Page 29 of Puzzle for Two

Zora raised her hand, and Alton subsided in his chair. Zach couldn’t help wondering if the former Miss Kaschak hadn’t served as inspiration, if not the actual model, for some of the more disturbing animatronics at the Haunted Hollow theme park.

He glanced around instinctively for Flint and spotted him lounging casually in the open door leading into the restaurant. He was sipping his drink as he took in the evening’s entertainment.

“You’re not the first, whatever he told you. And you won’t be the last.”

Zach realized he was being addressed. He glanced back at Zora and found her withering gaze trained on him.

“Mrs. Beacher, this really is a business dinner.” Itwasa business dinner, although that’s what he’d say in any case, but also he couldn’t help his instinctive rejection of the idea that he was fooling around with a married man.

Zora smiled a scary smile. “Whatever he told you about my not giving him a divorce is a lie. He knows he can have his freedom whenever he wants. But it comes with a price.” She turned her smile on Alton. “He doesn’t want to pay the price, do you, Alton?”

Alton said faintly, “Zora…”

Zora’s, “Don’t say you weren’t warned,” could have been directed at Alton or Zach or both of them.

In any case, that was her final word. Zora turned and walked—well, with all the black shrouds it was more like wafted—away.

Waitstaff scurried out of her path. As she passed Flint in the wide doorway, he raised his glass in salute. She never turned her head, never blinked.

After a moment or two, Zach and Alton’s fellow diners returned to their meals, although Zach could feel the weight of surreptitious gazes, hear the murmur of delightfully scandalized discussion.

Alton let out a long shaky breath. “Well…that was an unpleasant surprise.”

“Yep.”

Alton opened his mouth in response to Zach’s terse comment, but the waiter arrived to see if they needed anything.

A cloak of invisibility? Police assistance? A time machine? Zach kept his mouth shut, of course.

“Shall we get this to go?” Alton asked of him, and Zach nodded. His stomach was too full of knots to have room for food. He couldn’t have faked his way through the meal if his life had depended on it.

Alton handed his credit card over, and the waiter departed with their plates. Alton leaned forward, saying quietly, “Zach, I’m sorry. I never expected Zora to show up. She only ever leaves the house to visit her mother or to see her doctor.”

Conscious of the surrounding ears straining to hear their conversation, Zach restrained himself to a mild, “Sure.”

It wasn’t like he blamed Alton. But the point of all this pretend dating was for word to get back to Zora, and once that end was achieved, Alton had to have anticipatedsomereaction. Zach had hoped any drama would be held behind closed doors—that had been naive on his part—but Alton had to know his wife well enough to more accurately gauge her response.

Alton finished his drink in a gulp. “She must have discovered where I was dining from Mrs. Honeybun.”

“Mrs.…?” Zach tried to remember if there had been a Mrs. Honeybun in Alton’s dossier.

“Honeybun. Our housekeeper. Or perhaps she pried it out of Topper. Our butler.”

The butler did it!

Zach swallowed an unseemly laugh. “Maybe. But isn’t it more likely Rusty Jordan filled her in after the weekend at Pebble Beach?”

Alton frowned. He said thoughtfully, “He’ll have certainly told her by now that I’m involved with a very handsome young man, but Rusty couldn’t know where I was dining tonight.”

True.

“Maybe she’s having you followed.”

Alton’s eyes widened. For a moment, he looked truly alarmed. “You mean,Zoracould have hired a PI?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

Alton’s jaw dropped. He looked automatically toward the wide doorway where Flint had previously positioned himself to enjoy the festivities. “My God. I think you’re right! In fact, I know you are. I think she hired that thug who operates across the parking lot from you.”

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