Deadly Fall Read Online Free

reached inside his jacket, pulled out a digital voice recorder and placed it on the table. “Do you mind if I record this conversation?”
     
    Is that what it’s called these days?
     
    Augusta waved a dismissive hand. “Of course not.”
     
    He checked the device, activated it and rattled off the date, time and their names. Finally, he looked at her and said, “Describe your relationship with the deceased.”
     
    Her mouth tightened. “Please don’t call him ‘the deceased.’ His name was Drew. Andrew James Langan.”
     
    Red stained the tops of Detective Murtagh’s cheeks. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Please describe your relationship with Andrew Langan.”
     
    “We are—were—” She broke off, took another deep breath and tried again. “We were friends who made the mistake of getting married. Things didn’t work out and we filed for divorce.”
     
    “‘We’?” Detective Markov repeated, startling her with the sound of his low voice and the note of doubt in that single word. More than doubt. Bad cop.
     
     
     
    Nick kept his expression bland as he studied the woman across from him. She looked small and vulnerable, except for the eyes that told him to go to hell and made him wish they were alone. However, he had a homicide to solve, and she was a suspect. She was their best suspect, in fact.
     
    “You’re right. I filed for divorce but Drew didn’t contest it.”
     
    “He did at first,” Nick said.
     
    She tilted her head. “You talked to Adam.”
     
    Nick let her read the suspicion in his eyes. “What was the exact reason for the divorce?”
     
    She stiffened, then her large, brown eyes went as carefully blank as her expression. “If you talked to Adam, you already know.”
     
    Nick waited.
     
    “Irreconcilable differences,” she said finally.
     
    “Which can mean any number of things.”
     
    Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. “Drew came to me six months ago and confessed that he had a brief affair with…someone.”
     
    “How brief was brief?”
     
    “A week—not even. Maybe a one-night stand.”
     
    “With whom?”
     
    Her gaze slid away from him and she shook her head. “I don’t know. He never said.”
     
    Augusta Langan was a terrible liar, Nick thought, pleased despite the circumstances. “Was this the first time?”
     
    “Yes.” He could see her delicate throat muscles flex and ripple as she swallowed. “Drew said it would never happen again.”
     
    “But you didn’t believe him.”
     
    “No. I did believe him, but I realized then he and I shouldn’t have married in the first place.”
     
    “Why?”
     
    Augusta leaned back in her chair. “A lot of reasons. His family didn’t approve, which created a lot of tension. They thought I married Drew for his money, which wasn’t true, but I didn’t marry him for love either. I love…loved him, and he loved me, but we weren’t in love with each other.”
     
    She paused, waiting, and after Nick nodded, continued. “We thought we could make it work. It didn’t, and after four years and his affair, I realized that it wasn’t fair to either of us to be tied to each other.”
     
    The corners of Nick’s mouth dipped down further. “We have statements saying that the de—Andrew Langan didn’t want the divorce.”
     
    A faint smile lit her eyes briefly, making Nick want to reach across and feel her smile with his fingers, and then taste it with the tip of his tongue. It was strong, this urge that had stealthily sneaked up on him.
     
    Nick reigned in the absurd impulse, but it was already too late. His heart was beating double time, pumping blood to his lower body and raising his temperature. Nick shifted subtly in his seat, trying to ease the tightness in his jeans—a tightness that had started since the first moment she opened the front door and he was teased with a vision of a tousled mane of inky hair and a body and face still flushed with sleep. Her half-lidded eyes brought