Page 92 of The Nature of Secrets

“I talked to a friend of mine. He’s a security analyst for the company who takes care of Dempsey Pharma. He needed a favor, so I did a little bargaining. I did something for him, and he did something for me. He ran an image of Derrick through his system to see if he’d ever been on the Dempsey Pharma property.”

A tendril of excitement or fear, maybe a combination of both, slid through Finley. “What did he find?”

“He found three different occasions when Derrick came through the gate to Dempsey Pharma. That doesn’t actually prove anything except that he was on the property.”

“Do you have dates?” Her heart pounded so hard she couldn’t breathe.

“Two times before you met and then one more time the week before ...thatnight.”

Emotion rose so fast into her throat she put her hands there as if to hold it back before it burst out of her.

When she could speak, she managed, “Is it possible he was working for Dempsey?”

The idea clawed at her chest. Sonny—Dempsey’s son—had been charged with rape the month before she and Derrick met. The case had been Finley’s. Could Dempsey have hired Derrick to get close to her? Maybe to watch her? Keep Dempsey apprised of her case against his son?

No matter the lies she had already discovered ... no matter how often she had thought she hated her dead husband for having made up the stories about the house and God only knew what else, none of it compared to this.

The defeat ... the hurt ... they were suffocating.

“It means there might have been a connection to Dempsey’s business operations,” Matt argued. “Maybe he was interviewed for a job at the company. It does not mean he was workingforDempsey. Bear in mind that if he was working for Dempsey, it may not have had anything to do with you.”

Finley laughed, a sound that held no humor whatsoever. “Now you’re reaching, Counselor. Considering what we know—or don’t know, I should say”—she paused to shove back the tears crowding into her throat and eyes—“chances are it was about me. The timing says it all.”

Damn it! Just as soon as she thought the tears were gone for good, they came back with a vengeance.

“It means something,” Matt agreed. “We just don’t know what yet, but we will find out.”

Finley wrestled the hurt and anger aside, and all that remained was a kind of weary hysteria. “You do realize you probably broke at least two laws.” Matt always played by the rules. He never crossed the boundaries.

“You’re seriously going there with me.”

“You’re right.” Finley scrubbed her hands over her face. “This has been the most screwed-up week.”

“The case?”

Finley took a couple more deep breaths. If this was true, it only added insult to injury. The possibility of him being a spy for Dempsey to see where Finley was on the case didn’t change the fact that his murder was because of her.

Just stop.

Or did it? If he’d taken the job—if he was that kind of guy ...

Finley strong-armed thoughts of Derrick out of her head and focused on the conversation with Matt. “It’s a strange case for sure.” She reached for the wine bottle and refilled her glass. “So much of what I’ve found points to our client knowing far more than she’s sharing.”

The funny thing was, Finley understood Winthrop better than maybe she should. Almost respected her. And though there were moments when Finley was certain the woman was guilty of something related to her lying, cheating husband ... how could she judge? They both wanted the same thing: the truth.

And maybe a little revenge.

“You think she may have hired someone to murder her husband?” Matt asked, jerking Finley from the troubling thoughts.

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t think she would go there. I think she just wanted the truth, and maybe her methods for finding it or proving it are making her look uncaring and guilty. I’m reasonably convinced at this point that Jarrod Grady and a partner had been targeting older, lonely women of means. The team had run the scam at least once before Winthrop. Something went wrong this time, or maybe the partner decided she no longer wanted to split the proceeds. Whatever happened, it’s looking more and more like the perfect how-to-get-away-with-murder plot.”

“The partner would have to be a real mastermind,” Matt suggested.

“My instincts are telling me that all the women involved with this case are masterminds.”

“Whatever you do,” Matt suggested, “try to stay out of the line of fire this time, would you?”

“I find that difficult these days.” She frowned, reached for her glass, suddenly remembered last night’s conversation on the street with her nosy neighbor. “You know Mrs.Roberts, my neighbor?”

---