“Izzy told me that you and her…” He gestured between them. “That you’ve… Well, that you’ve been… doing things together!”
She should have laughed at the prudish way he expressed himself. Nate hated talking about the more intimate side of their relationship, preferring to keep things under the covers—literally. It usually cracked her up. But she was too shocked now to even crack a smile. “What do you mean?” she asked feebly.
“You and Izzy, you’re also having an affair, aren’t you? So when were you going to tell me about that, huh?”
“I’m…” She gulped uncomfortably at this sudden reversal of the roles of accuser and accused. “It just… happened once. Once only. And it was a mistake.” A mistake she had thoroughly enjoyed, though, and had been eager to repeat. Which is why she was so disappointed that Izzy was also carrying on with Nate. Somehow it made her feel doubly betrayed—by her husband and her lover.
For a moment they just stared at each other, then the door swung open and those detectives walked in, followed by Michele.
Perlita snapped,“I want to go home.”
“I’m afraid you can’t,” said Detective Kingsley, as he checked to see if any damage had been done—either to the furniture or the people present.
“But I have to go home—I can’t stay here one minute longer.” And she couldn’t. Not in the presence of this man, who’d betrayed her to such an extent. He knew she and Izzy had experienced a special moment, as she liked to call it, and still he chose to start an affair with her? It was sickening. Simply sickening.
“You can’t go home yet, Perlita,” said the Kingsley woman, who was a lot kinder than her cop husband it had to be said. “The investigation isn’t over yet, and until it is, we need you all to stay put. Just for a little while longer.”
She set her face in an expression of determination.“Then I want a different room. And I want a divorce,” she added for Nathan’s sake. “And I want you to drop Izzy as a client.” As Nate shook his head, she added, “I’m dropping her exhibition.”
“You can’t drop the exhibit, honey,” said Nathan. “It would end her career.”
She tilted her chin in a defiant gesture.“She should have thought of that before she started her affair with you.” And with these words, she swept from the room. Too late she remembered that all of her things were in that room. But she’d be damned if she went back as long as Nate was there. She’d sneak in when he was gone to grab her stuff.
She entered the first room she found and locked the door. Then she sat down on the floor and broke down in tears. Tears for her marriage, but also for Izzy.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]
Chase and Odelia were taking a turn about the garden. To gather their thoughts and decide on the course of their investigation. Dooley and I trailed behind them, still discombobulated about recent events. After his wife had left the room, Nathan Gruner had told us what their fight had been about. It also stood to reason that this was the secret that might have made its way into Isobel’s book.
“So Perlita Gruner was having an affair with Izzy Price,” said Dooley. “While her husband was having an affair with Izzy Price. What a coincidence, don’t you think, Max? That both husband and wife would be having an affair with a woman with the same name.”
“I think you’ll find that it’s actually the same woman, Dooley.” Which was also the reason the domestic contretemps had been so vociferous and so spiteful.
“The same woman? But how can that be?” asked Dooley.
“Obviously it’s possible,” I said, “for one person to be having an affair with two different people, in this case husband and wife.”
“You mean like am?nage ? trois? Like Harriet and Brutus and Kingman?”
“Something like that,” I agreed. “Though we don’t know if Harriet is having an affair with Kingman, and as long as we’re not sure, we shouldn’t assume Brutus’s suspicions are correct.”
“This Izzy Price person sure gets around,” said Dooley with a touch of admiration in his voice.
Odelia and Chase had their own ideas about the whole situation. Though their focus seemed to be on Gavin Droba, and not so much on the Gruners.
“Is it possible that one of the men in this place is actually Gavin Droba?” asked Chase now, suggesting a new and intriguing possibility. “That he returned from Mexico a long time ago, and inserted himself into his wife’s circle of friends?”
“But wouldn’t Isobel recognize her husband?”
“Not if he had some work done on his face.”
“Plastic surgery, you mean?”
Chase gave a meaningful nod of the head.“What if Gavin Droba decided to return home, but not before thoroughly changing his appearance? Somehow or other he manages to finagle his way into Michele and Isobel’s circle of tennis friends, and when the time is right, he strikes and kills her.”
“But why? Michele said they were a devoted couple.”