Harper blinked. “I didn’t know they were gay.”
The assistant nodded. “No one did. I only know because I set up their travel reservations. They’ve always been sweet to me. I wanted to help.”
Chaney and Klein were a defensive lineman and a tackle. When their marriage hit the news wires, it would explode. A gay marriage between high profile football players drifted into uncharted territory.
“I wish them well,” Noah said. Harper said the same. He saw no reason to linger. “We should go. Good luck with the blackmail, though I have to advise you not to do it.”
Kimmie grinned. “We’ll see.”
The duo left her to tossing Gerald’s office and got out of the building without being seen. Scrappy mustache guy waved at Harper, his face slack with longing.
Once they hit the parking lot, Noah ran both hands through his hair. “Who knew the Muskrats were running a nut house.”
“I knew. I was once the nut in charge.”
Chapter 39
Harper and Noah spent the rest of the day tracking down Denson and King to get them to confess. Denson had broken his foot three weeks ago in several places and was still on crutches, and King was MIA. His wife was convinced he was shacking up with some “whore” and she was finished with that “dumbass.” The moving truck in the driveway confirmed the marriage was over.
“King is in for one hell of a surprise when he gets home,” Noah said and nudged the rental out into midday traffic. “Unfortunately, we can’t count him out as a suspect.”
With momentum waning, he hoped Harper wouldn’t go into a funk. They were still shooting toward the finish line.
“I’ll highlight King on the list. But he’s the killer on the run, he could be in Morocco by now, ” she said. “What’s next?”
No funk. Only optimism. Harper learned that cases rarely led from point A to B without a lot of bends and bumps in between. With some training, she’d make one hell of a PI.
“I think dinner is next.” His stomach rumbled to make his point. “I’m starving.”
By the time they ate, and they were pulling into the duplex driveway, the last thing he wanted to do was work on the case. If fact, the only investigation he was interested in was discovering what color panties Harper was wearing.
“Boxers or briefs?”
“Huh?”
“Boxers or briefs?” she repeated. “I plan to find out for myself but want to get a head start on the fantasizing.”
The woman was a damn mind reader. And everything he wanted in a woman. Leveling a sexy grin on her, he told her so after he hurried around the car and dragged her off her seat. “Harper Jane Evans, you are my kind of woman.”
* * * *
Noah was naked and pulling her black panties off with his teeth when her phone pinged a text.
“Don’t check that.” Buried under the covers, his voice came out muffled. He was heading down to Naughty Ville and didn’t want any roadblocks. And incoming texts leaped to the top of that list.
Unable to help herself, she rotated her head just enough so that he wouldn’t know she’d peeked.
Harper had hoped the text came from some guy from a third world country asking for money to bring him to America so they could get married. No such luck.
Summer. Damn. She was the queen of bad timing.
Noah shoved back the covers exposing his head. She slid the phone under her pillow. Adorable hair spikes stood up over his head. “You looked.”
It wasn’t a question. She smiled sheepishly and retrieved the phone. “Sorry. It’s Summer.”
He kicked away the covers and rolled over onto his back. He sported a mouth-watering erection. “And she’s more important than hot sex?”
Harper kissed him hard on the mouth. “Never.”
He stared at her sidelong and his mouth twisted. Yet, he wasn’t angry. The case had become just as important to him as it was to her. They’d become a real team.
He reached for his beer. She took that as agreement.
“You are the best.” He grumbled something about showing her just how much as she reached for the phone. She’d have a lot of making up to him later and looked forward to every minute.
Summer: I found something huge!!!!!
The excessive use of exclamation points got Harper excited. She pushed dial and Summer immediately picked up.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important,” Summer said. Her tone left Harper feeling her friend knew exactly what she and Noah were doing.
“Nothing too important that it can’t wait.”
Noah grumbled beside her and reached for his pants on the floor. She got a good look at his cute butt.
She covered the phone and grinned evilly. “That’s what you get for what you told Tiffany,” she whispered and turned back to the phone. “Can you tell me now?”
“Trust me, you’ll want to see this in person,” Summer said. “Why don’t we meet at my house?”
Summer texted the address in case Harper needed the update while Harper and Noah got dressed. She grabbed his butt with both hands before he could cover it with briefs. “Raincheck.”
He kissed her, tangling his tongue with hers. When he came up for air, she almost forgot why they weren’t naked in bed.
Oh, right. The case.
“I’m counting the hours,” he said.
Summer’s husband, Jason, answered the door and welcomed them in. Harper had been at their wedding but had almost forgotten how handsome he was with his dark hair and green eyes.
“Good to see you again, Harper.” He hugged her. “And you must be Noah?” The two men shook hands. “Come on in. Summer is up in her office.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re in for a treat.”
Though his expression roused suspicion, no further explanation was forthcoming as he pointed the way up.
When they climbed the stairs to her office, Harper remembered that Summer and Jason had permanently moved into Summer’s house just last month after doing a remodel, and were renting out his house next door.
Summer’s office was in a kind of turret. She wore sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt with scuffed bunny slippers on her feet. “Hey, come on in.” Two blue folding chairs had been set up on either side of her. “Have a seat.”
They sat. A stuffed squirrel stared down from a bookshelf. Harper pointed. “Would you care to explain?”
“That’s Hester.” Her friend scrunched her nose. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
Summer turned to Noah. “I don’t know if Harper told you but Jason and I have a hobby of finding international wanted criminals. After we talked the last time, I decided to plug in the faces and names of some of your suspects into my database to see of anything popped up.”
Harper worried where this was going. “Please tell me that our killer isn’t an international terrorist with diplomatic immunity hiding out as a Muskrat running back.”
Summer chuckled. “No, nothing like that.” She moved her mouse and the screen loaded up. “I have to admit that I was shocked when I got a hit, and it wasn’t where I’d expect.”
She clicked an icon and a website for BDSM swingers popped up. A woman in leather held a whip over a chubby man in granny panties. A sidebar listed a various proclivities menu and BDSM accoutrements for sale.
“Nice,” Noah said and rubbed his face.
“Yeah.” Summer moved the mouse again and chose a menu selection. “There’s more. Brace yourselves.”
The next screen was a picture of a woman in a black leather bustier, matching panties, and spiked boots that could easily take out an eye. She held a riding crop in her gloved hands and leaned back seductively against a large oak desk.
Harper knew that desk. She gaped.
Chapter 40
Noah stared across Summer at Harper. “What’s g
oing on?” He glanced back at the screen and saw nothing to explain Harper’s reaction. The picture wasn’t that shocking. There were likely many others that were worse if Summer dug deeper through the site.
“You don’t know who that is?” Harper said. He shook his head. “Remove the leather and makeup and add clothes scrounged from your grandmother’s closet. Then tell me if you know her.”
He leaned in and his chest tightened. “Betty Anne? No.” It took several seconds to undo his first impression and bring his thinking around. Yes, the face was the widow’s.
“Betty Anne has been hiding a rocking body,” he said, taken aback by the picture. A fist came out from behind Summer and socked him in the arm. “Hey. I’m speaking clinically.”
“Sure,” Harper said. Both women frowned at him.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Would you rather I said that Betty Anne appears to have some excellent musculature due to many hours spent doing Pilates and eating kale?”
“Yes,” they both said, with Summer grinning. The tech added, “But I agree with you. Betty Anne is rocking that leather.”
Noah examined the post with a critical eye. “There are many disturbing things about the picture, not the least is that putting herself on a site like that could leave the widow open to all sorts of potential dangers.”
“It also adds more suspects to the list.” Harper rubbed her eyes. “Any one of her playmates could be our killer.”
After further contemplation and examination of the page, Noah disagreed. “There is nothing on the post with her name and it’s unlikely that she’d risk her children by telling her lovers who she really is.”
Harper fell silent. Summer sat back and waited for her to weigh this new twist.
“You’re right,” Harper said, finally. “And I think we found out what revenge Betty Anne mentioned to her friend. She’s leaning back against Gerald’s desk. If she leaked that picture to him, he would have gone ballistic.”
“It would explain part of why he treated her so badly,” Summer said. “I’ve kept in touch with some of the girls. He was awful. More so, recently.”
“The hypocrite,” Harper added. “I hope he popped a couple of blood vessels when he saw this. Cheating in any form is wrong. But I’m glad she has some backbone, even if she could have used it in a more productive way.”
Summer said, “Like leaving Gerald.”
Despite being bothered by the post, the two women found strength in Betty Anne to admire.
“You know this doesn’t take her off the suspect list,” Noah said. “They could have had a fight that got ugly.”
“The post is a year old,” Summer added. “That’s twelve months for him to stew over his cheating wife.”
“True, but she wasn’t the knife-wielder,” Harper said. “We know the suspect was male.”
Noah sat back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “That doesn’t mean the dominatrix didn’t hire out the murder.”
* * * *
While Noah and Summer discussed a few possibilities, Harper let her mind drift. Around every corner, new information about the victim and suspects popped up. When she thought she had all the players in the case wedged into perfect boxes, something would show up and she’d have to change her entire way of thinking.
Suddenly she realized that was how Summer, Taryn, and Jess had to think every day with every new case. The obvious wasn’t always correct. Yet, sometimes it was spot on.
“We need to talk to Betty Anne,” she said. “Summer, can we get a printout of that post?”
Seconds later, the printer whirred to life. The color print was remarkably clear. Betty Anne would see them now.
“Remember what happened last time we went to her house,” Noah said and explained what happened to Summer. He ended with. “I was almost eaten by her dogs.”
“Terrible,” Summer exclaimed. “Betty Anne isn’t nice.”
“She’ll talk to us this time.” Harper waved the paper around to make sure the ink was dry. Then she held it out. “We have the golden ticket.”
Since it was late and she and Noah didn’t feel like driving all the way back to Lansing, they went home and Harper spent the next two hours showing him how much she appreciated him stopping mid-seduction to run over to Summer’s house, without complaint.
They slept until seven and Noah retreated to his apartment to shower and change. They met back at Harper’s wreck of a rental vehicle an hour later. Harper patted the car and said, “Not much longer, Harvey.”
The poor car sputtered to life. Gray smoke coughed out of the tailpipe. Noah looked to heaven and Harper suspected he was praying to the gods of automobiles for divine intervention.
Not that he wanted the car to last a few more days, but that the angels would send down a lightning bolt and put an end to poor Harvey once and for all.
An hour and a half later, they pulled up to the Covington mansion. This time the gates were closed. Betty Anne had learned her lesson.
Harper pressed the buzzer on the fence.
“What do you want?” The voice was harsh and female. Berit.
Patience strained, Harper struggled to remain polite. She didn’t want to pull out the big guns unless pushed. “We are here to talk to Betty Anne. Let us in.”
“Go away.”
Patience failed. Harper grabbed the printout, climbed from the car, and slammed the photo over the security camera with an open palm. “You want to rethink that answer?” she snapped into the speaker.
The gate swung open. “That’s what I thought.” They pulled up the drive and parked out front. Before she and Noah got out, they carefully checked the vegetation for a canine ambush.
“The dogs are tied up,” Berit yelled from the open doorway.
“Excuse us for not trusting your word,” Harper said as she and Noah carefully got out. The only sound coming from anything not human was a crow squawking from a nearby tree.
They tromped up the steps and onto the porch. Harper was not taking BS from anyone. “Where’s Betty Anne?”
The assistant stepped aside, her jaw working angrily beneath taut skin. “In the living room. Follow me.”
Betty Anne sat gingerly on the edge of a floral settee. Gone was the usual gulag garb in favor of black slacks and a yellow top and her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail. She looked years younger than the plain mouse persona she normally favored.
“Harper.”
“Betty Anne.”
“Please have a seat.” Harper and Noah sat side by side in a pair of chairs. “I’d like to apologize for sic’ing my dogs on you before. That wasn’t polite.”
Whether she was sorry or just trying to mitigate the damage Harper could do with the BDSM post remained to be seen, but they weren’t there to start an angry confrontation. They wanted answers that only the widow could provide.
Still, tension crackled between them.
Noah jumped in. “We accept.”
Betty Anne smiled tightly at him. He knew how to difuse any situation. Besides, he was the most aggrieved party. He’d almost been a doggie chew toy. If he could forgive, so could she. Or pretend to.
Drawing in a deep breath, Harper moved on. “Look, Betty Anne, we don’t want to jack you up with the BDSM business. What we want is to clear my name. I didn’t kill Gerald and I’m tired of waiting for the police to drag me off to jail.”
The widow turned red. For a woman advertising on a spank-me-call-me-bad-names website, she sure got embarrassed to having been caught. But would she confess?
Betty Anne spent a moment staring out the window where birds fought over seeds in a bird feeder. Harper braced herself for lies. It seemed the Covingtons only told the truth if it benefitted them. What she said when she spoke nearly knocked Harper flat.
“I can help you with that,” the widow said. “I know who kil
led Gerald.”
Chapter 41
“You know who killed Gerald and didn’t tell the police?” Noah said while struggling to hold on to his temper. Although he and Harper were running a parallel case to Detective Mignon and his team, the info pertinent to the case was passed on.
“I couldn’t blame this person without evidence,” Betty Anne said, becoming defensive. “I only have my suspicions.”
Since the widow had backpedaled, they’d have to draw out the name. This suspect must be someone she cared about.
“Then do tell us what led you make that inflammatory statement,” Harper said. She’d slated Noah as good cop. She was all bad.
Noah vowed to stop and buy ass-kicking boots for her on the way home. He let that go for now and pulled out his notepad and pencil. “How about we start from the beginning.”
Betty Anne reached for a glass of tea sitting on the end table. Her hand shook as she sipped the beverage. When she was ready, she returned the glass to the coaster, and plunged right in.
“For the last seven months I’ve been having an affair. And before you ask, it wasn’t started through the BDSM site. In fact, I never met anyone from there. I made that post to get back at Gerald for all his cheating. My lover took the photo.”
This confirmed some of Noah’s suspicions. Her lover was likely a Muskrat. “Was this your first affair?”
She shook her head. “My second. The first was three years ago and brief. This time I fell in love.”
Remembering how she dressed and carried herself while her husband was still alive, Noah had difficulty imagining anyone noticing her as a potential lover, or her sneaking out to a motel after her kids left for school for illicit sex.
The bondage photo changed his perception of the merry widow. “Since you’re bringing this up, I assume you suspect your lover as the killer?”
“I do.” Betty Anne rubbed her arms as if chilled. “I didn’t plan on betraying my marriage again, but he pursued me for months until I broke down. He was so handsome and charming, and Gerald was an ass. I needed validation so I slept with him.”
The Sweetheart Mystery Page 22
