It was Amy’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know. But it’s weird, isn’t it? You’ve found a dead body before and you didn’t go all hermit on me.”
She was right. I had found a couple of dead bodies in the last year. First Miss Emily, who appeared to have died in her sleep. Then last fall, I’d been the one to notice that Ted Hendricks had taken a bullet to the brain in his precious Mustang. I keyed the address into my GPS and waited for it to load. “You’re wrong about one thing. Finding someone dead does leave a mark. Even on me. I guess I just handled it differently than Justin is. Cut the guy some slack.”
Amy stared out the window as the GPS told us where to go. “Now you think I’m a bad person.”
“I do not think you’re a bad person. You’re jumping to conclusions because you’re scared, that’s all.” I thought about the fear I’d seen in my friend’s face when she’d told me Justin wanted to take her home for Christmas. “He’s a good guy. Let him work it out.”
The GPS lady told me to take the next left and we’d be at our destination. I turned down the wide residential street and slowed to check out the minimansions on what appeared to be acre lots. “I sure hope Pat was wrong about this woman. Seems like dating Kent would be a downgrade in status.”
Amy was focused on the large houses, too. “I don’t know. I hear Kent had a few bucks stashed. He was always flashing money like he made it at the bank. With a printing press or something, I mean.”
Something Amy said was making my internal radar go crazy. Kent and the bank and his apparent wealth. Made sense that Sherry would go for that type. He had the money to keep her in the style that she preferred, if not deserved. I was trying to focus on the niggle when Amy pointed to the left. “That’s the house.”
I pulled the Jeep to the side of the road and watched as a woman dressed in a sleek tracksuit, opened the door to the house leading a large wolfhound. I heard Emma’s whine from the backseat. “And that’s her. Stay here with Emma.”
I quickly clambered out of the Jeep and sprinted over to meet the woman before she started her run. She glanced up and put a hand on her dog, who immediately sat by her side. A great trick and one I wished Emma could learn. “Evelyn Baker?” I called as I walked toward her. “We need to talk about Kent Paine.”
CHAPTER 12
The woman’s face went from a bright welcoming smile to a look of fear, her long black hair making her tanned skin seem twice as pale. She glanced toward the house, then nodded. “Can we walk?”
I fell into step beside her. “So you knew him.” I let the statement hang, wondering how she would play this.
We’d reached the end of the first block when she nodded. “I knew him. And if you’re here asking questions, you know I had an indiscretion with him.”
“I’ve heard rumors.” I looked both ways before we crossed the street, but the neighborhood was oddly quiet for a Sunday afternoon. Too many people out of town or just enjoying a weekend afternoon out on their back deck.
“His girlfriend confronted me at the modeling gig. I thought it was funny he wanted me to take the job, but he said he knew the owner and it would be a big favor to him.” She shook her head. “I think he wanted to break it off without him doing the heavy lifting.”
“So you stopped seeing him?” I thought back on the Business-to-Business meeting from hell and the gleam in Sherry’s eyes as she talked to Kent.
“That woman told me if I didn’t, she would e-mail my husband. And she said she had pictures.” She quickly added, “I don’t know whether that’s true. I mean, we never took shots while we were together, but you never know what type of games people play. I never would have started something with him if I’d thought he was with someone.”
The irony of her morality around sleeping with an attached man didn’t escape me. “It was okay for you to cheat, but not him?”
She sighed and pulled the dog away from a flower bed he was attempting to flatten. “You may not believe me, but I respect marriage. My husband and I have an open arrangement. Mostly on his side. He likes to experiment. I guess I was feeling lonely and Kent just kind of was there.”
Not my type of relationship, but who was I to judge? “You wouldn’t mind if your husband found out? So why did you stop seeing Kent?”
“Because I minded that he was cheating.” She put her hand on my arm and turned me to look at her. “Believe me, I have no interest in messing with anyone’s relationship. He told me he was single.”
We started walking again, and I thought about Evelyn’s reasoning. It made sense in a twisted way.
“And before you ask, I was at a play with my husband in the city on Wednesday. We drove up Tuesday night and came back Thursday. I didn’t kill Kent.” There was intensity to her words and I believed her.