Page 47 of Done Dirty

“You went back,” Jack said.

“I went back for my next lesson. He handed me a smoothie as I walked in the door, but he had this look on his face like he knew exactly how I felt. Almost a smirk. But I drank it anyway, and we never made it into the workout room. We went straight to his bedroom. I remembered everything this time.” The last words choked out on a sob, but she quickly got herself under control.

“I went back three more times. Each time more intense. The smoothie was like a reward for showing up. But I was going crazy inside. In my mind, I knew I didn’t want it. I knew that I loved my husband. And I knew that what I was doing was wrong. And somewhere inside I knew I didn’t want to keep doing it. I know it sounds crazy.”

“We don’t think you’re crazy,” Jack said, sympathy in his voice.

“Thanks for that,” she said, sniffing.

“Keep going.”

“I finally confessed to my husband, told him everything. I was a mess. I literally felt like a crazy person. Matt, that’s my husband, you can imagine how he felt. But he didn’t leave. I immediately cancelled my membership and private sessions, and I blocked Wade’s number. He never texted me inappropriately. That was always the weird thing about him. He could compartmentalize. When it was time for sex, that’s what we did. But any other time you’d think we barely knew each other.”

“You never had contact with him again after you left the studio?” Jack asked.

She hesitated and then said, “A week after I cancelled, I found an envelope on the seat of my car. Photographs. Explicit photographs of me and Wade. I knew they’d been taken of that first time we were together. But those photographs shocked me.” Her voice trembled and rose in pitch. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me. Things I’ve never even done with my husband.”

I reached out and took her hand. Seeing the torment on her face was hard to watch. She gripped my hand in return.

“There was a note with the photographs,” she said. “He told me to leave $1000 cash in the envelope he’d included and to leave it at the front desk of The Windsor. He said if I didn’t then he had a friend who knew how to make sure all of my pictures would end up on the internet.”

“Did you pay it?” Jack asked.

She looked down and let go of my hand. “Yeah, I did. I was too scared not to. Matt was furious when I told him. He said we needed to go to the police, but I knew Wade would make sure those pictures would somehow go live. Matt waited for him one day before he left the studio and told him we weren’t going to play his blackmail games, and that as long as those pictures stay off the internet then we wouldn’t go to the police. Matt’s in good shape, so I knew Wade couldn’t intimidate him physically. That’s the last we heard of the blackmail or anything else.”

“We’ll need to confirm with your husband,” Jack said.

“I understand. Like I told you, he knows everything. We’re working through it.”

“Where does he work?” Jack asked. “We can stop by on our way back.”

“VantageCore Technologies,” she said. “He’s an analyst. But he works the midnight shift. He’s asleep upstairs.”

“What time does he usually go in?”

“He usually leaves here around eleven, and then he gets home around eight thirty in the morning. If something major happens he sometimes has to go in early. He’s the senior supervisor.”

“How long has he worked nights?” Jack asked.

“About six months,” she said. “It’s been an adjustment for both of us. But he usually wakes up around two o’clock if you want him to contact you.”

Jack got a card out of his wallet and slid it across to her. “That would be great, thanks.”

“I hope you find the truth,” she said. “Whatever it is. I can’t say I’m sorry Wade is dead after what happened to me. But I’d like to know what happened. That I wasn’t actually crazy.”

Jack nodded. “We’ll be in touch.”

We were back in the car before either of us spoke.

“That’s convenient,” I said.

“The husband being an IT analyst and working nights? Yeah, I thought so too.”

“He’d have more than cursory tech skills and it would be nothing for him to stop by The Windsor, disengage the locks and the cameras, commit murder, and then head to work.”

Jack started the car and then handed me his phone. “Plank sent a text. See what he’s got.”

I looked at the screen and said, “Lynette Nickles has a clean alibi.”