Page 5 of Wicked Ways (Wicked)

They’d been about to tell her about the other victim; she could see the way both drew a breath, but they checked themselves.

DeFazio said, “That’s still to be determined. It looks like your husband lost control of the vehicle. A BMW. It appears to be his car.”

Elizabeth nodded. Court loved his silver BMW while she was happy with her Ford Escape.

“The car was found near San Diego,” Maya supplied.

“San Diego?” Elizabeth half-expected to hear Santa Monica, thinking maybe Court had decided to meet Whitney Bellhard at the beginning of his trip, not the end.

“South of San Diego. Almost to the border,” Maya said.

“Court would

n’t go to Mexico,” Elizabeth responded with certainty. “He got a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge once, and he swore he would never go there again.” And he would never drive his beloved car across the border, either.

“We have a receipt from a Tres Brisas Hotel in Rosarito Beach from last month,” DeFazio stated.

Elizabeth could feel herself staring and had to force herself to drag her gaze away. “You sure it was Court?”

“A man and woman were registered as Mr. and Mrs. Bellhard,” DeFazio told her.

Elizabeth felt near collapse. He had been with Whitney again. Of course he had. What had she expected? Clasping her hands together and squeezing so tightly it hurt, Elizabeth asked, “The other fatality is . . . ?”

“Mrs. Whitney Bellhard,” Officer Maya confirmed.

Not only Santa Monica, Elizabeth thought dully, though why she should care she had no idea. If Court had been meeting his lover from Los Angeles to Mexico and beyond, what did it matter? They were gone now.

“One of our detectives will be here soon,” DeFazio said into the silence that followed.

Elizabeth felt dissociated from the action around her, as if she were far away looking down on them, watching a play, maybe. Someone else’s troubles.

“We spoke with Mr. Bellhard before we came here,” Maya said. “He told us he’d suspected his wife was having an affair with someone for about a year. He apparently followed her to Rosarito Beach and saw her with your husband, but he didn’t know who he was. So, he tailed her again today. She left her car in the parking lot of your husband’s law firm and got into his vehicle. Mr. Bellhard then followed them to the juncture of I-5 and the 405 south, then turned around because he had a dinner meeting with his boss at the Bungalow in Newport Beach. He was still at the restaurant when officers contacted him. Detective Bette Thronson has taken a statement from him. She sent us ahead to contact you.” Maya hesitated as if she were deciding if she should say anything more, and then added, “Mr. Bellhard followed them because he wanted to use their affair as leverage in the pending divorce between his wife and him. They’ve been separated for several years.”

Elizabeth didn’t give a damn what happened between the Bellhards. She was having trouble processing that Court was dead. Gone. Never to trouble either her or Chloe again. She should care more that Chloe had lost her father but couldn’t summon up the emotion. “A detective is on her way here?”

“Yes. Detective Bette Thronson,” Maya repeated, her dark eyes studying Elizabeth. “Can you tell us where you were today?”

“Me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Maya said.

“Well . . . uh . . . I was home with Chloe in the morning, but I went into work for a while. Misty—she’s our babysitter—she was here. She . . . um . . . she lives down the street.”

“You’re a real estate agent,” Maya said.

In a distant part of her mind, Elizabeth realized the officer was stepping outside her bounds a little. It wasn’t part of her job, but maybe she wanted to be a detective herself. “I was at the office for a while.”

“From when to when?” Maya questioned.

They want me to account for my hours. “Umm . . . I went to a couple open houses . . .” she said vaguely.

In truth, she’d been at the office for a short time and then had gone to a local park and sat at a table under a tree, lost in thought. When she got home, Chloe had practically been done in from all the fun she’d had with Misty who was fourteen going on ten and who had lots of energy. Elizabeth had fed Chloe and put her to bed at seven thirty, her thoughts still on her fight with Court. She’d thought about leaving him a text on his cell that he could read once he’d landed in Chicago but hadn’t gotten around to it. Now she knew he’d never made it to Chicago.

Of course.

It was another thirty minutes before the detective finally showed and the officers departed. Detective Thronson was tall, iron-jawed and intense. She had short, gray hair and a body built like a barrel. She didn’t stand on ceremony and almost immediately began asking questions that made Elizabeth feel like she was under attack. She asked the same questions Officer Maya had, then started in on her family.

“Your daughter goes to school?” Thronson also chose to stand and took center place in the middle of the room while Elizabeth was once again seated on the edge of the couch.

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