Manny had stared into his beer as if he had bigger worries. It was only later that Sterling learned that Eric Carrera had almost died of an asthma attack.
It was inconceivable Manny Carrera would take pictures like the ones the local police now had in their custody, awaiting two Boston detectives who would arrive later that evening.
Sterling had no doubt that Gary Turner had done his best to get his hands on the disk. He'd been caught between a rock and a hard place. Jodie had told Turner about the pictures and pressed him to get them before anyone found out-including Sterling. Gary had hinted that he needed Carine's pictures from Wednesday morning to prevent a scandal, but he hadn't gone into detail, instead asking Sterling to trust his sense of discretion. When he'd returned empty-handed, Jodie had been forced to come clean about her lunch-hour rendezvous in the library.
Lies and deception- Sterling had no idea what to believe anymore. She said it was her first and only time with Sanborn, and she didn't have a clue anyone had taken the pictures, never mind who. It was a chance encounter, she said. No one could have predicted it. Had Sanborn planned to seduce her, arranged for a cohort to take the pictures? Had someone merely stumbled onto the illicit goings-on and taken advantage of the situation?
Had Manny Carrera seized the moment and snapped four quick shots himself?
But why leave the damn camera behind?
A strong gust of wind blew up the side of the ridge and went right through Sterling 's thin jacket. It wasn't a long hike back down the trail, but he knew he needed to get moving soon, before the temperature started dropping with the waning sun. He could feel darkness closing in on him, as if it could suffocate him. His head ached. He hadn't paced himself well.
Although he hadn't seen the pictures himself, he kept imagining them over and over and over. His wife and Louis Sanborn in the library. Dear God.
Jodie herself could have arranged to have the pictures taken.
It would be retaliation. Revenge. Evening the score. Payback. My turn, Sterling. See? Here's the proof.
He'd had a short-lived affair with a woman in the office, after their rescue last November. It had lasted six weeks. She was gone now-Jodie had made him fire her. He said he'd drifted because of their near-death experience, and it was nothing as ordinary as a midlife crisis, nothing as tawdry as sex on the side. She claimed to believe him, to have forgiven him. More lies? More deception?
He spotted her down on the trail, circling toward him, moving fast, not hurrying but determined. She was hatless, and the wind caught the ends of her hair. He wondered what she would do if he jumped. He could time it just right and smash onto the rocks at her feet, let her screams of horror be what he heard last as he died.
She could cry buckets at his funeral and get herself a boy toy, play the rich widow, spend all her poor dead husband's money. But she had plenty of her own-she came from a well-heeled family, far better off than his own had been. He'd been so proud when he married her.
He wondered if he'd ever come close to understanding her.
She joined him on his rounded section of rock. "May I?"
"There you go, Jodie. You do what you want, then ask if it's all right."
"I'm sorry," she whispered, although her tone and expression didn't change. She had it all under control, he thought. She stood next to him, squinting out at the mountains, panting slightly from exertion. "Gorgeous, isn't it?"
"I can't focus on the scenery. I keep seeing you-"
"Don't. Don't do it to yourself, Sterling. That's what I did when it was you and your bimbo, and it does no good."
He wondered if he could get away with pushing her. Probably not. Learn your wife screwed a man minutes before he was murdered, that there are pictures-then, oops, she dies in an accident on Cold Ridge. Nobody'd believe it.
"It was like it was happening to someone else." She spoke quietly, staring out at the mountains. She had on her parka and carried water in a hip pack, marginally better prepared than he was for the conditions. "I felt as if I was floating on the ceiling, looking down at myself, at this woman I knew but didn't know. I was horrified, a little fascinated. And frightened because I knew what a risk she-what a risk I was taking."
"Jodie, I don't want to hear about it."
She angled her head up at him. "Was it that way for you when you had your affair?"
"I try not to think about it. I've put it behind me."
"Of course," she added, as if he hadn't spoken, "I was with Louis only that one time."
Sterling turned away from the view, taking the first, precipitous steps back down the steep section of the path. He'd just wanted to make it onto the ridge trail. That was all. He glanced back at his wife. "I suppose I deserved that."
"Neither of us deserves what we're doing to each other. I felt-I feel tainted. Dirty. Then, to have Louis killed."
"Did you do it?"
"What!" She almost fell backward, and automatically-he couldn't help himself- Sterling reached out for her, but she was too far away and had to regain her balance on her own. The near-fall upset her, all that elegant reserve gone now. "No, goddamn it, no. I didn't kill him. Where the hell would I have gotten a gun? Why would I-"
"It was a stupid thing to say."
"An affair is one thing, Sterling, if that's even what it was-but murder-" She choked back her outrage. "I'd hoped you wouldn't find out. I had no idea about the pictures. I never saw, never heard-"
"You were too busy with other things."
"Goddamn it! I'm trying here, Sterling. I'm trying to make up for lost ground and be honest with you. I realized, even before-I realized then and there, while I was in the library, that I didn't want to hurt you. All my desire for revenge fell away, and that was what was left. That I loved you."
He breathed through his clenched teeth, not knowing what the hell he felt. Anger? Pity? Humiliation? Not love, not at that moment. "I should have had Gary take the damn disk from Carine, steal it if he had to."
"I tried to steal it yesterday. I went to her apartment-I have a key-"
"Jodie, for God's sake!"
She blinked through her tears. "I had no choice. I told the police I was with Louis, but I never mentioned what we were doing. I didn't lie to them. I just didn't tell them everything."
"You lied to me."
She nodded. "I know, and I'm sorry."
But Sterling frowned, her words sinking in, the holes they presented. "Jodie, if you didn't hear anyone while you were with Louis, how did you know there were pictures?"
She didn't speak for a moment. "I had a call."
"What?" This time he really did almost lose his footing.
"It just said, 'There are pictures.'" She licked her lips, not meeting his eye. "That was all. Like it was a friendly warning, and I should take action."
"Christ." Sterling raked a hand over his head, whipped around on the path, stones flying up under his hiking boots. "Christ Almighty!"
"I told Gary this morning. I didn't know what else to do. He decided you had to know about the disk, but I begged him not to tell you how I knew, to let me tell you first-"
"For God's sake, Jodie. For God's sake! How could you not have told me?"
She ignored his question. "I think it was Manny who called." Her voice was hoarse from the dry wind, the tension. "I think he took the pictures. He must have planned to use them as further leverage against Louis, maybe to get him to quit so he didn't have to tell you what he knew. He probably didn't take the camera because Louis was about to catch him-or he figured he could get it from Carine since they're friends."