You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,92

James’s relationship. How had it started? What was it like? She might never know, but it still stung. Probably always would. Her sister and the man Rebecca had once loved. Had they ever discussed her? Laughed at her expense? Had he told her about their lovemaking? Even now, the thought could make her blush.

“You find out,” Angelica instructed. “You can work from there. No problem. You know. I’ll send you what you need, then I’m flying to L.A., looking at space not far from Rodeo Drive. Wouldn’t that be something, to expand down there? Keep in touch, but stay, Rebecca. Your sister deserves it.”

CHAPTER 29

Something didn’t smell right.

Phoebe Matrix had lived long enough to know when things weren’t right. She’d buried one husband and divorced two others, all of them tomcats who couldn’t keep their privates in their pants. She’d been foolish to give her heart to any of them, though in truth it had worked out. Didn’t she own this apartment building free and clear? Good thing too. You just couldn’t count on Social Security to support you in your golden years.

Golden?

Ha!

That was a laugh.

Anyone who’d lived into their seventies knew that the whole idea of those fabulous retirement years was a fool’s dream. She’d give anything, including the Cascadia Apartments—lock, stock, and barrel—for a good run at twenty or thirty again. And she wouldn’t have married Marvin, Steve, or Charles . . . well, maybe Marvin again. She just would have played her cards differently and would never have let him drive by himself to Yosemite, where somewhere south of Bend, Oregon, his little Chevy Nova had been T-boned by a tractor trailer. No, sirree, she wouldn’t have let him take that fateful trip again.

At the thought, she sketched the sign of the cross over her ample breasts and made her way to the living room, where Larry, who had proved far more loyal than any of her husbands, was in position on the back of the couch. His little nose was pressed to the glass, and he was growling, his fuzzy white fur practically standing on end.

Probably at the blonde in the upstairs studio. Sophia Russo. She was always coming and going, never staying put. Or that friend—or was it a relative, maybe a sister or cousin?—the woman about the same age as Sophia who sometimes stayed over, a dark-haired woman who was heavier, with dark eyes and glasses. She was really pushing the “temporary guest” rule. Phoebe had seen her a number of times and had actually run into her once when she’d been hauling out the trash from a unit that had just been vacated. She hadn’t caught her name and was pretty certain she wasn’t actually living with Sophia; that would definitely be in violation of the lease. Nor was James Cahill living in the building, but he’d been at the apartment a few times and spent the night. Phoebe had caught him leaving in the predawn hours at least twice before his girlfriend, that Megan Travers, had gone missing. Then again, he had his own place, and Phoebe wondered why they didn’t just stay out there at the Christmas tree farm? It would be more private. Well, unless the girlfriend showed up when he was with Sophia.

It was all very odd. And interesting. Scandalously so.

Maybe Sophia and James had worked together to get rid of Megan? Could that be possible? Or was it reaching a bit, maybe from watching too many episodes of Dateline about missing or murdered women? Her last husband, Charles the Casanova, had thought as much and had even gone so far as to delete the shows she’d recorded. “Why get yourself all worked up over these old crimes?” he’d say in that all-knowing way of his. He’d always tried to tell her what to do. Well, they were long divorced. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Now Phoebe gazed hard at Sophia’s unit, where the living room window blinds were perpetually drawn. That was strange, too, she thought. And all the comings and goings . . . But that was the way of young girls, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she been forever on the go in her twenties? There had been a day when Phoebe was head of the Tri-City Twirlers in high school, a beauty who could toss a whirling baton twenty feet into the air and catch it in a swooping spin without once scuffing the white boots that were part of the twirling team’s uniform. She’d been forever on