Free Clubbed to Death by Elaine Viets Page B

the cosmic monkey wrench tossed into her life. Rob knew how to work the system and he knew how to work her.
    Rob had cheated on her and destroyed their marriage, yet the judge rewarded him and punished her.
    Rob had chased her across the country, trying to get that miserable money. When he finally tracked her down, the cosmos rewarded him with a fabulously rich wife. The Black Widow was probably a serial spouse killer, but Helen knew Rob would cheat death the same way he cheated on his wives.
    Her new life handed her one more surprise: Helen liked living outside the rules. She actually enjoyed her new world. She no longer ate rubber chicken dinners with balding bigwigs to advance her career.
    Now she sat by the Coronado pool with her blue-eyed lover. Instead of breakfast meetings, she had sunrise picnics on the beach. She traded in her business suits and sensible heels for sandals and T-shirts. She no longer clawed her way up the ladder to make a hundred thousand a year. Instead, she took home minimum wages and toasted the sunset with cheap wine.
    Her new job at the Superior Club had been a partial return to respectability. Margery had urged her to make some decent money. Now Helen was confined in a tailored uniform and panty hose. She also had a car, a credit card, a cell phone and a debt load that kept her awake at night.
    Look where it landed her: broke, busted and in jail.
    By her old standards, Helen was ruined. Even now, she felt shame and anger. She wanted to blame Rob, but it was her fault. If she’d left him alone, she wouldn’t be sitting in jail. She shouldn’t have hit her ex, no matter how good it felt.
    And Phil—what would he think of her? She wished she’d asked Jessica to call him, but there wasn’t time. She’d barely managed to shout Margery’s name before she was shoved into the cop car.
    Helen checked her watch for the hundredth time that afternoon.
    Four o’clock. Where was Margery? What was taking so long? The lawyer should have been here hours ago. Jessica had delivered the message. She wouldn’t desert Helen.
    Maybe Margery wasn’t home. Maybe Colby, the criminal lawyer Margery called when there were emergencies, was in court or out of town.
    Maybe Margery was sick of Helen and her self-inflicted problems. Margery had warned her that Rob wasn’t her business. He belonged to Marcella. The man wasn’t worth worrying about. He was pampered as a pet poodle.
    Until he disappeared.
    Where was Rob? Where had that blood come from? And the torn shirt? Did Marcella follow her husband last night and kill him? Rob knew how to bring out the rage in a wife. But why attack him in the parking lot? It would have made more sense to lure him onto the yacht and shove him overboard.
    Helen remembered the bruises and the ugly wound on Rob’s chest.
    Did those really come from Marcella? Rob hinted he’d made some very bad people angry. There were plenty of them around, including more than a few club members. Did he make some sort of dirty deal with the mobster, Angelo Casabella? His thugs could have easily beaten Rob to death, then hauled off the body.
    If her ex was dead, Helen didn’t know how she felt about that. She’d wished him dead so often. But if he really was gone, would she be free?
    Free wasn’t the right word to describe her current circumstances.
    Her growling stomach let her know she’d been hours without food. Her tongue was dry and cottony. Her imagination ran wild. She saw herself in a courtroom, on trial for Rob’s murder with only a bumbling public defender. Then the door to her room was opened.
    Helen stared. This must be a hunger hallucination.
    A lawyer was standing in the doorway. It wasn’t Colby Cox. This lawyer didn’t have to introduce himself. Helen had seen him a hundred times on Court TV.
    She recognized that bulldog walk, the outsized head with the leonine hair, the hand-tailored suit. It wasn’t shiny, like Angelo Casabella’s suits. It had a burnished glow. The lawyer