Gayle’s icy stare was answer enough. Jessie pressed on, knowing she was in the home stretch.

“And then she went and blackmailed Milton. But you knew it was directed as much at you as at him. You knew that was her unspoken way of hinting that he better pay up or else your secrets would come out too. It probably felt almost as if the blackmail of your husband was intended to deliberately hurt you more than him.”

“I didn’t feel that way,” Gayle corrected her. “It was that way.”

“So you went to see her one more time, at her place, feeling wounded and angry and betrayed—hoping to get her to reconsider. Not just the blackmail, but to reconsider the two of you as well. But she wasn’t having any of it. Maybe she was less diplomatic this time around. She probably had no idea what a wronged, gym-fit forty-something woman was capable of when pushed to the edge. She underestimated you, didn’t she, Gayle? She dismissed you. And that was one time too many. So you grabbed the only thing you had at that moment that could express the fury you felt—your keys.”

Gayle remained silent, staring back at her. Jessie studied the woman’s expression and was surprised that the best description of it was…appreciative. It was as if Gayle Martindale Jerebko was thankful that someone finally understood her.

“You jammed them in her throat, didn’t you, Gayle?” Jessie said, leading her where she knew the woman wanted to go. “You let her know you weren’t going to be ignored anymore. How did that feel?”

She went quiet, waiting for Gayle’s response. Next to his wife, Milton sat, limp and stunned. Finally Gayle opened her mouth.

“I felt free, maybe for the first time ever.”

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

“Gayle, shut up!” Milton shouted, suddenly snapping out of his daze. “She’s trying to get you to confess. Don’t say another word.”

“It’s too late, Milton,” Gayle said casually. “She obviously already knows everything. She has the emails. She’ll check everywhere I’ve been. There’s no point in pretending.”

“But knowing something and proving it are different things,” he protested. “Don’t make it easy. We’ll get you a good lawyer. There’s still hope.”

Gayle turned to him with an almost pitying look.

“Hope for what—our marriage? You’ve already destroyed that. Our kids are already ashamed that you’re their father. What’s a little more material for their therapy sessions? So she knows? It was worth it, if only to ruin you, you selfish bastard.”

Milton looked at her in uncomprehending horror. After a moment he blinked and stood up.

“I need a drink,” he said and shuffled off to the kitchen.

Jessie watched him go and turned back to his wife.

“Gayle, you did the right thing coming clean,” she said. “I recently had a case where the perpetrator was a woman not unlike you. I determined her guilt and asked her to give up. It was a crime of passion and she had young kids. If she had confessed, she might have gotten leniency. But she wasn’t capable of that.”