“So you arranged to meet him at Golden Aspen?”

“No! Of course not. Do you think I’m an idiot? Would he have come? I had to be sure. So I got his schedule from someone open to giving it to me.” She rubbed the fingers of one hand over her palm. “Money speaks Portuguese, too. When I saw he was going to do his promotional seminar in New Mexico, I decided to go myself and talk to him.”

“But you showed up with a man.”

“I had everything planned. The minute I was sure Calvo had checked into the resort, I was going to haul Milt into the spotlight. He’s good-looking, and certainly younger than Vítor. I thought Vítor might sit up and take notice. You know, reassess.”

I was surprised at the amount of detail in her story. Maybe she’d been lonely, but Wendy was enjoying the limelight, even if the only audience was me. “You really went to a lot of trouble.”

“I had a goal. Unfortunately, the first morning I was there, Vítor saw me. The bar beside the lobby wasn’t open yet, but I’d gone in to scope it out. He followed and asked what I was doing at the resort. I pretended to be surprised to see him, but he was angry. So I told him that I wanted to talk to him in person, that letters couldn’t convey what we really felt. And I hoped that if we sat down and remembered the good times, maybe he’d feel differently.”

“I’m guessing it didn’t work.”

“Do you know what he did?” Her voice shook with anger. “He had the gall, the nerve, to pull out a photograph of his new love. And he said—” she took a deep breath “—that she was prettier than I had ever been, even after he’d worked his magic on me. And now that I’d seen the winner, I should stop trying to run the race.”

Calvo sounded as cruel as my sister. “And that’s when he pushed you away and left. Is that the moment you decided to kill him?”

“I never decided to kill him. But that night I went to his room. I freely admit it, and I took Milt’s gun—”

“After you drugged him.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“I think you’d had practice.” I didn’t elaborate. “Besides, you wouldn’t have taken his gun unless you were sure Milt was asleep for the night.”

“I only went to scare Vítor. That’s all, I swear it. I wanted satisfaction after what he’d done to me. I was divorcing my husband for him, giving up my daughters, changing my whole life. And did he care? So I knocked on the door, pretending I was the maid there to turn down his sheets. He let me in, and I pointed the gun at him. He was terrified.”

She actually smiled before she went on, as if Calvo’s panic was the fondest of memories. “I’ll never forget the way he backed up toward the bed. That was all I wanted, really. Just to see him act like the loser he was. Then after he cowered and pled for a while, I was finished. I lowered the barrel, but before I could leave, he leaped at me and made a grab for the gun. Unfortunately, it was loaded. It went off.”