Free The Keeper by John Lescroart

the story was that they were happy. Because what if she fixed it all up and things really were good again? She didn’t want Mom and the girls to harbor bad feelings about Hal, about how he’d made things tough for her.”
    The two inspectors shared a look. “So what was the problem?” Abby asked.
    After a slight hesitation, Daniel came out with it. “Have you guys heard anything about Patti Orosco?”
    JaMorris answered, “No. Who is she?”
    â€œShe was Katie’s best friend until a couple of years ago, when she started hitting on Hal.”
    â€œAnd?” Abby asked.
    â€œAs I understand it,” Daniel said, “they’re now an item. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s pretty damn likely. He still sees her all the time. Katie knew that. He’d stop by her place coming home from work. He’d disappear for a while on the weekends. Katie could smell her perfume on him, but she never got solid proof. Maybe she didn’t want it, I don’t know. I told her she ought to hire a private eye, follow the son of a bitch around, that I’d even pay for it, but she didn’t want to do it. Still, every time she talked to me, she brought it up.”
    â€œShe didn’t call him on it?” JaMorris asked.
    â€œNo.”
    Abby wanted to know, “Why not?”
    â€œSame thing as with my family,” he said. “If she didn’t tell them something was wrong, then when things got better, she would have saved everybody a lot of pain, and everything could go back to normal.” He ran a finger under an eye, clearly fighting his emotions. “She was just such a stupid believer that if you ignored certain things, even important things, they’d eventually go away. You didn’t need to have a confrontation about everything.”
    â€œGood luck with that,” JaMorris said.
    â€œTell me about it.” Daniel scratched at a speck on the arm of his chair. Then, with apparent reluctance, he went on. “Besides, she felt she couldn’t accuse him without coming straight with him herself.”
    The inspectors waited.
    Daniel brought his hands together on the desk. “She had a thing with a guy a few months after Ellen was born. She was going through severe postpartum depression and made a mistake. At least that’s how she made it sound to me. But she decided she was going to end it and not mention it to Hal, and sure enough, it all worked out. So now, if he was screwing around, it wasn’t like she couldn’t understand what he might be going through. If she didn’t bring it up, maybe it would all go away, like hers did. Except, in this case, he wanted to get free, and he killed her.”
    â€œOver this Patti woman?” Abby asked. “Why would he kill her? Why not just get a divorce?”
    â€œLet me tell you about Katie. She wants to come across as the perfect girl, the perfect woman. But if ever Hal tried to divorce her, I promise you, she would show fangs like you wouldn’t believe. She’d go after him with everything she had, not only for betraying her but for exposing that she was the kind of person who would get betrayed. She’d ruin his life and any chance that he could be happy with somebody else. If I know this about Katie, and I’m just her brother, I guarantee you Hal understood it perfectly.”
    â€œOkay, she might want to get nasty,” JaMorris said, “but what could she actually do?”
    Suddenly, Daniel seemed to pull himself up short. Yanking at his tie, he undid the top button on his shirt and ran a finger around the inside of his collar. Letting out a heavy breath, he assayed a fragile smile. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve thought a lot about how much I wanted to tell you, but here it is.”
    â€œWhatever you want to tell us,” Abby said. “You think she would have been able to make Hal’s life