Wyatt suddenly had a suspicion, and while it didn't make things much better, it made them a little less degenerate. "Wait a minute, we're not talking about Angela and Ben-she told me they live in Richmond."
Judith's eyes flared in surprise and a soft, humorless laugh emerged from her mouth. "Oh, goodness, you thought I meant… Well, I wouldn't be surprised to learn some of the things that went on in the house they grew up in after their mother died. But I was referring to his stepsister, Cece. She and her husband live a few doors down from us."
"Philip's sister."
"Yes."
"The one Roger seduced when she was a teenager."
"Exactly."
"No offense, Dr. Underwood, but this is like an episode of some high-melodrama soap opera about the lives of the rich and shameless."
"Think I could sell the movie rights?"
He'd bet she'd like to do just that. Earn as much money as possible and get as far away from her in-laws as she could. Though he didn't know her well, he sensed Judith Underwood was desperate to wash the stench of Roger Underwood and his family off her forever.
Almost conversationally, he asked the question that had been most on his mind. "So did you kill him?"
The query didn't shock her; she merely shook her head and took another sip of her wine. "No, Agent Black-stone, I did not," she eventually replied. "I believed, and I still believe, that his own evil eventually broke him. How long can a corrupt heart keep beating?"
Too long, as far as Wyatt was concerned.
"Evil or not, I did cry a real tear or two at his funeral." A crocodile smile made a mockery of any tears she might have shed. "But that night, I went home, got good and drunk, danced naked around my living room in sheer joy, then had sex with my gardener."
Wyatt reached for the recorder, pocketed it, and stood. "Thank you for your time."
She stood as well. "I suppose I shouldn't have said that last part. Does this mean you're no longer interested in lunch?"
He extended a hand and answered truthfully. "If I weren't already involved with someone else"-andcompletely in love with her-"l suspect I might like to have lunch with you, Dr. Underwood."
She nodded her appreciation, shook his hand, then turned to lead him toward the door. Before he reached it, though, Wyatt stopped, glancing at the huge Underwood family portrait. "I'm curious. Which one is Cece?"
Judith stepped close, leaning toward the framed picture. Then she tapped one long, perfectly manicured nail on the glass frame, pointing toward a woman standing a few feet from Roger Underwood.
Wyatt stared. And stared. He couldn't move, just letting it all sink in, all the puzzle pieces move around, twist, turn, then come back together to form a picture in his mind.
"Even here you can see she's making goo-goo eyes at him, despite the fact that she's standing right beside her own husband, and I'm there on Roger's arm. I think the woman would have cut her own heart out of her body to save Roger's when his went bad."
His stepsister would have died for him. And yes, indeed, she was making goo-goo eyes in the photograph, wearing her emotions on her face so obviously anyone could see them.
She might be brilliant, but the woman with the severe hairstyle was not good at masking her own feelings. Not even behind those trendy silver eyeglasses.
"Good-bye, Doctor, and thank you again," he said as he turned and opened the door, now knowing exactly where he was headed.
Wyatt no longer had any interest in going down the hall to try to talk to Dr. Angela Kean. He wanted to pay a visit to Cece-the woman who had gotten Jesse Boyd out of jail to draw Lily out of hiding. The woman whose job made her the perfect person for Roger Underwood to call for help in a legal emergency. The woman who was madly in love with her stepbrother, would die for him. Might even kill for him. Claire Vincent.
Chapter 17
Lily refused to run.
Jackie had pushed and prodded, ordered, and tried to strong-arm her into at least hiding, but in the end, she had been the one to walk over to the front door and answer it after Anspaugh had nearly pounded it down. The look of shock on the man's face when he saw and recognized her would live in Lily's memory for a long time. But probably not as long as the flash of sheer furious hunger she'd seen there before he could disguise it.
Anspaugh had always desired her. Now, though, his desire had been overshadowed by anger. Wyatt hadn't been exaggerating. Anspaugh didn't just resent her for ruining his career. He hated her. Probably because he'd once so wanted her and she'd chosen to fake her own death and let him swing in the wind.
Never mind the fact that his ineptitude was what had caused her to nearly die in the first place.
"You can't just take her," Jackie snapped, not for the first time, as Anspaugh insisted Lily accompany him to headquarters. "If you're going to arrest her, do it, and I'll have a lawyer waiting for you by the time you arrive downtown."
Hearing the anger in Jackie's voice, Lily reached over and touched her friend's arm. "It's all right. We knew this would happen, and it needs to. I've got to clear my name. I'm innocent and I want to get that established so I can move on and make sure Jesse gets put back in jail where he belongs."
Anspaugh sneered. "Yeah, right, save it for the judge."
Maintaining her dignity, Lily eyed him without flinching. "I need to go upstairs and change," she said, gesturing toward her shorts and bare feet.
"Fine, let's go," he said, grabbing her arm.
"Whoa, whoa, big boy," said Jackie. "I'll escort her up and keep an eye on her."
"Whadda you take me for? You're her damn accomplice."
"I'm an FBI agent with more than a dozen years on the job," Jackie snarled. "I was in the field while you were still trying to pass high school algebra for the third time, boy^ and don't you forget it."
Anspaugh signaled to another agent, one of the three men who had accompanied him. All were loyal Anspaugh flunkies, from what Lily remembered. "Keep Agent Stokes here. As of now, she's a suspect in aiding and abetting a criminal."
"What the hell?" Jackie jerked away as the other agent grabbed her arm. "You touch me again, you're gonna be pulling back a stump."
"Jackie, don't," Lily insisted, sensing the situation was getting ugly. This wasn't professional, wasn't courteous.
Anspaugh was out for blood. Hers. He didn't seem to be thinking clearly and she couldn't be entirely sure he wouldn't do something crazy if he sensed they weren't cooperating. "It's fine. I'll go downtown, clear this up. It'll be fine."
"Yeah, you might want to worry a little less about her and a little more about yourself," Anspaugh told Jackie. "In case you haven't realized it, you're an accessory after the fact, just like your buddy Blackstone." He smiled in utter malice. "Where is he, by the way? I really can't wait to put the cuffs on him and take him in."
"He's not here," Lily said, hanging on to her temper by its very thin edge. "And I can dress myself." She tried to brush past him to head for the stairs.
He wouldn't let her, grabbing her upper arm and squeezing tight, then pushing her forward. "Let's go."
Keep your cool, keep your cool, an inner voice reminded her. It sounded a lot like the sarge's. Not that she was thinking along those lines, doing anything physical. She couldn't deny, however, that the idea she might be put in a position of having to defend herself had crossed her mind. Anspaugh's mood was strange, his voice thick with barely suppressed anger. And again, she suspected it had more to do with the fact that she'd once rejected him than anything else.