through the heart.
Jeff . Oh, God. Jeff.
Her knees gave out abruptly, and she crumpled to the floor.
----
THE CLATTER of her phone hitting marble was unexpected. The sharp sound made Finn stiffen. But there was no threat to him, and his mind recognized that even as his body responded instinctively to the unexpected noise by reaching for his gun.
Chill out. Wait.
His hand dropped.
Still concealed by the darkness that she had almost breached with her makeshift flashlight, he watched her sink to her knees, watched her head drop forward to meet them, watched her shudder and shake. He knew who she was, of course. It was his business to know all the players in the game. Even before moonlight had touched the bright flame of her hair, even before heâd gotten a look at the beautiful, fine-boned face and slender, shapely figure that had prompted the only son of a billionaire to marry Little Miss Nobody from Nowhere (which was what Houstonâs catty female upper crust called her behind her back), heâd recognized her voice.
After all, heâd been listening in on her phone conversations with Jeffy-boy for the last couple of days.
Riley Wozniak Cowan. With her blue-collar Philly roots and her matching Yankee accent, which by itself was enough to make her voice a stand-out in this world of the slow Texas drawl.
Watching her now as she huddled there on the floor, clearly in the grip of strong emotion, he felt nothing, no pity, no concern, only a mild impatience as he waited for the shock to wear off, for her to start to cry, to scream, to run away.
She did none of those things. After a long moment, she picked up her phone. Then she got to her feet, stuck her phonedown inside the small purse that hung from her shoulder, and stepped close to the corpse. She was wearing a snug little white dress with a short skirt and sky-high heels, and Finn couldnât help but notice the long, slim line of her legs as she went way up on her toes and her hemline rode up her thighs almost to the curve of her ass.
Stretching, she reached up, holding on to the corpse, fumbled around with it doing something he couldnât quite make out, and came back down withâhe squintedâJeffy-boyâs phone, in some kind of clear plastic pouch that seemed to have been clipped onto the waistband of his shorts. She said somethingâher murmur was too low to allow Finn to make out the wordsâpresumably to the corpse. Then she touched Cowan againâa quick, caressing slide of pale fingers against the equally pale skin of his legâand turned and headed for the door, head high, those sexy high heels click-clacking purposefully over the floor, moving way faster than she had when sheâd come in.
The speed with which she left was the only sign of agitation she now showed.
Having taken Cowanâs phone, she was walking away, leaving his dead body hanging just the way sheâd found it.
Not what heâd been expecting.
A cool customer. He hadnât pegged her as that.
Finn found himself wondering why she wasnât screaming the roof down, or phoning for help.
Along with what was on that phone.
Bottom line, she wasnât behaving the way a woman whoâd just found her ex-husband dead ought to behave.
Intrigued, he followed her, careful to keep out of sight.
â CHAPTER â
TWO
T he funeral was a nightmare. Not that Riley had been expecting anything else.
âRest eternal grant to himââ
The final words of the funeral service resonated through the still air, rising over the shuffling of feet, the rustling of the paper programs, the buzz of insects and twitter of birds, the distant drone of traffic. They couldnât have made less sense to Riley than if they were being spoken in Swahili.
Jeff killed himself .
The thought looped endlessly through her mind, tearing her up inside. But her automatic reaction to the idea was even worse, because it was terrifying: No way in hell .
It