Mischief 24/7. Kasey Michaels

out who had paid the freight for Tarin’s pretty smile.”

      “Joshua Brainard.”

      “Exactly. And suddenly, dotting the final i’s and crossing the final t’s on the Vanishing Bride case had to take a number and get in line, because this was big—huge. He tried to see Joshua at his campaign headquarters, but the great man was too busy with his race to be elected to see him, so Teddy went after the wife, Melodie. Teddy was on to something, Court, he was close. Close enough to call attention to himself. And Joshua Brainard has a lot to lose, doesn’t he?”

      “Do you think Melodie told Teddy anything?”

      Jade shook her head. “I don’t know. The better question might be—what did Teddy tell her? Let’s switch to what we learned from the girl who shampooed Melodie Brainard’s hair about ten days before the murder. She told us about the bruises on Melodie’s neck and cheek, the ones Melodie tried to cover with makeup, remember? And then that business about that same shampoo girl overhearing Melodie telling her hairdresser she wasn’t going to take it anymore, who did he think he was…whatever that was all about. So, yes, Teddy might have told her something, and maybe she repeated what he’d said to Brainard, who went ballistic on her.”

      “All of this taking place about two weeks before they were both dead. Teddy kept going back to see Melodie, didn’t he? Including that last night. He had some information or some plan we still don’t know about, didn’t he?”

      “But I think we do know about it, Court,” Jade said, her heart pounding so hard she was surprised he didn’t hear it, and comment on it. She still couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed anything different in Teddy’s behavior, or that he hadn’t chosen to confide in her. When adding up her list of hurts, those two things pretty much topped the list. “I think I suddenly understand why Teddy kept going back to Melodie Brainard, kept working on her, and why he needed her.”

      Court laid down the pen. He’d stopped taking notes long ago. “Feel up to sharing?”

      Jade pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry. I feel like Jessica, jumping to conclusions—and thank God Matt has put so many stars in her eyes that she hasn’t seen this yet for herself, not that she won’t soon, which is why I’m actually glad she’s gone right now. But I think I know better how Teddy operated, having worked with him. I think I know what he was after. If he had connected the cases, that is. I mean, the idea that the baby’s body was frozen for all those months? What other reason than to disguise the time of death, make it unlikely that Tarin’s death would be in any way connected to the baby’s death, correct?”

      “Is this all coming to a head anytime soon? Like Jolie and Sam and Jess, I also don’t have my PI license, remember?”

      Jade closed her eyes for a second and then looked at Court. “I’m betting Teddy was after Brainard’s DNA. The man’s staff wouldn’t let Teddy near him, so what better way to get it than to ask the little wife’s help?”

      “Why would Melodie Brainard want to help Teddy?”

      Jade shrugged. “It wasn’t a happy marriage? Remember the bruises, Court. Teddy and I worked a lot of divorces, have met a lot of wronged wives. He’d have picked up on Melodie’s unhappiness in a heartbeat, and then worked it to his advantage. That’s what he did so well, turning on his Irish charm for the ladies who felt neglected and abused. You’d be amazed to watch him work a divorce case. Even in a no-fault commonwealth like Pennsylvania, smart wives know that having a little leverage, be it a mistress or some iffy business dealings, can go a long way in fattening up the private divorce settlement.”

      “Is this where I thank you and Teddy for not putting me through the wringer in our divorce, even though I kept telling your lawyer that anything I had was yours? Not that I had anything to hide, mind you.”

      Jade made a dismissive motion with her hand, her mind locked tight on where she was going. “Shh. I’m on a roll here.”

      “I’ll make a note not to get back to that subject later,” Court said, grinning at her. “All right, Nancy Drew, carry on. I’m impressed, I really am.”

      “I’ll ignore that crack, too. We know the marriage hadn’t been real for a lot of years. Brainard was being all boyish and penitent to Jolie and Sam, blaming himself, their inability to have children, all that stuff. He didn’t just hint or suggest, he came right out and said it. Honest Joshua, Philadelphia’s next mayor, confessing that he and his wife were the best of friends in an otherwise loveless marriage. Jolie said she wanted to puke, except the guy is so good at coming off all boyish and sincere that she was mad at herself for disliking him. Oh, damn it…”

      Court covered her hand with his own. “What’s the matter? Something’s bothering you. What are you thinking that obviously hasn’t occurred to me?”

      “What if Melodie saw her chance to lord it over Joshua, and told him she’d given Teddy some of his hair, his toothbrush, whatever? No, maybe not that. That would be stupid, because then she’s smack in the middle of a public scandal. She wouldn’t have wanted that. I mean, she would have left Brainard long ago, right, unless there was something in the marriage for her. Money, position, that sort of thing. Less stupid, making it plausible, is that she threatened Brainard with something Teddy had told her, in order to scare him. Sort of an ‘I know what you did’ kind of threat that would get her something she wanted. Blackmail. People are that kind of stupid all the time. And it always backfires.”

      “What would she have wanted?”

      “Like maybe she was tired of playing the game of public happy family, lousy private life, and she wanted a divorce after the election and half his considerable wealth in exchange for her silence? Or maybe she was a romantic, still loved the bastard, and the demand was that good old Josh keep it zipped and come home once in a while. Maybe Tarin was the only straying he ever did—but I’m doubting it, not if he and Melodie weren’t living as man and wife all these years. The guy’s ego couldn’t take not having it, and other parts of him, stroked on a regular basis.”

      “Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of a TV cop show, do you know that, Jade? Who writes your dialogue?”

      Jade felt herself blushing. “Sorry. Cop talk again. It can be a little raunchy, but it doesn’t really mean anything and keeps a person from feeling too much when facts are what we need to concentrate on. Teddy didn’t bother to watch his words around me. But let’s get back to this, okay? Does anything I said make sense to you?”

      “I think so, yes. Especially the part about Melodie trying to hold what she thought she knew over Brainard’s head and Brainard deciding that his wife—and of course, Teddy—had to go. Kill one, blame it on the other one, play the grieving widower all the way to City Hall in November. The press has already all but ordained him, his wife’s murder passed over in favor of concentrating on the bereaved husband who will press on through this personal tragedy for the good of the city. Very neat, a tidy, convenient solution to all his problems.”

      Jade closed her eyes for a moment. “Kills Tarin, kills his own son and then stands there as Tarin is buried, not even blinking. Nearly two decades later, another problem slams him in the chops. What can he do? So he thinks, hey, if it worked once to solve his problems, murder, that is, why couldn’t it work again? They say it’s the only thing that gets easier the more you do it—killing people. Joshua Brainard is a monster, isn’t he? A sociopath with no heart or conscience.”

      “If we’re right, yes. If we’re wrong, he’s the wildly popular and lovable guy with a fistful of top-tier Philadelphia lawyers ready to strip us all to our skivvies in a civil lawsuit. Which begs the question—what next? We’re still working on that slim margin of facts up against a ton of conjecture.”

      “Yes, but what if we’re right, down-the-line right, start to finish? I don’t think this can wait for Matt and Jessica to get back. We can’t hold off a moment longer than we have to, not with the news about Tarin White not being a Fishtown Strangler victim going to hit the papers at any time. We’ve got nothing