Free All About the Money (A Jesse Watson Mystery Series Book 7) by Ann Mullen

a computer, pointed at it and said,
“Everything I had on my computers at work is backed up right here.” She pointed
to a painting of Thomas Jefferson on the wall. “Behind that painting is a safe,
and in that safe is another back up unit that stores my stuff the minute I hit
Save. So, you see, I didn’t lose any of my data in the fire.” She turned around
and looked at her husband. “I bet that rat fink Downer Rhodes doesn’t know
that! Ha! Ha! The joke’s on him!”
    “Flo, I told you to stop calling him that! It sure would be
embarrassing if you slipped and called him that at a party.”
    Flo’s face turned red. She marched over to Mick, shook her
finger at him, and then said angrily, “If you think I’m going to socialize with
that killer ever again, you’re sadly mistaken. He killed his partner, and he
burned down my business!”
    “You don’t know that for sure, honey.” Mick was quickly
backtracking. He knew not to argue with his wife when she was mad. He looked at
us. “See… this is how she gets now when she talks about Mr. Rhodes.”
    “Mr. Rhodes!” she hissed. “Don’t call him Mister. He doesn’t
deserve the title. He should be called Killer Rhodes! He’s a madman!”
    I chuckled.
    Billy and Mick both shot me an unhappy look.
    “Sorry,” I mumbled.
    “Please don’t encourage her,” Mick pleaded. “She’ll never
shut up.”
    That comment set Flo off. She paced back and forth as she
made derogatory comments about the man she had come to despise. Her voice got
louder, quickly.
    “Stop!” I said as I stepped out in front of her. “Don’t let
this man win, Flo. If you drop dead from a heart attack, he will. If he really
is out to kill you, you’ll be doing him a favor.”
    She stopped and thought for a minute before saying, “You’re
absolutely right, Jesse. I refuse to give him the satisfaction. You get me some
evidence on him. I want him to burn just like my house.”
    “We’ll do a little checking,” Billy said. “I want to see what
the sheriff has, and then we’ll talk with the arson investigator. We should
know more by the end of the day.”
    “Don’t count on them to get to the truth,” Flo said. “The
sheriff’s in the dark and that arson investigator can only tell you how the
fire started—not who started it.”
    “We’ll see,” Billy offered. “I know both men quite well, and
I can promise you that they are very good at what they do. Together, we’ll get
to the truth. I can promise you that.”
    “I guess you’re right,” Flo agreed softly as if she was going
to choke up. “Sheriff Hudson is a good man. He does the best he can, and he
does it by the book. I don’t know the other fellow, but if you say he’s good
then I believe you. That’s why I hired you in the first place. Minnie was
right—I feel as if I can count on you two. I don’t care what it costs. I want
you to stop Downer Rhodes from killing me. I want to live long enough to have
grandchildren.” A few tears slid down her face, and then she regained her
composure.
    I felt sorry for her… and I felt sorry for Mick. He had to
watch his wife live in fear.
    “I haven’t told you about my plan,” Flo said as she proceeded
to tell us. “I want you to bug Downer’s house. I’ll call him after the bugs are
in place, and tell him that I know his little secret. Then we can sit back and
listen to what he has to say after I hang up. If he’s guilty, we’ll hear it
all.”
    Billy and I looked at each other. What she was asking us to
do was against the law, but not something we hadn’t done before. Sometimes you
have to sidestep the rules to flush out the guilty.
    Mick put his arms around his wife’s shoulders and said, “We
have only one problem with Flo’s plan. If we pay you to break into Downer’s
house and you get caught, will we go to jail? I mean, it’s the same thing as
paying someone to kill someone, isn’t it?”
    “Murder for hire doesn’t carry the same penalty as