he’d sought Finley out ... lured her into a relationship ... claimed he’d worked on the dump of a house for months when the previous owner hadn’t even sold the house to Derrick until just a couple of weeks before he and Finley met.
