Deadly Deceptions by Linda Lael Miller Page B

knew the Darrochs and looked after their children. It did bother me a little that she’d referred to Tucker by his first name.
    But then, she’d called Helen Erland “Helen.”
    Manners have changed since I was a kid.
    â€œWhy is Vince a sleazeball?” I asked.
    Chelsea shrugged. “He can’t hold a job, but he sure doesn’t mind spending whatever Helen brings in on beer and cigarettes. My dad was like that, but he had the good manners to shoot himself in the head three years ago—problem solved. Except that my mom’s still in the market for another loser.”
    â€œYou’re pretty bitter,” I said, “for somebody so young.”
    â€œYou would be, too, if you were me,” Chelsea said. “I can’t wait to get out of this hole. One thing’s for sure—I’m never going to hook up with some bum who can’t even support his own family.”
    â€œI guess Vince promised Gillian a dog, and then went back on his word,” I said, testing the ice.
    â€œI could have told her not to believe a word he said, if I knew how to speak sign language.” She huffed out a disgusted sigh. “Even Tucker, hot as he is, moved out on the wife and kids and took up with some slut who lives over a biker bar.”
    â€œIs that so?” I asked moderately.
    â€œYou can’t trust them,” Chelsea went on. I was surprised by all the chatter, given that she’d been so protective of Helen Erland a few minutes earlier. I let the whole slut issue slide. “Men, I mean. Not even the ‘good’ ones.”
    â€œRight,” I said.
    Evidently finished, she turned and stomped back inside.
    I got behind the wheel and backed out of the Erlands’ driveway, onto the road.
    I’d call Helen Erland later, I decided, and see if she’d spoken to Vince’s lawyer about that visit.

CHAPTER FIVE
    T UCKER’S SUV WAS SITTING in the driveway when I got back to Greer’s, and I felt a leap of anticipation, square in the center of my heart, before it occurred to me that he might be there on official business. As in, arresting Greer. If Alex’s body had been found in the desert, outside the city limits of both Scottsdale and Phoenix, then the jurisdiction belonged to Maricopa County, and the sheriff’s department would lead the investigation.
    Full of dread, I approached Greer’s front door instead of heading for the guesthouse out back. The doorbell bonged through a ponderous sequence, and it was Jolie who opened up.
    â€œHe’s here,” she whispered. “Tucker.”
    I nodded, cocked a thumb to indicate that I’d seen his rig.
    â€œBe careful what you say,” Jolie told me.
    I rolled my eyes. People tell me that all the time. You’d think they’d figure out that I never listen.
    Greer was enthroned in her massive living room, with its beamed ceilings and imported tile floor. Authentic Navaho rugs hung between museum-quality paintings on the white walls, and there was one in front of the fireplace, too.
    Tucker sat in a high-backed leather chair, in jeans and the blue cotton shirt he’d been wearing on TV that morning, his left ankle propped on his right knee. He’d been studying a sheaf of papers, but when I entered the room he looked up. Smiled with his eyes, if not his mouth. Started to get up.
    I shook my head, motioned for him to stay seated. Tore my gaze from him and shifted my attention to Greer. She looked so bereft, so insubstantial sitting there, a wad of tissue crumpled in her right hand, that the image of Gillian in her little rocking chair back at Helen Erland’s double-wide did a fade-in on my mental screen. For one terrible moment I thought Greer was dead, and I was seeing her ghost.
    She must have heard the doorbell, but when she looked up, she seemed surprised that she wasn’t alone in the room. The expression in her eyes reminded me of some wild thing, hunted down