“Stay,” she ordered and the dog stopped dead in his tracks. Peering through the beveled glass sidelight, she locked gazes with her visitor.
“I’ll be damned.”
The last person Shana had expected to find on her doorstep was Rick Bentz. But there he was in the flesh, arms folded over his chest, legs slightly apart as he stood between the gigantic pots overflowing with trailing red and white petunias. A pair of aviator-type sunglasses were perched on the bridge of a nose that had been broken at least once, probably a couple of times. He’d trimmed down, too, lost maybe fifteen or twenty pounds since she’d last seen him a dozen or so years ago at Jennifer’s funeral.
He’d been a mess then.
Pouring himself into a bottle.
Filled with self-pity and self-loathing, or so she suspected from the psych classes she’d taken at the community college after George, her first husband, had left her for a little flit of a thing named, of all things, Bambi. For the love of God, how much more clichéd could a guy get?
Well, at least she’d learned from that experience.
Now, she unlocked and opened one of the heavy double doors. “Rick Bentz.” She felt her lips twist down at the corners, though a small part of her, that ridiculous, jealous, super-competitive feminine part of her, was secretly interested. She’d told herself that she’d never liked the man. He had a way of staring at her and, without words, urging, almost forcing, her to speak. She became much too glib and nervous around him. It was the whole cop thing. Cops always made her uneasy. But she had to admit he was sexy. In that raw, rugged way that Hollywood was always trying to exploit.
“Shana.” He nodded. Forced a smile. “It’s been a while.”
“More than a while. What’re you doing here?”
“In town for a couple of days. Thought I’d look you up.”
“And what? Catch up?” she asked, feeling one of her eyebrows lift of its own accord. She knew bullshit when she heard it. “Come on, what is this? Some kind of official business?” She stood in the doorway, blocking Bentz and also keeping Dirk, who couldn’t keep from growling a bit, at bay.
“Nothing official.” His smile was damned near disarming. “I’d just like to talk to you about Jennifer.”
That floored her. “Really. Now? After she’s been gone for what? Ten or twelve years? A little late, isn’t it?” She folded her arms under her breasts, felt them lift upward. Good. They were incredible and she knew it. “You know, it seems to me you didn’t pay her a whole lot of attention when she was alive, so why would you want to talk about her now?” She eyed him critically. The guy favored one leg as he stood. What the hell was his deal?
“That’s what I’d like to talk to you about.”
Hmm.
More out of morbid curiosity than an urge to help, Shana moved out of the doorway, grabbing Dirk’s collar and dragging him toward the patio. She figured she might as well work on her tan while she was at it. The dog gave off another low warning growl as she led Bentz down the hallway and through the French doors to the patio. Dirk definitely didn’t make it easy, the big beast. Behind her Bentz limped a little, she noticed, though he tried like hell to hide it.
Once outside, she let go of the dog. “Leave us alone, Dirk. Go!” she said and snapped her fingers, motioning toward the side of the patio where a thicket of palms provided some shade. The dog hesitated for just a second, then padded obediently to a spot in the grass. After a quick circle he laid down, chin on his paws, eyes focused on Bentz.
“Pretty big dog,” Bentz observed, staring at Dirk’s massive head.
“My husband’s. Has him for protection.” A little stretch of the truth there, but hey, why not? “Really, all he does is bark at the neighbor’s yappy little Chihuahuas. I guess I should offer you something to drink. Something…nonalcoholic?” she asked, smiling through her barb at his affinity for the bottle.
“I’m fine.”
She doubted it. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here. “So what’s up?” She settled into one of the faux-wicker chairs surrounding a large glass table and motioned him to have a seat. “What is it you want to know about Jennifer?”
Bentz sat in the shade of an oversized umbrella. “Her suicide,” he said.
Shana frowned, felt her lips pull into a knot of frustration.
“You were one of her closest friends. I thought you could tell me her state of mind before her death—did she really want to end it all?”
“Wow. That’s it? You want my take on what she was thinking?”
“Yeah.”
Okay, he asked. Shana rolled the years back in her head, remembered Jennifer—fun and naughty and terminally sexy. “It never made sense to me. She was too full of life, too into herself to want to end it.”
“We found a note.”
“Oh, pooh!” She swiped at the air as if a bothersome fly were buzzing around her head. “I don’t know what that was all about. Sure, she told me she fought depression at times, but…I didn’t think it was that serious. Maybe I was wrong, but I would have bet at the time she wrote the note it was just a way to get attention, you know? She was big on that. I mean who kills themselves by driving into a tree?”
He was listening, not bothering to take notes.
“She could’ve had an accident, I’ll grant you that. She was known to drink a little and then there were pills, but…” She looked him straight in the eye. “If you’re asking me if I think Jennifer was capable of suicide, I’d say no. Just like I said pretty loudly at the time she died.”
Bentz nodded. As if he remembered.
“I lived with Jennifer at Berkeley and then afterward when…you know she was dating Alan Gray? No, not just dating. I think they were engaged for a while, right?”
She saw the narrowing of his eyes, the quiet assent behind his shaded glasses.
“But she didn’t move in with Alan, probably because she met you. Personally, I thought she was crazy. I mean, Alan was this super-rich real estate developer. God, he must’ve been worth tens of millions. Yet, she fell for you. A cop. Threw the millionaire over. Go figure.” Shana sighed theatrically. “But then who could figure our girl out? Jennifer was nothing if not a dichotomy.” Shana remembered Jennifer the flirt. Jennifer the extrovert. Jennifer the wild. But never could she recall Jennifer the morose. “However, I never considered Jennifer someone who would hurt herself. Not intentionally. I mean I just don’t think she was capable of it. She would do a lot of things for attention. A lot. But never really self-destructive.” Shana caught herself and sighed. “Well, unless you mean the affair.” She met his gaze, but she doubted it so much as flickered behind his shades. “James was definitely her Achilles’ heel.” She looked away to the pool where sunlight danced on the water, clear and aquamarine. “Look, it’s been a long time and really, I don’t know what was in her head at the time. I just doubt that it was suicide.”
Bentz asked her a few more questions about her friendship, then, when she looked at her watch, came up with the bombshell.
“Do you think Jennifer could have faked her death?”
“What?” She was shocked. “Are you kidding?” But he wasn’t. His face was stone-cold sober. “No way. I mean,