I glanced at him, and saw the concern on his face.
“No.” My voice came out stronger than I felt. “No, we’re staying. They don’t bother me. I was just…”
Shocked? Appalled? Suspicious?
“Fair enough.” He studied me for a moment before glancing over at the other table. “How about you tell me why your stepson having dinner with your husband’s former mistress is making you look queasy?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“Aside from the fact that she was his father’s mistress, you mean?”
I stopped, to take a breath and to try to organize my thoughts into something that made sense. That done, I continued. “You have to understand: Kenny and I never got along. He was eight, and his sister eleven, when David divorced Sandra, and they blamed me for it. Not that they didn’t have reason, although it was really more David’s fault than mine.”
Greg nodded.
“But they never made a secret of the fact that they hated me. So in that sense, I suppose it’s only reasonable that Kenny would be friendly with the woman who took David away from me. Although you’d think he’d realize the irony.”
I shot them another fulminating glare. Jacquie noticed and quailed. Kenny glared back.
“Maybe they bonded over their shared grief?” Greg suggested.
I shot him a look. “Kenny didn’t grieve. He wanted his share of David’s money, and he got it. Besides, he thought I killed David. And so did Jacquie.”
“Then maybe they bonded over their shared suspicion of you,” Greg said.
That was even worse, frankly.
I gave him a quelling sort of look, which seemed to bounce right off. “And then, aside from that whole issue, there’s Jacquie. Who hired me last week to determine whether or not her boyfriend was cheating on her. She had a boyfriend, remember? The same boyfriend who got shot two nights ago. The boyfriend she was sobbing over the last time I saw her.”
I gestured at their table. “Does that look like grief to you?”
Greg glanced over. “Not so as you’d notice.”
Exactly. They looked perfectly comfortable together, like this wasn’t the first time they were in each other’s company, and if Jacquie was grieving, she hid it well.
Or maybe not. Her hands were shaking, even from this distance, and the corners of her mouth were pulled down. Although from the way she was sneaking me looks out of the corner of her eye, that might be as much guilt and fear as it was grief.
Yes, I would definitely be asking Rachel about Kenny’s movements on Friday night and Saturday morning.
“They’re coming this way,” Greg warned.
I looked up and sure enough, the happy couple was making their way across the dining room toward us. Kenny had his hand on Jacquie’s back, proprietary as well as protective, and his expression was belligerent.
“Gina.” The tone was confrontational, too. Like he knew what I was thinking, and objected to it.
“Kenny.” I managed to keep my own voice level, or mostly.
He might have mistaken the tremor for fear and not rage, because tilted his head to look down at me. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Likewise,” I told him. “And that goes double for you, Jacquie.”
Her eyes were bloodshot, I noticed, now that I was looking at her up close, so at least she had shed a few tears in the time since I’d seen her last. But she had also taken the time to do her makeup, and to put on a dress that had most likely been paid for out of David’s and my shared account back when she was sleeping with him. It was well beyond anything Nick could have afforded on his salary.
Although at least the dress was black. That was something, anyway.
“I see you’re managing your grief,” I added, because I couldn’t not say it.
Her eyes filled with tears, and Kenny scowled at me. His hand moved from her back to her waist, as he pulled her closer to him.
