Page 18 of The Negotiator

Maryanne continued to hover by the door. She’d stepped inside but not far. “He died in your house.”

Kayla shook her head. “It wasn’t her, if that’s what you’re trying not to ask.”

“It really wasn’t.” Lauren’s heart raced. It was as if the anxiety built up inside her whenever she thought about Carl and what happened and their messed-up life together. Then it spilled out over everything.

“What about Bob?” Maryanne didn’t clarify the question.

Bob Andrews, Carl’s silent business partner. Silent even to her when they first launched the business. Another one of Carl’s secrets that he’d justified as a necessary business decision. Despite her protests, Bob also acted as their financial planner. He was the one who was supposed to be watching over the business and family investments and debts. The first one who showed up on Lauren’s doorstep with his hand out, asking for a loan repayment after Carl disappeared.

Lauren couldn’t think about Bob, one of Carl’s oldest friends, without getting hit with a rage-induced headache. She’d never liked him. He was too slick. Talked too big. He’d always struck her as a blowhard. She and Carl had so many fights over Bob. “What about him?”

“Bob knew.” Maryanne looked from Kayla to Lauren. “About Carl’s plans to leave. At least that’s what Carl said. He owed Bob and Jake money because of... you. Well, that’s what he said. With him dead, they were supposed to be able to collect on a separate business insurance policy Bob took out on Carl as part of them being partners or something.”

A wave of dizziness hit Lauren. She was grateful she was sitting down. It was also a good thing she hadn’t eaten anything today because if she had she might just lose it.

So much deception. So many lies. It was as if every man she knew thrived on messing with her. All but Garrett.

She ran through the other information Maryanne had dropped. Bob was Carl’s original silent business partner. The same guy who tried to collect on an insurance policy and called in the loans on the business, plunging her deeper into debt after Carl first left. Lauren hadn’t seen him or heard anything about him in more than a year. That wasn’t nearly long enough for her taste. He was smarmy and a liar... and apparently so was Jake.

“Why are you really here, Maryanne?” Lauren still didn’t get that part. If the plan was to hurt her, it wasn’t working. She just didn’t feel enough for Carl for that to happen. That lingering sense of nostalgia for the past and sadness for what happened to him was all she could muster. Those were enough to push her to want to solve his murder, but that’s all she owed him now.

“I just needed...” Maryanne inhaled again, looking paler by the second. “I think I needed to see you. To take some sort of responsibility for hurting you.”

Kayla frowned. “Have you done that yet?”

“Kayla.” Lauren sent her friend the warning before looking at the younger woman again. They both knew what it was like to be screwed by Carl, though she doubted Maryanne understood the depth of the deception and how much Carl had used her when he swept her away on that boat and pretended to disappear. “Have you talked with the police about Bob?”

Maryanne shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Do it.” Lauren swallowed back the hard lump clogging her throat. “If you really want to do something for me, do that.”

Maryanne hesitated a few seconds then practically ran out of the office. The second the younger woman left, all of the energy ran out of Lauren. She slumped back in her chair as her muscles shook.

Concern filled Kayla’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I will be.”

“You don’t feel sorry for her, do you?”

Damn but she did. A little anyway. “Don’t you?”

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