Free A Denial of Death by Gin Jones

her. "If Ralph really did want the other sister, all he had to do was divorce Angie."
    "And give Angie half of the insurance agency," Betty said. "Small businesses can be a nightmare to divide in a divorce. I saw it all the time as a bookkeeper. I had to produce the small business's profit and loss statements for the court, and I could see just how badly the bottom line was affected during the divorce. Ralph would never risk that sort of damage to the agency. That business is his life. He wouldn't give it up without a fight."
    "Don't listen to her," Josie said. "She's thinking like a math person. Real people who are madly in love don't think that far ahead. I bet Ralph and Charlene only cared about being together, not about money. They tried not to give in to their feelings, but they couldn't help themselves. They were just so much in love. They just had to be together, but they also loved Angie, and they didn't want to break her heart."
    "So they killed her instead?" Helen couldn't imagine Charlene and Ralph carrying on some torrid love affair behind Angie's back. Charlene might not have been totally honest about her animosity toward Ralph—there had definitely been some tension between them in the picture with Angie—but it hadn't looked like romantic tension. It could have been guilt, she supposed, but if they'd been having an affair, surely they would have synchronized their stories about each other, instead of Ralph claiming Charlene hated him, and Charlene denying any animosity between them. "Why would you even think they might be having an affair, anyway?"
    "Have you seen them?" Josie said incredulously. "They look like they could model for the little bride-and-groom statues that go on top of wedding cakes. The perfect couple. Not like the odd couple that Ralph and Angie were."
    "It's not just their appearance," Betty said. "Ralph's and Charlene's personalities are more similar too. Charlene is a much nicer person than Angie. She works hard and treats everyone with respect. Maybe she's not quite as nice as Ralph, but she's close. Definitely not as…well, let's just say she's not as difficult as Angie is."
    "If Charlene's so nice," Helen said, "then she wouldn't get involved with her sister's husband, let alone conspire with him to kill her sister or even to cover up her murder."
    There was another period of silence while the two women stitched and Helen tried to make the next row of her chemo cap live up to Josie's first row.
    Betty reached the end of a stripe and went looking for another color to add. When she'd settled on a dark blue, she said, "I suppose it's possible Angie went to the casino like Charlene said, to do something other than gamble, but she wouldn't have stayed for three solid weeks. Something must have happened to her while she was there."
    Josie leaned forward eagerly. "Maybe she fell in love with an outrageously charming gambler who offered to keep her on a pedestal like she's always wanted, and they ran away together, freeing Ralph and Charlene to be together."
    Helen hadn't reached the point where she could crochet and talk at the same time, and it was starting to look like she never would. She let the yarn and crochet hook fall into her lap. "Angie being swept off her feet like that is about as unlikely as Ralph and Charlene killing Angie so they won't have to hurt her feelings."
    "I just hate not knowing what happened," Betty said, her needles stabbing into the yarn irritably. "We may never know until Angie is found."
    "Dead or alive," Josie said, a bit too enthusiastically, and sounding as if she preferred the former.
    Betty gave her friend a quelling look. "We both hope Angie is safe, but the longer she's missing, the harder it will be to pick up the trail when an official report is filed. Like you said, it wouldn't be all that big a deal for someone to visit the casino and confirm she's there enjoying herself. Then we wouldn't worry so much."
    Helen had meant Geoff could go to the casino,