Free VEILED MIRROR by Frankie Robertson Page A

you with the insurance companies.”
    She tucked a short curl behind the pink shell of her ear. The memory flashed through his mind of pulling Beth onto his lap and running his tongue around that delicate curve, kissing that finely arched neck.
    “Thanks. That would be a help.”
    He came back to the present with a jolt. This isn’t Beth. This is Ellie. My best friend’s wife. Widow. Pregnant widow.
    She looked at him with a new, more avid expression.
    “What?”
    “Actually, there is something you could help me with.”
    “Name it.”
    “I want you to help me find Chris’s killer.”
    “Beth said something about murder in her message. What happened?”
    He listened as Ellie outlined the circumstances of Chris’s death, surprised she could talk about it so calmly. It had to be some form of denial.
    “What does the sheriff say? Was there an autopsy?”
    “I don’t care what the sheriff says, or the medical examiner,” she answered forcefully. “Chris was murdered! And I think someone tried to kill me and my sister too.”
    Jason took a long pull on his beer. So the sheriff and the medical examiner think it’s an accident. He glanced at her leaning forward where she sat on the sofa, looking at him with the same intensity he’d seen in Beth. Ellie had been through a hell of a lot. More than anyone should have to go through. And she was pregnant. He’d heard that could mess with a woman’s mind.
    But she wasn’t stupid and she did know Chris as well as anyone. He didn’t like to think that Chris could be careless enough to fall down a mineshaft on his own property either. That didn’t make it murder, but it was kind of weird that she’d had a deadly accident only days after Chris’s death.
    They were probably just that: two horrible, unfortunate accidents. But what could it hurt to humor her for a few days? Homicide wasn’t his area of expertise. He investigated fraud and white collar crime, not murder. But then Ellie thought he was an estate lawyer, anyway. She wouldn’t be expecting a professional. Maybe if he went through the motions, asked a few questions, she’d come to accept the tragic truth. Maybe I will too.
    Jason nodded. “I’ll look into it for you. But the facts are the facts. We may not like what we find. Can you deal with that?”
    Ellie nodded. “Thank you!”
    “So where do you think we should start?” Beth asked as she dropped a big spoonful of mashed potatoes onto her plate. She and Jason were eating informally in the kitchen. Maria had refused their invitation to join them and had left to go home to her own family. Beth was trying not to think about the fact that they’d be alone together in the house tonight.
    “Maybe it’s an occupational hazard, but since I deal all the time with people’s money, I think that’s where we should begin. Let’s look at the trust and follow the money.”
    “That’s what—” She coughed. That’s what Ellie said . “That’s what I thought too.” She reached for the gravy.
    “Who would benefit from Chris’s death?”
    Beth froze with the ladle in her hand. Ellie . “Only me—and the baby.”
    “But isn’t there some clause about direct descendants? What if you weren’t pregnant, or,” he looked away, then back at her, “or if you had died in the accident? Who gets the money then?”
    She put the ladle carefully back in the gravy boat. “Chris’s cousin, Palmer, would get it all, minus a modest widow’s annuity if I weren’t pregnant.” She felt as if someone had just turned on the light. “I’d only just found out I was pregnant the day Chris died. The day he was killed,” she corrected herself. “No one but me and Chris knew. And Maria.”
    An avid look filled Jason’s chocolate brown eyes as he grinned. Beth wished it was her he was smiling at and not Ellie.
    “That’s where we’ll start then,” he said, slicing into his pot roast.
    She wished it could be that easy, that finding Chris’s killer could be quick,