He buried her against his body in a bear hug, twisting around the steering wheel. "Listen," he fairly yelled, "I never lied to you-never! And I never will." She continued to cry in muffled sobs against his chest. When her sobs began to subside, he spoke in as calm a voice as he could muster. "I haven't been lying to you and I haven't for one minute been seeing you so I could fish for information." And then he added, "I've been seeing you because I care more about you than anyone I've ever met." She shuddered against him.

"Look," he continued, "Arthur Atherton represents a petty crook the FBI is interested in. Some money turned up missing and I made a stupid off-hand comment in front of him about a connec­tion to Scranton where your husband had visited. Vinnie Baratto, the con, recognized that your husband was missing and got it into his head Jeff might have come across the money. Vinnie was des­perate to place the blame for the missing dough on anyone but himself. He most likely told his attorney. I don't know what Arthur Atherton is up to but he has no more evidence your husband is alive than the man in the moon."

"Then why would he say that?" she sniffed.

"He's probably trying to con you out of some dough."

"I don't have any money." She added, "I don't want to talk to that man, I don't." Then she pushed away from Dean and looked straight at him with red and swollen eyes. "You can't know what it's like to even have a hint something like that is true-that someone you lived with for 20 years...."

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He hoped the darkened car would mask his face. "You read my report. All the evidence points to an accident...."

She stared at him for several seconds, and then bristled, "But there's more, isn't there? You're not telling me everything." He began to protest but she waved him aside. "That's the same as lying!"

"No, it isn't. Why should I confuse you with unproven suppo­sitions that may be totally irrelevant?"

"God," she shouted. "You're worse than Jeff-trying to protect me! I despised it when he did it and I hate it now! Am I too weak-too stupid to handle the truth? Don't you think I'd want to know if my husband-just left me-just took some stupid money and ran?"

"I'm not lying when I say there is no firm proof that your hus­band's death was anything more than an accidental drowning- that's what the overwhelming evidence shows. And there's no con­nection tying him to that money."




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