Free The Dirty Secrets Club by Meg Gardiner Page A

picture Callie standing there, blond and glamorous, arms outstretched like Eva Peron. The place was elegant, simple, and cold. The carpet, white as a nun's wimple, was immaculate.
    Dirty
    "Have you been in here since the police notified you of her death?" she said.
    "No." He stood motionless in the entryway.
    "Let me explain what I need to do."
    She led him through it. Got him to sit down in the living room and asked the questions on her list. Had Callie ever had psychiatric treatment or diagnosis? No. Any family history of suicide or mental disorder? None. Harding answered her queries with flat resignation. Callie had no history of serious illness. She wasn't seeing anybody romantically, so far as he knew. She wasn't religious.
    "She just had a Puritan work ethic. She was abstemious and judgmental. A perfect prosecutor."
    He hadn't observed any changes in her eating habits. Had seen no signs that she was cutting herself off from people. No signs that she was giving away her possessions.
    "She wasn't preparing herself for death. She was working hard. Driving forward." He stopped, realizing what he'd just said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Give me a minute."
    "Take your time. If you don't mind, I'm going to look around."
    "Go ahead."
    The kitchen was a chrome emporium full of heart-healthy cookbooks. One bottle of pinot grigio, half full, was in the fridge. The only drugs in the cabinet were Tylenol and Advil.
    A bookcase in the living room held a smorgasbord of bestsellers. Callie's music collection stressed cheesy Nashville hits and musical
    66 Meg Gardiner
    theater. Jo didn't count the Wicked soundtrack as a red flag. Or as a serious indicator of erotic fantasies lurking under the surface.
    Taking her digital camera, she went upstairs. The master bedroom was plush. The closet held expensive suits and expensive shoes. The dresser drawers held expensive underwear. Expensive, lacy, racy underwear. There were animal-print garter belts and fishnet stockings. Still, that wasn't outre. No sex toys, no whips or bridles. No seen
    S and M dominatrix closet.
    She searched the bathroom. No narcotics, no pills—except contraceptives. So maybe Gregory Harding didn't know everything about
    Callie's love life.
    She kept searching. Nothing else.
    Harding watched her come back down the stairs. "Find a suicide
    note?" "No."
    That wasn't probative. Most suicides don't leave a note. She went to Callie's home office, sat down at the desk, and starti the computer. Harding stopped in the doorway.
    "How can you do this work?" he said. i
    She swiveled to face him. It was an important question. She gave
    him her full attention.
    "The dead can't speak for themselves. But sometimes I can speak
    for them." L
    "Don't you mean put words in their mouths? They're gone." "When somebody dies, they're not simply gone. They're an absence. And when the cause of death is unclear, it leaves a huge hole of uncertainty as well as grief. Uncovering the truth about someone's and death brings that person more fully present to those left behind
    And it helps fill that hole." "The truth can hurt."
    "It can put the ground back beneath survivors' feet," she said
    "And it can help people say good-bye."
    His hawk's gaze held her. "You lost somebody."
    She didn't need to answer. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
    The DIRTY SECRETS CLUB 67
    She turned back to the desk. "I want to reconstruct Callie's final twenty-four hours. Did she keep a calendar, or a journal?"
    "Beats me. Take a look." In the bottom drawer Jo found notebooks and a pocket calendar. She flipped through it. The month ahead was busy with appointments Callie would never keep.
    It was time to dig deeper. She gauged Harding's body language: exhausted and tense. She started at the periphery.
    "What was Callie's personality? Was she calm? Excitable? Violent?" "Violent?" He laughed harshly. "Give me a break. She put violent offenders in prison."
    "That can coarsen a person." As part of her forensic