A Sensitive Kind of Murder (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

worst secrets,” he whispered.
     
     
    - Three -
     
    “What?” I yelped, my Toyota swerving to the left. I righted it, the hairs raising on my arms, just thinking of the damage a car could do.
    “Well…it’s all confidential—”
    “Wayne, there isn’t any more confidentiality. Steve is dead. And your worst secrets—”
    “You’re right,” he mumbled.
    Whoa. Did he really say that? Did he mean it? If he did, I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to ask questions. We were almost to the highway entrance, and I wanted to know as much as possible before I had to concentrate on helping my car onto the ramp.
    “What happened?” I asked softly, adding, “Tell me everything,” a little less softly.
    Wayne was silent for a moment, and I thought he’d changed his mind already, but then he began to speak. When he did, his words came faster than usual, as if they’d been waiting at the door to tumble out.
    “It was Isaac’s idea,” he explained. “He thought we should all tell our very worst secrets to test the bonds of the group. So he pressured everyone until they did.”
    “That sounds like Isaac,” I muttered, picturing the elder man’s drunken smile. “The man always has been an accident looking for a place to happen.” I regretted my choice of words the moment they were out, but luckily Wayne didn’t seem to notice.
    “Exactly. Isaac just wanted to stir the pot. You know how he always watched everyone. Or maybe you didn’t,” Wayne amended, remembering suddenly that I wasn’t a member of the group. He was silent again.
    I quickly glanced his way. His eyebrows were at half-mast, covering a good portion of his eyes. Did he already think he’d said too much?
    “What were the secrets?” I prodded, keeping my voice calmer than my tingling body felt.
    “Kate, I’m not sure I should say,” Wayne objected, his face reddening. Was that heat or shame? Or something else entirely? “What if these secrets have nothing to do with the murder? What if the murderer was somebody who had nothing to do with the group?”
    “What do you think the chances of that are?” I shot back, as the entrance sign for the highway loomed.
    Wayne sighed in answer.
    I urged my car onto the highway gently, realizing I had to handle Wayne the same way.
    “Did everyone tell their secrets?”
    “Yes,” Wayne answered, as if enduring Gestapo interrogation.
    And then the Toyota was skimming along in the slow lane, just like Wayne. Warm air whooshed in through the half-open windows.
    “Van Eisner’s secret was about drugs, I’ll bet,” I hazarded.
    I could feel Wayne stiffen in his seat.
    “You noticed?” he asked.
    “I guessed.”
    He sighed again. “Well, you were right,” he finally admitted. “Van keeps talking about being a sex addict. All those women. But when Isaac asked him his worst secret, he said he did cocaine with a lot of those women and then went on a long spiel about how great it was. I think it took him a while to realize that no one else was as entranced as he was. Then he begged us all not to tell.”
    “Cocaine use is illegal,” I murmured over the groan of the Toyota’s engine. “Blackmail material.”
    “I know,” was all that Wayne said in reply. He didn’t have to say that Steve wasn’t the blackmailing type.
    Poor Wayne, my Dudley-Do-Right with confidentiality issues. He’d probably been trying to get Eisner into rehab.
    “Have you suggested that Van get some help for his drug problem?” I enquired.
    “I even got him the names and numbers of clinics, but it’s no use,” Wayne replied. My suspicions were confirmed.
    I may not have understood the other group members, but I understood my sweetie. In fact, I understood him well enough to know that I should change the subject before he imploded from guilt.
    “How about Isaac?” I asked.
    “His wife wrote parts of his book,” Wayne answered, not even bothering to resist anymore, probably because he considered the whole thing