Point of Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page A

shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t be gone too long so we’d need to be back in a few days.”
    Her eyes widened. “You’re going?”
    “With Jane. She thinks I need to get away even if it is to investigate a murder. I guess the fates are on her side since a pipe burst in my kitchen this morning and flooded most of the rooms while I was at the nursery.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry. That sucks.”
    “Yeah,” she said. “I just got rid of all the subcontractors and now the plumber’s coming back.”
    Biz waited to see if Ari was going to comment on
who
the plumber would be. She knew Molly had gone to a rehab facility in Tucson to dry out and returned to work with her brother in the family plumbing business. Biz guessed she was sober since no one had seen her at Hideaway, her favorite bar, or anywhere else for that matter.
    She found it surprising that Molly could turn away from the partying life she’d known for so long. No one could drink scotch like Molly Nelson, and before Ari came into her life, Biz and Molly regularly competed for women at Hideaway—and then for Ari.
And I’ve won.
    “I’d love to help you. I’ll need a day or two to get a few things squared away, but I could fly over on Tuesday. Would that be okay?”
    “That would be great,” she said.
    Biz stared into her green eyes, full of anxiety and a spark of interest. She knew it was there but if she pressed too hard and too fast, she’d get nothing. She used all of her willpower and refrained from kissing the gorgeous lips. She could be patient.
    “Um, where are you staying now?”
    “With Jane, of course. We leave in the morning.”
    “Okay, I’ll see you in a couple of days. Tell Jane not to worry. We’ll figure it out.”
    She touched Ari’s shoulder, and they exchanged a brief glance before she headed down the hallway.
    Yes, she could be patient and careful too. She’d eliminate Wanda and then go claim her prize.

Chapter Four
     
    Jack had been disappointed when Ari called back and canceled, but he was glad she was getting out of town for a while. She needed a vacation and a break. He’d come to understand she lived on a bubble between happiness and sadness, never able to fully engage in life but unwilling to allow the misery of the past to consume her, a past he was partly responsible for constructing. When he looked at her, he felt pity and pride simultaneously.
    Gradually they were getting to know each other again after four years. Eventually he would tell her everything she didn’t know about her dead mother and her murdered brother, but it was far too soon.
    He laced his fingers behind his head and faced the bulletin board covered in index cards and photographs. His way of solving crime was old-fashioned: create a timeline and stare at the clues until answers emerged. Andre Williams, Molly’s former partner and the detective now assigned to him, initially had difficulty following the “chaos” as he referred to it. Apparently Molly’s methodology was rooted in computer lists and endless circles on random sheets of paper, several of which he’d found stuffed in the drawers and cabinets of the office he’d inherited—her former office.
    His gaze remained at the hole on the timeline, the place where a picture should be, the mystery woman who ruined Molly’s life.
    “Any new ideas?” Andre asked from the doorway.
    He was still wearing his suit jacket. Jack had learned his unspoken agenda: break the stereotype associated with African-American men. His dress and grooming were impeccable and he was handsome, which explained why many of the female beat cops constantly gravitated to his desk. So far he seemed to be an up-and-comer. Molly had expressed a few concerns about his attention to detail, but she hadn’t elaborated.
    “We know most of it,” he said. Jack picked up a dart, another one of his trademarks, and fired it into the blank space of corkboard. “But we need her.”
    Andre struggled to fit into one of the small