Private Scandals

Cronkite,” he murmured, drawing Deanna to her feet.
    “We should find him a wife.”
    “You just want to go to the pound again and liberate another mutt.”
    “Now that you mention it . . .” But her smile faded quickly. “Finn, I have to talk to you about something.”
    “Sounds serious.”
    “Can we go upstairs?”
    She wanted the bedroom, since it was almost fully restored. He’d seen that the work there had been completed first. The things that hadn’t been destroyed had been placed there. Above the bed, where she knew a desperate message had been scrawled, the paint was fresh and clean. He’d hung the painting there—the one he had bought out from under her in the gallery so long ago.
    Awakenings. All those vivid splashes of color. That energy and verve. He’d known she’d needed it there, a reminder of life. And so the room had become a haven.
    “Are you upset about Kate?”
    “Yes.” She kept her hand in his as they climbed the stairs. “But this is about something else.” She walked into the bedroom, moved to the fireplace, the window, then back. “I love you, Finn.”
    The tone put him on guard. “We’ve established that.”
    “Loving you doesn’t mean I have the right to intrude in every area of your life.”
    Curious, he tilted his head. He could read her like a book. She was worried. “Which areas do you consider off limits?”
    “You’re annoyed.” Baffled, she tossed up her hands. “I can never quite understand how easily I can set you off, especially when I’m trying to be reasonable.”
    “I hate it when you think you’re being reasonable. Just spill it, Deanna.”
    “Fine. What did Angela have on you?”
    His expression altered subtly, from impatience to utter confusion. “Huh?”
    “Don’t do that.” She ripped off her coat and tossed it aside. In her tasteful black suit and damp shoes, she paced the room. “If you don’t want to tell me, just say so. I’ll agree that anything you’ve done in the past isn’t necessarily connected to our relationship.”
    “Slow down, and stop stalking around the room. What do you think I’ve done?”
    “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded shrill to herself. “I don’t know,” she said more calmly. “And if you think I don’t need to know, I’ll try to accept it. But once the police question this Beeker character, your secret is bound to come out anyway.”
    “Hold on.” He held up both hands as she unbuttoned her suit jacket. “If I’m reading this correctly—and stop me anytime if I veer off—you think that Angela was blackmailing me. Have I got that part?”
    Marching to the closet, she yanked out a padded hanger. “I said I wouldn’t intrude if you didn’t want me to. I was being reasonable.”
    “You certainly were.” He came over, clamped his hands on her shoulders and steered her rigid body to a chair. “Now sit down. And tell me why you think I was being blackmailed.”
    “I went to meet Angela that night because she said she knew something about you. Something that could hurt you.”
    He sat himself then, on the edge of the bed, as a new kind of fury ate at him. “She lured you to the studio by threatening me?”
    “Not directly. Not exactly.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “There was nothing she could tell me that would change my feelings for you. I wanted to make sure she understood that. That she left us both alone.”
    “Deanna, why didn’t you come to me?”
    She winced from the simple, rational question. “Because I wanted to handle her myself,” she shot back. “Because I don’t need you or anyone running interference for me.”
    “Isn’t that precisely what you misguidedly tried to do for me?”
    That shut her up, but again, only for a moment. It was, she knew, master interviewer against master interviewer. And it was a competition she didn’t mean to lose. “You’re evading the issue. What would she have told me, Finn?”
    “I don’t have a clue. I’m not gay; I don’t use drugs; I’ve never stolen anything. Except a couple of comic books when I was twelve—and nobody could prove it.”
    “I don’t think this is funny.”
    “She wasn’t blackmailing me, Deanna. I had an affair with her, but that was no secret. She wasn’t the first woman I’d been involved with, but there haven’t been any deviant sexual encounters I’d want to hide. I don’t have any ties to organized crime, never embezzled. I’m not hiding any illegitimate children. I never