Premeditated Marriage. B.J. Daniels
nodded and glanced around the cabin. It wasn’t that interesting. Then her gaze settled on him. She wet her lips and gave him a come-hither smile. “Is that the only reason you asked me here? To talk about Charlie?”
He must be getting old, because he just wasn’t up to this game tonight. He cut to the chase, unable to bear dragging it out any longer. “I got the impression at the café that there was something you wanted to tell me about her.”
She seemed startled and suddenly ill at ease. “I can’t imagine what it could have been.”
He watched her dig at the beer label with her thumbnail. “Give it a little thought, I’ll bet it will come to you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you a cop or something?”
“Something.” Giving her his backup story would be a waste of a good lie. And there seemed little reason to tell her the truth since it would be out soon enough.
She took a drink of her beer, eyeing him over the bottle. “What’s in it for me?”
Finally, solid ground. “Depends on if I find the information of value.” When she didn’t bother to nail him down on a price, it became apparent she wasn’t in it for the money—just as he’d originally suspected.
She sat up straighter on the bed. “You were asking about the guy they found in the lake.”
He said nothing.
“He wasn’t the first, you know.”
His heart kicked up a beat. “First to what?”
“End up dead at the lake. Quinn Simonson was killed leaving Freeze Out Lake right after high-school graduation. His car went off the road.”
Augustus shook his head. “What does that have to do with—”
“Quinn was Charlie Larkin’s high-school boyfriend. She was there that night. They had a big fight and—”
“What about?”
“Earlene Kurtz. Charlie found out that Earlene was four months pregnant with Quinn’s baby.” Augustus wondered if Trudi hadn’t helped Charlie find out about the pregnancy. He let out a low whistle. “Charlie was mad?”
Trudi snorted. “She was furious. She refused to get back in the car with Quinn even though he promised to take her straight home. He was pretty upset about everyone knowing about Earlene and the pregnancy. He left and crashed his car on a curve coming off the mountain.”
“Right, so I don’t see—”
“Charlie did something to the car.”
He took a breath. “Like what?”
She shrugged. “Something to make it crash. She’d just worked on his car the day before the accident—and that night at the lake, she was over by it just before he left.”
He shook his head. “If she’d done something to the car, the cops would have found it and she’d have been arrested.”
“No one suspected her at the time, everyone just thought it was an accident because Quinn had been drinking. By the time Phil Simonson—”
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