Private Scandals

confrontations, Lieutenant, but I don’t run away from them, as a rule. Angela and I had a history that I’m sure you’re aware of.”
    “You were competitors.” Jenner inclined his head a fraction. “You didn’t like each other.”
    “No, we didn’t like each other, and it was very personal on both sides. I was ready to have it out with her, and a part of me hoped that we could settle things amicably. Another part was looking forward to yanking out a few handfuls of her hair. I won’t deny I wanted her out of my way, but I didn’t want her dead.” She looked back at Jenner, calmernow, steadier. “Is that why you’re here? Am I a suspect?”
    Jenner rubbed a hand over his chin. “The victim’s husband, Dan Gardner, seems to think you hated her enough to kill her. Or have her killed.”
    “Have her killed?” Deanna blinked at that and nearly laughed. “So now I hired a convenient hit man, paid him to murder Angela, knock me unconscious and roll tape. Very inventive of me.” She sprang up, color washing back into her cheeks. “I don’t even know Dan Gardner. It’s flattering that he should consider me so clever. And what was my motive? Ratings points? It seems to me I should have arranged it so that I didn’t miss the November sweeps.”
    The bruised, helpless look was gone, Jenner noted. She was fired up, burning on indignation and disgust. “Miss Reynolds, I didn’t say we agreed with Mr. Gardner.”
    She stared for a moment, eyes kindling. “Just wanted a reaction? I hope I satisfied you.”
    Jenner cocked a brow. “Miss Reynolds, did you visit Miss Perkins at her hotel on the night she was murdered?”
    “No.” Frustrated, Deanna raked a hand through her hair. “Why should I have? We were meeting at the studio.”
    “You might have gotten impatient.” Jenner knew he was reaching. Deanna’s fingerprints hadn’t been found in the suite, certainly they weren’t on the extra champagne flute.
    “Even if I had, Angela told me that she’d be busy until midnight. She had meetings.”
    “Did she mention with whom?”
    “We weren’t chatting, Detective, and I had no interest in her personal or her business plans.”
    “You knew she had enemies?”
    “I knew she wasn’t particularly well liked. Part of that might have been her personality, and part of it was because she was a woman with a great deal of power. She could be hard and vindictive. She could also be charming and generous.”
    “I don’t imagine you found it charming when she arranged for you to walk in on her and Dr. Pike, in compromising circumstances.”
    “That’s old news.”
    “But you were in love with him?”
    “I was almost in love with him,” Deanna corrected. “A very large difference.” Oh, what was the point of all this? she wondered, and rubbed at the headache brewing dead center of her forehead. “I won’t deny it hurt me, and it infuriated me, and it changed my feelings about both of them irrevocably.”
    “Dr. Pike tried to continue your relationship.”
    “He didn’t look on the incident in the same way I did. I wasn’t interested in continuing anything with him, and I made that clear.”
    “But he did persist for quite a while.”
    “Yes.”
    Jenner recognized the emotion behind the clipped response. “And the notes, the ones you’ve been receiving with some regularity for several years. Did you ever consider that he was sending them?”
    “Marshall?” She shook her head. “No. They’re not his style.”
    “What is?”
    Deanna’s eyes shut. She remembered the photographs, the detective’s report. “Perhaps you should ask him.”
    “We will. Have you been involved with anyone other than Dr. Pike? Anyone who might have been so disturbed by the announcement of your engagement to Mr. Riley that they would break into your office, or Mr. Riley’s home?”
    “No, there’s been—what do you mean, break in?” She gripped the wing of the chair she stood beside.
    “It seems logical that whoever sent the notes is also responsible for the destruction of your office and the house you share with Mr. Riley,” Jenner began. And, he believed, for Angela’s murder.
    “When?” Deanna could barely whisper the word. “When did this happen?”
    Intrigued, Jenner stopped tapping his pencil on his pad. The rosy glow anger had brought to Deanna’s cheeks had drained, leaving her face white as bone. Riley hadn’t toldher yet, he realized. And the man wasn’t going to be pleased to have