By a Spider's Thread: A Tess Monaghan Novel Read Online Free Page A

of…well, it’s certainly something they look at.”
    She had not wanted to say,
It’s usually a sign that a person is dead.
    “They know what you know, and they still don’t think this is a matter for them. They have these, too.”
    He took a folder from his briefcase and brought out three photographs. The first could have been a miniature Mark Rubin, a boy with the same dark eyes and hair, although not the somber expression. He beamed at the camera, a little self-conscious, but clearly happy at whatever moment he had been captured. He was holding a plaque, so perhaps it was an awards ceremony.
    “Isaac, my oldest.”
    The next photo showed a boy and girl of the same height. Their hair was several shades lighter than the older boy’s and their features sharper — narrow eyes with a hint of a tilt, prominent cheekbones that gave them a foxy look. They must favor their mother.
    “The twins, Penina and Efraim.”
    He was shy about sliding the last photograph to Tess, or perhaps just reluctant to surrender it. The woman in the picture was gorgeous, an absolute knockout, with the lush lips and heavy-lidded eyes of a movie star. Not just any movie star but a specific one, although Tess couldn’t pull up the memory. Ava Gardner? Elizabeth Taylor? One of those smoldering brunettes from the studio days. The dark hair was perfect, cut and shaped into curls that looked too natural to be anything but labor-intensive, and the makeup had the same deceptively simple aspect. She had taken less care with her clothing, content with a simple cardigan that was buttoned to the top, the wings of a white collar visible above the dark wool.
    She also was the unhappiest-looking woman Tess had ever seen, a woman whose very expression — the dark eyes, the set mouth, which really was the shape of a Cupid’s bow — bespoke a secret burden. But Mark Rubin looked at the photo as if all he could see was the beauty.
    “Your wife — did she have a history of psychiatric problems?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Why ‘of course not’? There’s no shame in having emotional problems.” Tess didn’t bother to tell Rubin that she had just finished her own course of court-ordered therapy. It was simply too long a story. “It’s all chemicals, just another organ in your body having problems.”
    “I know
that
.” Still too sharp, too defensive. “But chemicals are not the issue here.”
    “What about organs?”
    “Excuse me?”
    But that was as close as Tess would get to asking Mark Rubin if he and his wife had a fulfilling sex life.
    “So there were no problems, and you don’t have a clue why your wife left, and you’re not even sure she wanted to leave, yet you don’t think there’s foul play involved?”
    “Sometimes — I mean, I have no evidence of this — but sometimes I think maybe she left to protect me from something.”
    “Such as?”
    “Nothing that I know of. But I can think of no other reason she would leave. Whatever she does, she always puts her family first.”
    “Is there anything to support this, um, idea?”
    “No, not really.” His shoulders, which he had been holding so straight and square, sagged. “I honestly don’t know what is going on.”
    Tess looked at the photos in front of her. If there had been only one, and it had been the wife, she would have advised him to save his money and go home. She might have even recited the dorm-wall-poster wisdom of letting something go if you really loved it. But there were the children to consider. They were entitled to their father. He was right, even admirable, in his desire not to let them go.
    “I’m going to scan these pictures into my computer, so you don’t have to leave them with me. Besides, then I can print them out as necessary, show them to people, create flyers.”
    “And then?” he asked.
    “I never promise results in any case, and I’m not starting with a lot of leads. But I have some ideas about how to proceed. Meanwhile, I’ll need you to