“I’ve hung on because he didn’t do it,” she said matter-of-factly, but the suspicion she’d denied for so long was reasserting itself. What if? her mind kept asking. Did she know Oliver as well as she thought she did?
“Tell me about some of the girls he used to date—or wanted to date or simply admired.”
“Back in high school?” She dropped her hand. Where was Willis going with this? Maybe she was disillusioned, exhausted, confused, but she had to be on her toes constantly. Protect what she had left.
“Anytime.”
“Why? None of the girls Oliver knew back then have been raped or killed. A couple even came forward as character witnesses at his trial.”
“Was there a particular girl he might’ve wanted who didn’t return his interest? Someone he had a crush on?”
She didn’t bother to search her memory. She knew the safe answer. “No. I’m the only woman he’s ever loved.”
“I’m not asking about love.”
“We all meet people we’d like to get with. They come and go. My friend at the salon’s interested in you, right?” Jane suspected most women would have difficulty remaining immune to Willis’s raw sexuality but she liked pretending she wasn’t one of them.
“This wouldn’t be someone who merely turned his head. This would be someone who stood out. A fixation with the prom queen, the captain of the cheer squad, someone he talked about a lot.”
“The captain of the cheer squad was the prom queen, at least in his senior year. I went to the football game with him and watched the crowning ceremony. If I remember right, she wasn’t that attractive. Certainly nothing remarkable.”
“Who was the prettiest girl in school?”
Jane was about to say she had no idea. But then she remembered Oliver staring at a slim redhead who sat on the float next to the prom queen, wearing a stunning evening gown that showed off her incredible figure. He’d been so mesmerized by this homecoming “princess” that Jane had caught him hours later trying to talk her into dancing with him. The girl couldn’t be persuaded, and her refusal had bothered Oliver so much he’d been agitated for the rest of the evening.
Jane hadn’t felt jealous of many girls. Being older was a good thing back then, an advantage, and she wasn’t bad-looking herself. But jealousy had struck hard and fast that night. “Miranda Dodge,” she said, almost automatically.
“Who was she?”
She took another drag on her cigarette. “The girl all the guys wanted.” She blew out the smoke. “The kind you’d probably like. And get.”
“Who’d she end up with?”
“I don’t know. She went on to become a model, though. Last I heard she had a big spread in Playboy.”
“Playboy?” Willis repeated the name of the magazine as if he wanted to be sure he’d heard right.
“Yeah, Playboy.” Shortly after Jane had married Oliver, she’d discovered that particular issue in Oliver’s desk drawer. Which had also bothered her. “Why?”
Willis didn’t respond.
“Detective?” His manner made Jane nervous, and she wondered if she’d given away more than she’d intended by mentioning a pretty girl from Oliver’s past. “He hasn’t had any contact with her. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Do you know anyone who might still be in contact with Miranda?”
She waved the hand with the cigarette. “I have no idea why I even remember her name.” Except for those few hours of intense jealousy and that damn magazine in her husband’s drawer, which had been so dog-eared she’d known he’d spent a great deal of time admiring Miranda’s pictures.
“The age difference between you and Oliver didn’t—”
“Age has nothing to do with attraction,” she said, her words curt.
“You were twenty-two when you started dating. He was barely sixteen. Some parents would worry about him finishing school, getting an education.”
“I was able to put him through school because I had a job,” she said. “They should be damn grateful to me.”
“Are they?”
“I guess they are, now.”
“And then?”
“Until he graduated, we didn’t tell them how old I was. They thought I was going to a high school across town.” She glanced at her watch, wanting to get back to work before she said something that would really cause repercussions. “My break is over.”
He lifted a finger, indicating that he needed just one more minute. “Do you think Oliver ever cheated on you before the incident with Skye?”
This was the question that had gnawed at Jane ever since she’d first heard about Skye Kellerman. Granted, Skye was exceptionally pretty. But if Oliver could succumb to temptation that easily, there had to be other indiscretions, didn’t there? Jane had even wondered if he’d messed around with some of his patients or dental assistants, people she knew and socialized with. Had she given one of her husband’s lovers a Christmas bonus? Had he?
Considering what she’d done since, she couldn’t get too indignant. Still… “You’re wasting your time asking me. I’m the last person he’d tell, for obvious reasons.”
“You might be the last person he’d tell, but I’m betting you’d be the first to guess.”
She took a final drag on her cigarette, which had burned all the way to the filter. “I suspect he did, okay? What wife wouldn’t question his fidelity after what I’ve been through?”
“Did he ever come home late, receive unexplained e-mails or phone calls, act in an evasive manner?”
He was asking her the same question again, going at it from a different angle, one that might slip beneath her defenses. “Not specifically.” Tossing the butt of her cigarette onto the oil-stained blacktop, she crushed it beneath the toe of her high-heeled shoe. “Sometimes when we were out together, he’d stop in the middle of the street to watch a pretty woman walk by. But a lot of men do that.”
“What about his sexual habits?”
“What about them?”
“Would you say he was normal in that regard?”
She already craved another cigarette. “What’s normal? Everyone’s different.” Except that she was pretty sure the detective didn’t have trouble performing on demand. Sometimes Oliver couldn’t get a hard-on. His occasional impotence had been a source of frustration to them both, especially because Oliver always blamed her for any failed attempts to make love. Usually he said she wasn’t exciting enough.