Truth and Justice - Fern Michaels Page 0,62

trunk of her car, took out two suitcases, and carried them into a very quaint little cottage. The day had been overcast, and it looked like dusk. She turned all the lights on and settled in for what looked to me to be a mini vacation. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“I would like a report around noon tomorrow. You can e-mail it to me.”

“Okay. You’re the boss. Anything else, Miz Pope?”

“No, I think that’s it. Thank you for your help, and I apologize for calling so late. It’s been one of those days if you know what I mean.”

“I do. I have them on a regular basis. Good night, Miz Pope.”

Sara ended the call without saying another word.

Her eyes looked from one end of the table to the other, to the lists, to the pictures, to the legal papers. What to do with the whole mess? Should she get rid of what she didn’t need? Or would this turn out to be one of those cases in which the minute she discarded something she would discover that she needed it, but it would be too late to retrieve it because she’d gotten rid of it? Perhaps what she didn’t want or need right now, at this point in time, could be put in a box with a whole lot of tape. A whole lot of tape because it would take too much time and trouble to cut it all away. Yes, yes, a whole lot of tape, maybe even a whole roll. She did have three rolls because that’s how they were sold.

Sara clapped her hands. It was a plan. Everything always looked better when you were following a plan. She took a deep breath, then another, and still another. She suddenly felt incredibly powerful. She was here in Kalorama, one of her favorite places. She loved this particular house.

Too bad that Andy had never seen it. He’d spent considerable time at her previous house in Lorton when he was going to some kind of special school that raised him in rank. He’d been so proud of himself. One day, they were driving through Kalorama and he remarked that when he was ready to settle down and raise a family, he would buy a house there, in Kalorama. She wished there was a way for her to tell his spirit she’d done just that for him. Maybe tomorrow she’d go out to the cemetery and bury a picture of this house along with a copy of the deed.

There was no way a two-day marriage would have ever worked out. That was nothing but a fairy tale in the making. What she had, what she’d done for Andy, that was real. Bella Ames was just a fairy princess who would turn into a frog and disappear from his life. Sara had endured. So had Andy. So what if he’d taken a two-day flyer instead of a one-night stand?

If that two-day marriage meant anything, Andy would have had the nurses and doctors find Bella and bring her to the hospital where he was being cared for. He hadn’t done that. And he hadn’t cared enough about his precious Bella to do more than send Sara the paperwork necessary to provide for his new wife, which she had, somehow, never got around to doing by the time Andy had been killed. And then it was all over.

Putting all of the above aside, she knew she really didn’t need any additional proof, what with the packet of papers the private detective Clint Aldrich had given her. Bella had been on her way to sign divorce papers the day the military informed her of Andy’s death. Clint said he was not certain if Bella had signed the divorce papers or not. Nor was Clint certain if the divorce papers ever got filed in court by Bella’s attorney. More likely not. Why bother? It would be such an ugly memory. It wasn’t as if Andy had died the day Bella either signed or didn’t sign the papers. Bella was notified of Andy’s death on the day she was to sign the divorce papers even though he had died eight months earlier, and therein lies the difference, Sara kept telling herself. With that, she’d told Clint Aldrich to stop the surveillance and drop the case. She paid him his outrageous fee and tried not to think about what she had learned and what it meant in terms of her inheritance. Sometimes, ignorance was pure