Page 81 of Want to Know a Secret?

“Right.”

He grins at me. “I’ve gotta be honest, Jules. I never got what you saw in the guy.”

He always says that. The God’s honest truth is I never liked Keith the way I liked Riley. But Keith was who I was expected to marry. You don’t move out to Long Island and become president of the PTA if you’re married to Riley Hanrahan. That would be a very different kind of life. At the time, picking a man like Keith seemed like the right thing to do.

“Really,” I say, “it’s none of your business.”

That only makes Riley grin wider. “Funny. That’s exactly what I expected you to say. That’s your answer whenever you don’t have an answer.”

I just roll my eyes.

“And what about the DA’s office? When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know,” I say quietly. Every time I mention the idea to Keith, he’s unenthusiastic. He says if I go back, it should be on the defense side. Better money to be had. But I never liked the defense. From what I could see, almost everyone who walked into that courtroom was guilty.

“You need to come back,” he says. “The guy who took your place? He sucks. They need you.”

I try not to let on how pleased his words make me. I’ve been doing a lot of things with my life since I quit my job: motherhood, the PTA, volunteer work, far too much time at the gym. But nothing ever seems to fill that void.

We each get two slices of cheese pizza with pepperoni on top. At first, I start counting calories, but then I say to hell with it. Today, I’m going to have two slices of greasy pizza. And I’m going to enjoy it.

“So this chick Courtney Burns,” Riley says, when his mouth is stuffed with cheese. He always seems to have something to say when he has a mouthful of food. “That was an interesting one.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Really? How so?”

He puts down his pizza slice. “This is between us, right? This information doesn’t leave Dino’s.”

“Of course.”

“Well…” He takes a drink of soda. I watch him, wondering how he got that scar on his jaw. “Officially, it was ruled a suicide, but they were investigating it as a homicide. The woman was hot and heavy with her boss, some big shot lawyer. And from what I gathered, she was pressuring him big-time to leave his wife and kid. He didn’t want to. But she wasn’t rolling over easy.”

“I see.”

“And then all of a sudden, she takes a bunch of pills and offs herself? No, that doesn’t make sense to me.”

I agree with him. But I keep my mouth shut.

“But the lawyer had an airtight alibi,” Riley says. “He was at work at the time they estimated Burns took the pills. Lots of witnesses. And the lawyer’s wife—they looked into her too—she was home the whole night with her baby and also her mother was visiting. So again, there was a witness.”

I think back to the other day at the nursing home. Janet’s words: I won’t tell anyone. I swear. I’ll say she was with me the whole night.

“Maybe they put the pills in her food?”

“Nah, sounds like they checked for that. And anyway, it wasn’t like she swallowed a few drops of cyanide. It was a huge overdose of one of her own prescription medications—she never would’ve done that by accident. They found the empty bottle of Ativan in her medicine cabinet. And you want to hear the other crazy part?”

I swallow a glob of pizza. “What?”

“She hacked off all her hair before she killed herself.” He makes a snipping motion with his fingers. “With a knife. It was all over her bathtub. Disturbing stuff.”

“Was there a note?”

Riley shakes his head. “No note. And her family and friends also swore there was no way she would do something like that. But you never know. People do crazy stuff. You know it better than anyone.”

“Yes…” That was, after all, how Riley and I first met. He was assigned as a detective on a murder trial where some guy killed and buried his girlfriend in the backyard. I’m the one who made certain the guy was locked up for life. But we wouldn’t have had a chance of nailing the guy without Riley’s solid detective work.

“So.” He picks up his pizza again. “Why the interest?”

I consider telling a lie, but Riley stuck his neck out for me. The least I can do is be honest. “The wife of the lawyer is my neighbor.”