She's Not There - Madison Marla - Страница 68

The dealer, an attractive blonde, slid the cards out of the shoe with rapid precision; the young woman had performed the task more times than could be counted. Her brown eyes flashed across the room. She saw him standing at the craps table—her husband—but it couldn’t be. He was dead. Driven with guilt, she saw him everywhere.

Gathering up the cards, she paid the winners and swept out the next hands of blackjack by rote, her thoughts elsewhere. Not on Dubai, the most exciting place she’d ever lived, or the casino life that satisfied her constant craving for excitement, but on what she’d left behind.

When her shift ended, she stepped outside into the white brilliance of the early morning sunshine refracting off the endless, cerulean horizon. Its beauty failed to calm her. She needed a diversion—maybe a visit to the racetrack or a scuba dive could clear her head.

Then she saw him again. Or was it merely a phantom, an apport, a stalking specter of the man she’d been married to? She’d followed the story online: the police’s suspicion her husband had killed her, the group he’d become a part of, the group who searched for a killer of abused women and had themselves been threatened. Followed by Jeff’s suicide. He’d killed himself and it was her fault.

It was time to put it right—admit what she’d done.

Oconomowoc Lake, July 4

Lisa sat on the deck of her house watching Eric’s speedboat fly across the water followed by a skier ensconced amid a frothy wake. Eric and TJ sat in the front while Shannon rode in the back watching as they towed Paige, who showed off with a fancy one-ski slalom. TJ, who’d refused to be left out, had climbed into the boat with the others, ignoring Lisa’s cautions about her advanced pregnancy.

There wasn’t much TJ didn’t do these days; being with child hadn’t changed her lifestyle. Lisa envied her; the woman didn’t seem to be cursed with swollen ankles, a blotchy complexion, or any of the other physical tortures that came with carrying a child. Lisa had had them all.

At about the same time TJ had discovered she was carrying Jeff Denison’s child, she’d learned Jamie Denison’s body hadn’t been one of the women buried in Mellen. She’d accepted the baby into her life, but refused to believe Jeff had harmed his wife—or himself. She insisted Jamie must have run away, either with a lover or to escape what she considered a humdrum life. If anyone disagreed with TJ’s speculations, no one spoke it aloud.

Richard Conlin stepped back into TJ’s life, and surprisingly, became as excited as TJ about the baby. The couple appeared to have moved past the fact of Jeff Denison being the baby’s father.

Lisa and Eric split their days between both of their residences. They’d been spending a lot of time at Lisa’s lake house, weekends mostly, like today, then returning to Eric’s during the week to give Paige, who was back for an undetermined amount of time, an opportunity for some privacy.

After they’d eaten grilled steaks and salmon, and played charades until they couldn’t laugh anymore, the party prepared to take the pontoon out on the lake to watch the fireworks. They’d stocked it with a pitcher of margaritas, sodas, and assorted snacks, and been ready to leave the dock when Lisa remembered she’d forgotten to bring her CDs of patriotic music, a ritual every year during the show.

Lisa ran back into the house and was rifling through a corner cabinet when a phone rang, startling her. She realized it was her work number and couldn’t imagine who’d be calling her at that number on a holiday—her clients called on her cell phone when they had emergencies.

She picked it up. “Lisa Rayburn, can I help you?”

Silence the other end. “Hello? Is someone there?”

It was probably a wrong number.

“Lisa?”

The voice sounded choked with emotion. It must be a patient. There go the fireworks for me. But someone needed her.

“Yes, this is Lisa Rayburn.”

“Lisa . . . it’s me, Jamie. Jamie Denison.”

Unable to mask her shock, Lisa gasped.

“I know it’s too late, but I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

     *  *  *

Also by Marla Madison

TRESPASS

The Detective Kendall Halsrud series

RELATIVE MALICE

ICED MALICE

Contact the author:

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The following pages contain the first two chapters from the sequel to She’s Not There, TRESPASS, starring TJ Peacock and Lisa Rayburn. If you enjoyed She’s Not There, take a look at Trespass!

TRESPASS

Prologue

Wauwatosa, Wisconsin

11:33 p.m.

Escaping the confines of its closed system, a heavy gas diffused into every corner of Norman Teschler’s basement and slowly began to permeate the upper floor. Natural gas, odorless in its original form, contains the additive mercaptan, which lends it a repugnant odor for early leak detection.

Norman returned from a run, proud of the distance he could still cover after turning seventy. Night running was something he didn’t do often these days, but tonight his head had felt foggy. Unable to focus on his writing, he had taken off into the night for a run along the parkway to clear his head.

Invigorated by the exercise, he stepped out of a hot shower, pulled on a pair of sweats, and headed to the kitchen for a quick snack before getting back to the new chapter. The refrigerator held nothing of great appeal. Since losing his sense of smell, eating didn’t have the same enjoyment it once had. Strange how important the scent of the food was to hunger, a fact he had never given any thought to when he could still be tempted by the mouthwatering odors of things like popcorn, pizza, or a steak on the grill. Most of the foods he ate tasted bland these days.  He grabbed a bag of extra spicy Cheetos and an iced tea, and then returned to his writing.

Three pages into the new chapter, Norman could hardly keep his eyes open; the gas had soundlessly seeped into his study, its sulfurous warning odor useless to Norman’s impaired olfactory sense. He thought his body was sending him a message, telling him it was time to call it a day. He’d had a busy week at the agency and reasoned that his late nights spent writing had taken their toll. He turned off the computer. Tomorrow he would get an early start.

The humidor on his desk, a rare antique of carved oak, held his favorite cigars, Cuban Montecristos. He raised the lid, withdrew one, and then took a seat in his well-aged leather recliner where he picked up a book he had been reading. The smoke had become an end-of-day ritual, one he savored since giving up cigarettes. Enjoying a cigar every night kept him cigarette-free. He reached for his lighter. Norman pushed the recliner back to elevate his feet and realized he barely had the energy for the movement. The chair clicked back into its upright position as he leaned forward. It was never a good idea to smoke in a position so conducive to sleep. Feeling like he had done the safe thing, Norman flicked the lighter.

The gas ignited, instantly destroying the house and all its contents. Giant clouds of brilliant orange edged in tongues of white-hot flame leapt toward the sky.

1             

Famous or not, Mancusi was an asshole. TJ Peacock knew it was too late to back out of the gig; she had already been well paid to protect him for three days. But if the slimy bastard didn’t quit eyeballing her breasts, she would pop him. Arlie Mancusi, everyone’s favorite comedian and star of a weekly sitcom that had been running on a prime TV network for nearly ten years, wasn’t making her laugh.