All the Dirty Secrets Read online

  “How’d she react to your comments?”

  “She started crying, begged forgiveness. Said she only wanted to spice up our marriage. So you see I’m partly to blame for all this if she felt it needed to be spiced up.” Blake hung his head in his hands. “You understand, Louie, that I didn’t want to say anything in front of the officers on scene or here with the children.”

  “Yes,” Louie said.

  Jake waited for Blake to lift his head before asking, “Commissioner, did you murder your wife?”

  “God, Jake, no, I’ve loved Callie since I was fourteen. We would’ve gotten through it if there was a scandal. Anyone who knew her knew she wouldn’t cheat. I think you should be questioning that damn photographer.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Hold on, I’ll get the card.”

  Louie shrugged as he tried to gauge Jake’s take on the situation. Tonight, he’d make sure to have a discussion with Sophia about boudoir photos. Not that he thought she’d do them, but he’d have thought the same of Callie Blake. How did this photographer talk her into posing with a man?

  The commissioner handed the card to Jake. Damn, the expression that passed over Jake’s face spelled trouble.

  “Commissioner, I’ll tell you right up front, Louie and I know this woman. Her late husband was a school friend of ours. I also dated her for a brief period in high school right before my sister’s death. We’re not close, but you need to know all of this up front. I did notice her taking pictures at the gala last night. You believe she’s connected, Todd?” Jake switched to the commissioner’s first name. Louie understood the tactic. He’d used it many times himself. It made it personal, and Jake hoped he’d get more out of Blake.

  Chapter 3

  Darcy McGuire turned on the television for noise now that the kids were grown and out of the house. It had surprised her how much she missed their arguing and their company. Shamus rarely worked Sundays, but he said he had something urgent to attend to this morning. She’d long ago stopped asking about the job. When he could, he’d discuss a case with her. She grabbed the paperwork for the stockholders’ meeting from her desk, and settled into the sofa in her home office to review the proposed takeover of Daton’s Industries. Darcy tweaked a sentence here, added more info there. In midsentence her pen halted, the air thickened and the oxygen whooshed from her lungs as the news anchor announced her friend Callie’s name in the same sentence as murder.

  Her heart shattered into a million pieces. Her best friend, one of the few people who she could truly be herself with…murdered. No, no, it’s not true. Darcy jumped up, her papers scattering to the floor as she grabbed her cell phone from her desk and pressed one, to speed dial Shamus while pacing the floor.

  It rang three times and then dropped her call into voicemail. She hung up and dialed his office, his direct line—again it went to voicemail. Why the hell hadn’t he called her? Was this why he went into the office today?

  Last night at the gala when she’d come back to the table from the ladies’ room, Shamus had seemed off. She’d brushed it away. She dialed Shamus again—still no answer. What the hell’s going on? She dialed Callie’s number. Damn it, voicemail. Didn’t anyone answer their freakin’ phones anymore? Shamus is a goner, if Callie is dead. Why hadn’t he called?

  She dialed Todd Blake and got another voicemail. Darcy’s stomach quivered as she grabbed the remote and started channel surfing. Each channel shared the same details. They had only a name, not the circumstances. Callie, always so full of life, so beautiful, and so stressed over perfecting every detail for last night’s ball, dead—no, she wouldn’t accept that. Not her one true friend, whom she loved and had shared her most intimate secrets with since grade school.

  Darcy collapsed into a ball on the floor, hugging her arms around herself as she rocked back and forth, her head ready to explode, unable to accept the reports. Shamus’s job was never supposed to touch their lives.

  Visions of Callie in grade school as the lead in the school play, Callie as prom queen in high school, and Callie, the most beautiful bride on her wedding day, filled Darcy’s head. Their European trip in college, just the two them before Callie took the plunge and married Todd, her high school sweetheart, that fall.

  Darcy looked around the room as if for the first time. Everything started to fade away except memory after memory tumbling around inside her head. The mini marble statue of Venus that Darcy had to have when the four of them had visited Paris, seemed trivial. The awards she’d received from various organizations and charities hanging on her home office walls, her pictures with several world leaders including the president of the United States, who had recommended her company’s steel products to the military to use in their weapons, all meaningless now. Why hadn’t she made it a priority to spend more time with Callie? Business, that’s why. Her father taught her that business came first. And now she’d never get back the time she could’ve had with her friend. The world around her disappeared, leaving her empty, disoriented, and alone.

  Time distorted. She didn’t know if a minute or an hour had passed as she pushed herself up off the floor, her eyes stinging, her stomach upset. Darcy’s nose ran as she hiccupped. If Shamus didn’t call soon, she’d kill him.

  * * * *

  Though he’d seen her last night taking pictures at the gala, seeing Melinda’s name tossed him right back there, to a time he’d rather not revisit.

  Seventeen Years Ago

  Jake mumbled under his breath. He tossed the bat behind him as he stomped over to the dugout. As his ass was about to hit the bench, he noticed the coach motioning him back to the plate, but not before the jerk Spaulding got in a few words.

  “Hey, Jakey boy, you look distracted today,” said his teammate George Spaulding, goading him. “I bet it’s Melinda Blair sitting up there in the bleachers doing it to you. The girl gets around. She’s had that effect on all of us.” Spaulding winked at him.

  Jake balled his fist at his side, itching to plant it in Spaulding’s smug face. He needed to hold it together. If he didn’t, he’d be thrown out of Saturday’s game—it was something he couldn’t afford if he wanted the scholarship. But afterward…he’d teach that asswad jerk a lesson. No one spoke about his girl that way. Jake started to walk away, changed his mind and turned back. He pinned George with his father’s cop stare. “As captain of the team, let me remind you that sportsmanlike behavior is expected from all team members. If you can’t comply, you’ll be removed from the roster, George.” Not that he had the power to do it, but hell…it sounded good.

  He walked over to the coach, who stood at home plate. Jake put George out of his mind and listened to the coach’s tips. Roberts was a miracle worker. Within a half hour Jake had corrected the problems with his stance and his swing. He’d swing, he’d hit the ball. It was well worth getting up at seven a.m. on his day off to work with the coach.

  Though George’s words jumped around in his head, Jake refused to allow them to distract him. He wasn’t aware that Melinda had dated other team members, except for Mike Doyle. Maybe when they hit the showers, he’d pick Mike’s brain about her. Jake had been dating her for only a week, but her pushiness was getting to him. Before he’d made his move, Melinda would beat him to the kiss. Bullocks to that, he thought, as he used his father’s favorite expression. A man wanted to be in charge, and he’d tell her that when he saw her.

  * * * *

  He’d missed Mike Doyle after practice. Jake had stayed out on the field longer than his teammates while he continued to work with the coach. Jake understood there’d be scouts at Saturday’s game. The coach had let it slip as he trained him. After his shower, he shoved his cleats, bat, and glove in his locker. He then stuffed his uniform in his gym bag with his other dirty clothes. Someone called out to him as he emerged from the players’ tunnel to the parking lot.

  “Hey, Jake, you almost walked by me,” Melinda Blair said with a hand on her hip.

  Jake refocused his mind onto her instead of the game. “Sorry, Melinda, I didn’t see you.”

  “What time are you coming over tonight?”

  “I can’t make it tonight, I’ve got a family thing going on,” Jake lied. Spaulding’s words were deterring him. And how stupid was he? Any other guy would be jumping at the chance.

  “Why don’t you come over afterward?”

  “I can’t. Do you want to see a movie tomorrow?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah, what time?”

  “I figure I’ll pick you up at 1:30 and we can see a movie at two? We can get a bite afterward,” Jake said.

  When Melinda drove away he’d given some thought to ending things with her tomorrow to keep his mind locked on the game. The more time he spent with her, the more he’d started to dislike her. If only he found the courage to tell her.

  Chapter 4

  Where the hell is she? Sal took a hard slug from the bottle. Christ Jesus, this wasn’t supposed to happen. He paced, hitting send for the ninth time.

  Bitch better answer. I’m not leaving another voicemail.

  Sal threw the phone across the room. I better not be tagged for this. Quick money, that’s what this was all about.

  Where did the money go? Who took it, damn it?

  It had creeped him out, the Blake woman lying there dead as he searched the room for the money. Grotesque. Her dead eyes stared at the ceiling and her body sagged in death, emphasizing her age. He wasn’t going down for the murder. It was pretty clever of him to leave the pictures next to the body. But who the hell had killed her? Nothing would lead back to him. If anything, Melinda would be questioned.

  What he needed to do was find o
ut who took his money. He’d kill the bastard for stealing it from him. The scheme had been his brainchild, his money, his powers of persuasion that had convinced Melinda to play along. Then some asshole shows up and gets rich. He’d kill him when he found him. Had it been the motel clerk who took it?

  Boudoir shots—how ridiculous these women were to trust a stranger. But he had to hand it to Melinda. She’d made them all look acceptable if not pretty. Some of them, even in their twenties, weren’t anything he’d get involved with unless there was money involved. Moola washed away a lot of sins. Clever Melinda had taken legitimate photos, and then changed the backgrounds of each so they were perfect for blackmail and the location couldn’t be identified.

  The freakin’ plan should’ve worked. He’d done the research and picked the targets from the social pages of the paper. If they were open to it, he’d seduce them, or Melinda would suggest they pose with him to spice up the shoot. Most said no to posing with him, but it hadn’t mattered. Melinda worked her magic on their targets and melded him into their pictures. It was supposed to be fast money in his pocket. After ten women he’d have been pretty well off. Now the first one was dead, he had no money, his plan was shot to hell, and he was locked in a cheap motel room, nervous as a mouse.

  This wouldn’t do. Sal took another slug of whiskey. What he needed was another plan, an escape plan. Maybe he’d try down South this time. These Northeast bitches expected too much from him. The more he thought of the coming winter the more the idea of going south pleased him. But first he wanted to make sure Melinda got on board with his plans. If not…

  * * * *

  Jake leaned forward, rested his hands on his knees. The commissioner’s living room in bright red, yellow, and blue, along with the fine art, presented a relaxed, easy atmosphere. One shattered today by murder.

  “When’s the last time you had contact with Melinda Mastrianni?” the commissioner asked.

  “Outside of last night at the gala, I saw her three years ago at her husband Tony’s funeral,” Jake said.

  Jake handed Melinda’s business card to Louie. He thought of Tony Mastrianni, a teammate and friend from his high school days. Melinda had hooked up with Tony when Jake stopped dating her. Tony had been a laid-back kind of guy with no ambition. It had seemed an odd match to him back then.

  “Then I don’t think it will interfere with the investigation, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Todd, do you know who’d want to kill your wife?” Jake asked.

  “No, and before you ask, she didn’t tell me she was going to meet this bastard. I had told her I’d handle it.”

  “Is there any money missing from your accounts?” Jake asked.

  “No, she wouldn’t have paid him off. We agreed to that.”

  “Are you sure she wouldn’t have done it to protect you?”

  “Jake, for Pete’s sake, she was an intelligent woman. We agreed that once you paid a blackmailer, they’d keep coming back. Callie would never have gone there alone. She’d have asked me to go with her. And let me repeat, I didn’t kill my wife.”

  “Commissioner, can you check your accounts online?”

  “Jake.”

  “Please, we need to rule out the possibility that she went behind your back.”

  “This is damn intrusive.” Blake stood without another word and left the room.

  Louie handed him back the card. “Do you think Melinda’s a part of this?”

  “It’s been many years since I’ve seen her. I don’t know who or what she’s become.”

  The commissioner returned with his laptop and a small notebook and sat in the armchair. After he logged in, he turned the screen to Jake.

  “See, there’s nothing withdrawn since August, when I made the payment to St. Lucien’s for Todd Jr.’s tuition.”

  “Is this your only account?” Jake asked, taking the computer from Blake.

  “No, they’re all linked right here. Our retirement accounts are the only accounts not listed in the summary. And Callie has a trust fund. I don’t have the statements for it. You’ll need to get it from the bank.”

  Under the commissioner’s gaze, Jake invaded Blake’s privacy. No large amounts of money were withdrawn from any of the accounts except the tuition payment.

  “Commissioner, I’m going to need you to log in to your retirement accounts and Callie’s trust fund too.”

  “For the love of God, I didn’t kill my wife, Jake. I don’t have access to her trust fund either.” Disgusted, Blake grabbed the computer back and typed furiously.

  There weren’t any large withdrawals. Jake let out a sigh of relief.

  The commissioner had no more to offer. Blake’s palpable grief had started to attach itself to Jake. He needed to distance himself from it to clear his head. They left Blake to grieve alone.

  “What do you think?” Jake asked. Outside, he narrowed his eyes at the press still hanging around. “Let’s get in the car before you answer.”

  “I don’t think he did it,” Louie said.

  “Me either, but then who? We need to track down Melinda.”

  And won’t that be fun. Every time he’d run into her since high school, she’d treated him as if he was diseased. Jake climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car. He wondered how interviewing Melinda would go. Would she still be bitchy or had time mellowed her?

  * * * *

  At the station, Jake did a search on Melinda Blair Mastrianni. Her studio and home address popped up first. Melinda had sterling reviews on her business website. In high school she’d been the official school photographer for events. The portraits on her website showed a vast improvement in her skills.

  He buzzed Louie. “What have you turned up?”

  “I’ll be right in.”

  A few moments later movement at his door had him raising his eyes. Louie’s six-two frame filled the doorway to his office. “Take a seat,” Jake said.

  “Melinda’s in debt up to her neck. When Tony died, his business was practically in bankruptcy. She signed a personal guarantee on all his business loans. Melinda had to assume them after he died. Her business has recently started to show a profit. It’s taken a while for her to get it up and running, but most of her money goes to the payments,” Louie said and settled into one of the seats in front of Jake’s desk. “If she’d been smart she’d’ve filed for a business bankruptcy to get rid of his debt after he died, then she’d only have had to work at reducing the personal debt.”

  “I read that.”

  “You see here.” Louie gave Jake a statement and pointed to a line on it. “She’s current on her payments, but the principal on the debt has hardly come down in the last three years.”

  “Do you have her home number?”

  “Yes,” Louie said.

  Jake turned his wrist to check the time. Shit, it’s after eight on a Sunday night. “Let’s try the home.”

  Louie placed the call on his cell phone but got her answering machine. “No dice. I’ll call her business just in case she’s working today.” Again Louie her got her voicemail system and left an urgent message there for a callback in the morning.

  “We’re not going to get any lab results until the morning. Let’s meet back here at seven,” Jake said.

  * * * *

  Exhausted, Melinda hit the sack the minute she got home and didn’t bother lowering the shades or listening to her messages. Six hours later, sunlight blinded her as she sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and winced.