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  “Don’t interfere in what you don’t understand.” Gabe went into the kitchen to put the Glenlivet back in the cupboard, and when he came out, he was putting his coat on. “I have to go talk to Riley. I’ll see you later.”

  Nell watched him go and thought, You’re so smart about everything else, but you can’t let go of the past. She shook her head and stroked Marlene’s silky head and tried not to think about Lynnie or anybody else for a while. So much pain everywhere, she thought, and then Marlene snuggled closer, and she felt a little comforted.

  * * *

  “She was frozen?” Suze said the next day at brunch.

  “I’m so glad I never use my freezer,” Margie said. “Stewart wanted one because he liked steaks, but I think fresh food is important.”

  Nell looked at her, dumbfounded, and Suze nodded toward Margie’s orange juice glass. “Mimosa,” she said to Nell. “She ordered before you got here. That’s her third.”

  “If she’d been a vegetarian,” Margie said, oblivious, “she wouldn’t have died.”

  “It wasn’t her freezer,” Nell said, not amused. “It was her landlady’s freezer. She didn’t have a freezer.”

  “So somebody just put her in there?” Suze sat back. “At least Jack left me, he didn’t freeze me.”

  “Gabe said it looked like there was a bruise on her forehead, but it was hard to tell. She was…” Nell swallowed, thinking about what Lynnie must have looked like, and Margie shoved her mimosa toward her.

  “Here,” she said. “It helps.”

  Nell took the glass and drank.

  “Are you okay?” Suze said. “I didn’t realize you knew her that well.”

  “I didn’t,” Nell said, pushing Margie’s glass back to her. “Just that one morning. But I liked her. She was a fighter. She fought dirty, but I think she was probably fighting with guys who fought dirty.”

  “What guys?” Margie said. “Was she engaged?”

  “Gabe thinks she was blackmailing somebody,” Suze said, and Nell kicked her on the ankle. Margie didn’t need to know the “somebody” included her father and her fiancé.

  Margie looked sadly at the bottom of her empty mimosa glass. “Somebody blackmailed me once.”

  “What?” Nell said.

  Margie waved to the waitress. “Another mimosa, please.”

  “Make that a black coffee,” Suze told the waitress, who looked at Margie and nodded.

  “Who tried to blackmail you?” Nell said to Margie.

  “Some woman.” Margie sighed as the waitress brought her a cup and filled it. When the waitress was gone, she said, “She wanted twenty thousand dollars, but I didn’t have it. Budge says I should declare Stewart dead now, before I get any broker, but it just seems wrong. I mean, he’s missing, not dead. I think.”

  “Margie,” Suze said, her voice carefully reasonable. “Why did she want twenty thousand dollars?”

  “She said I’d killed Stewart.” Margie took her thermos of soy milk out of her bag and topped up her coffee. “She said if I didn’t pay her, she’d tell everybody.” She sipped her coffee until the level had dropped half an inch, and then she poured more soy milk in. “Which was ridiculous. I mean, clearly we didn’t know the same people. What did I care if she told her friends that?”

  “Just how hard did you hit him?” Suze said.

  “When?” Nell said.

  “Any time,” Margie said, sipping her soy and caffeine. “I was never going to know her friends.”

  Nell took a deep breath. “No, when did she call?”

  “Last year.” Margie put her cup down and went back to her vegetarian eggs Benedict. “I never make this because the Hollandaise sauce is such a pain.”

  “When last year?” Nell said.

  “Hmmm? Oh, it was before you got your job because I was worried about you not eating and I was looking at a recipe for cheese crepes when she called. I remember looking at the picture when she asked for the money. Do you like crepes?”

  “Margie,” Nell said. “When did she call?”

  Margie frowned, thinking. “When did you get your job?”

  “September,” Nell said.

  Margie shrugged. “Then it was August. But it didn’t matter because she never called back.”

  “Did you tell anybody?” Nell said.

  “Daddy and Budge,” Margie said, reaching for the coffee again. “They said it was a prank. Budge said to forget it, it was over. So I did.” She sipped from her cup and then said, “Oh. Was it Lynnie?”

  “Hard to say,” Nell said. “But it doesn’t matter. Budge was right, it’s over.”

  “Budge is always right,” Margie said and put her cup down. “He says we should get married as soon as I declare Stewart dead. It’s really a problem because I would like the insurance money, but it’s wrong to declare Stewart dead if he isn’t, and once he’s dead I’ll have to tell Budge I don’t want to marry him, and that’s going to be awful. Could I have one more mimosa, please?”

  Suze signaled the waitress. “Three mimosas,” she told her.

  “You, too?” Nell said.

  “It’s the freezer,” Suze said. “If he’d just killed her, that would have been bad enough, but he put her body in the freezer.”

  “Actually, it’s worse than that,” Nell said. “Gabe said the bruise on her forehead didn’t look bad, that she probably hadn’t been killed first, that whoever hit her had probably put her in the freezer unconscious but alive and she froze to death.”

  “Oh, God,” Suze said.

  “That’s like Jack,” Margie said. “He put you in that big house and didn’t want you to work or anything. He froze you to death, too.”

  Suze winced and Nell said, “Margie, shut up,” and Margie jerked back a little, looking hurt. “I’m sorry,” Nell said, “I’m really sorry I said that. This thing with Lynnie is just … I liked her and somebody killed her.” She took a deep breath and tried again. “I felt so stupid about sitting around for a year and a half after Tim, and I really admired her for fighting back.”

  “Don’t feel stupid,” Suze said gloomily. “I understand perfectly.”

  “But Lynnie didn’t sit around,” Nell said. “She went after people. And they killed her. I mean, you really have to think, are those our choices? Sit still and be nice or get killed?”

  “More women get killed by men they know than by strangers,” Margie said. “It was on Oprah. I like Oprah, but sometimes she’s depressing.”

  Suze let her breath out. “Lynnie was blackmailing people, for heaven’s sake. That’s a high-risk career.”

  “It was some guy who did it,” Nell said. “I will bet you anything. Some guy from her past who had betrayed her. She was getting even with him.”

  “Jack,” Suze said.

  “I don’t know.” Nell stared at her French toast. “Do you think Jack would kill somebody?”

  “No,” Suze said. “But he’s got the betrayal thing down pat.”

  They sat silent until the waitress brought their mimosas, and then Margie said, “Do you think you could come by and show me that eBay thing you were talking about? The place that has the Fiestaware? You can sell things on there, too, right?”

  “Sure,” Suze said. “You can look at the running cups, too.”

  “No,” Margie said. “They’re not my style.”

  * * *

  The police came to talk to Gabe again on Monday, and he told them the truth: He didn’t know who’d hit Lynnie. Then they questioned Nell in the outer office, and that made him edgy; they couldn’t possibly think she had anything to do with it. It took everything he had not to say, “Get away from her,” and by the time they left, he was as annoyed at Nell as he was with them. If she hadn’t taken it upon herself to go after the damn money, she’d never have met Lynnie, she wouldn’t have been around when Doris had found her, and she wouldn’t be on the police’s top-ten favorite witness list now.

  So when she came in, he scowled at her, and when she said, “Th