Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,65
what you mean. You were excited. What did Vickie tell you about Alex?”
She shrugged. “Not much. She said he was handsome and funny, and that he had the most incredible accent. He’s Scottish, you know.”
I did. I nodded.
“Vickie said she knew we weren’t supposed to go back to the same bar two weeks in a row, but that she just couldn’t help it. She couldn’t wait to see Alex again. I told her . . .” She looked away and lowered her voice, embarrassed. “I told her that’s exactly how I felt about Jack. You know, the guy I met.”
“Was Vickie going to divorce Edward? Do you think that’s why he killed her?”
“I don’t think Vickie and Alex’s relationship had gotten that far. I mean, I know it hadn’t between me and Jack. It was just fun, you know? Exciting. I loved the thought that he would be waiting for me every Tuesday at Preston’s Colonial House. Don’t get the wrong idea!” she added quickly. “It’s not that I don’t love Michael to pieces. I do. I love him. And the kids. I adore my kids. I love the life we have together. But being with Jack . . .” A shiver snaked over her shoulders. “Being with Jack makes me feel alive and excited. That’s what Vickie said about spending time with Alex, too. That’s why . . .” Beth stared straight ahead at the blank TV screen. Color raced into her cheeks. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you?”
“I can’t make that promise. At least not until you tell me more. But I can . . .” I reached out to touch a hand to her arm. My chair bucked, and maybe I had some residual weakness from the sauna incident; my head spun and so did the room. I waited until it settled down before I said, “If it doesn’t have anything to do with solving the case, I swear I’ll never breathe a word. If it does, I’ll tell only the people who absolutely have to know. If you have a secret, Beth, it’s safe with me.”
I guess I’m pretty convincing. Or maybe I just have an honest face. Beth sighed and said, “Jack and I wanted to spend a night together. I know, I know . . . I know it’s sleazy. And some people would say it’s wrong. But I wasn’t talking about running off with him and leaving my family and never taking care of them again. It was just one night.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “It was just supposed to be one, fun night.”
None of this meshed with the way I thought about Beth. But then, if I’d learned nothing else in the detective business, it should have been not to judge a book—or a person—by its cover. Embroidered teddy bears sometimes masked the beating of a passionate heart. “What happened?” I asked.
“I couldn’t pull it off on my own. You know what I mean.” I didn’t, but I didn’t let on. “I told Vickie what Jack and I were planning. I asked her to help me out. I told her that I was going to tell Michael that after cooking class that Tuesday, I was going over to Vickie’s to help with the Girl Scout cookie order. That way, I could sneak back into the house early the next morning, climb into bed, and Michael would never know the difference. I’d just tell him that I’d gotten home from Vickie’s really late.”
“Did it work?”
Beth’s expression soured. “Yes. And no. My Jeremy called Vickie’s that Tuesday night I was with Jack. And Vickie told him I wasn’t there.”
“But why? You were friends. Why would Vickie—”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I mean, I loved Vickie to pieces, but she could be bitchy with the best of them. I think she was jealous. She knew what Jack and I had planned that night—the suite at the Ritz, the champagne, the candlelit dinner—and she didn’t have the nerve to do anything like that with Alex. She didn’t have the guts to have any sort of real relationship with him. And she saw that I was willing to take a chance. She wanted Michael to find out what I was up to.”
“And did he?”
“Michael?” Beth’s laugh was watery. “Michael’s easy to fool. I didn’t know any of this was going on, of course, so the next morning when I got up