Page 48 of The Flame Game

“When there are that many coincidences, it’s probably not a coincidence at all. That’s something we look for during investigations. Coincidences happen, but when they’re stacked repeatedly in a way that fits the evidence, the likelihood that it’s a coincidence is slim. What do you have?”

“Judging from receipts, Audrey was purchasing condoms at a pharmacy disturbingly close to Chief Morrison’s home, and she was going to a coffee shop near the copper shop there—and filling her car up at a gas station nearby. I had Janet tell me where Morrison lived, as it seemed odd she was going to the Hamptons every week for years. Then she married you and only went once a month. Near the end of your marriage with her, she was going back weekly again. This was going on for years before she married you, by the way.”

“With Chief Morrison?”

“I suppose it could be another cop that happens to live near his place, but she was definitely visiting someone in the Hamptons, and I bet she was buying condoms. The receipts I have don’t say what she purchased, but I did some searching on the internet, and one brand costs the amount she was consistently spending when tax is included. There are very few restaurant purchases, so someone was buying her dinner or feeding her. Likely before or after one of her trysts.”

“If you look on your laptop in my folder, you’ll see a folder with my name and date tracking as the file name. That has my records of when she was cheating on me. Do the dates line up?”

I opened the file, and it didn’t take long for me to match up most of the dates. “Most of them.” I checked the other dates, and several over a short period of time coincided with one of her trips to Maine. “She went on a trip to Maine once.”

“To visit family.” According to his tone, he hadn’t bought that line when she’d originally gone, either. “When she told me she wanted to go, I’d already guessed she was going to meet someone for yet another tryst. But with Chief Morrison?”

I checked the locations in Maine against the rabies records in the CDC database, and I went through the hassle of checking distances between where Audrey had gone and the largest concentration of infected animals, discovering one location was within twenty minutes of where she’d gone. More importantly, the rabies outbreak began three weeks after her departure, which was the baseline time for animals to begin showing symptoms of infection. “Or someones. Not far from where she went, there was a severe rabies outbreak. It infected a small group of wolves, some raccoons, a couple of skunks, and a lot of bats. There was one infected fox that showed up a month after the largest cluster, likely as a result from being bitten by or eating an infected animal if I had to make a guess.”

“Let me see if I understand this. Audrey, long before she even met me, was possibly seeing Chief Morrison, who likely allied himself with gorgons to kidnap Janet long after my divorce from Audrey.”

“And was probably banging her the whole damned time. Except for that bit where she was playing you. Or something.” Crap. “I mean, she may not have been playing you?”

“Oh, she was playing me as much as I was playing her, Bailey. We didn’t get married because we loved each other. We got married because I got tired of being hunted by a bunch of women, and she promised she wouldn’t need much attention and liked my looks.”

“Have you been checked for any diseases? Maybe we should both get tested. You know, just to make sure. Because now I’m utterly creeped out.”

“I have been tested several times, and with a few notable exceptions involving pixie dust, I wasn’t sleeping with her. Definitely not often.”

“That’s probably a good thing. But at least it looks like she was using condoms?”

“Let’s confirm that, shall we?”

“Good thought.”

Quinn retrieved the files from the back, and we spent twenty minutes searching for pharmacy receipts. Sure enough, she liked buying condoms from the pharmacy, and the times the amounts hadn’t matched, she’d purchased a few other products for her evening adventures—likely with Chief Morrison.

Ew, ew, ew. “We’re going to that hotel and eating dinner, after which I’m going to begin an exhaustive therapy session with you. Also, with you as an exception, her taste in men is absolutely disgusting.”

In record time, he returned the file folders to the back of the SUV, got behind the wheel, and started the engine. “I love the way you think, Mrs. Samuel Quinn.”

“What? You’re hot in that jacket.”

He smiled. “Well, I’m certainly glad you think so. You’re not so bad yourself.”

I regarded my laptop with a sigh. “This is a mess. You really should quality check your wives, Sam. I mean, you did an excellent job of getting rid of the first one, but you may have jumped the gun on the second one.”

“If you say so, Calamity Queen.”

“See? That right there is evidence you need to at least make sure you’re marrying a quality woman. I’m a disaster on two and four feet.”

“You picked me, and I’m not letting you talk yourself out of how perfect we are for each other. I heard you very clearly, Bailey. You wanted to know how you could make the bastard marry you, so I helped you figure that out.”

He really had. “It turns out you’re not really a bastard, your parents are really nice, and I even like the rest of your family despite their oddities.” I sighed. “My mouth always gets me into trouble.”

“You’re perfect for me, and that’s all I care about. I should have quality checked Audrey a little better, but realistically? Because of her, I now have you. That means a lot to me. Life won’t be perfect, but while you’re a disaster on two and four feet, you’re my disaster on two and four feet. So, we’ll go figure out why and how the hell Audrey had gotten into so many messes, put an end to the rabies and gorgon dust issues, and start the rest of our lives without that looming over our heads. Will we find out everything? Probably not. But I’ll sleep better at night knowing we stopped two dangerous threats to humanity.”

“That sounds like a plan to me.”

“Good. Now chin up, work your magic with numbers while I drive, and prepare yourself. I need therapy. I’m terribly distraught and in dire need of your love.”

“And you say I’m something else, Quinn.”