Free Black Widow by Randy Wayne White Page B

Swiss,
and
a serious Catholic. The woman wouldn’t be here if she knew.”
    “Were there files attached to the e-mail?”
    She moved her eyes.
No
.
    “How was it worded?”
    “What I just told you. He wants the rest of the money.”
    “Can you remember specifics?”
    “I should, I read the damn thing a dozen times before I trashed it. It was kinda like the first one, the way he tried to be clever. It went, ‘Some vacation memories are priceless, so your vacation video is a bargain. Either pay the rest of the money, or ...’ No, that’s not right.” She thought for a moment. “No, he said, ‘Pay the
balance
or you’ll be sinning with your new boyfriends on the Internet — ’ It went like that.”
    I said, “Sinning. That’s a strange way to put it.”
    “Yeah, he’s nasty clever. Called me a slut — that was in the subject line. And he said ‘porn sites,’ not Internet. But he didn’t attach any more video files.”
    Like before — it wasn’t just about the money. The blackmailer got a charge out of humiliating victims.
    “Is there a chance Michael or his pals can retrieve the earlier files if they go hunting through your computers?”
    “No. We trashed everything. Then I found a special software that we all used to make sure it stays gone.”
    “That includes his latest e-mail?”
    She nodded.
    “What about the other girls?”
    “They got rid of it while we were still talking on the phone. But poor Corey, she didn’t know that Vance had already snooped.”
    I said, “In that case, Michael doesn’t really
know
anything.”
    “Of course he does . . . or soon will. He’ll find out the girls and I are being blackmailed about something bad enough we already paid a chunk of the quarter million. That and whatever else Vance slapped out of Corey before she OD’d. He’ll know about the video. There’s no getting around it.”
    I looked into her eyes for a long second before saying, “Video? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What video?”
    Shay stared back, her expression blank.
Huh
?
    I said it again, deadpan. "
What
video?”
    She continued to stare. “You’re serious.”
    “Very.”
    She tried to sit, but I placed my hands on her shoulders until she was lying back.
    “But they’ll
know
.”
    “They don’t know anything. Michael and his fraternity pals never saw what’s on that cassette. Neither did you. Neither did your bridesmaids. I have it. No one’s going to get it. So, as of now, it doesn’t exist.”
    “But Vance read the e-mail—”
    “An e-mail doesn’t prove anything. Some freak in the Caribbean is hounding you about a film he doesn’t have, and about a night that never happened.”
    The girl took a deep breath and settled back, thinking about it. “My God, I’d give anything if it was true. But . . . but how do I explain why we paid all that money? Michael can check my bank—” She stopped, her voice turning inward. Her expression changed. “Wait . . . we have separate accounts. Same with Beryl, Liz, and their guys. We all chipped in, so we didn’t have to dig into our wedding accounts. They
can’t
check. But what about Vance and Corey—”
    “Vance is a loser and liar. They had a fight last night. I’m sure it wasn’t their first. He’s jealous, pathological, so he made up a bunch of crap as an excuse for hitting his wife. You got involved after hearing Corey’s phone message.”
    “Doc . . . I don’t know. Will it work?”
    I leaned and kissed the same bare space on her temple. “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it’ll buy us some time — as long as nothing else happened on Saint Arc. Something worse.”
    “What the hell could be worse?”
    “You tell me. An accident? If someone got hurt, and the camera caught it?”
    “No. What we did was bad enough.”
    I looked at her, letting her know this was serious. “Is that the truth?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay. Then that’s the way we’ll play it. There is no video. Got it? The party, the swimming