“Exactly what the paper said, Bill. They found a body in one of the old complexes I own down in Lakefield.”

“Did you stash that body there?” The old man’s voice was powerful. Powerful mad.

“Christ, Bill! Of course not! You think I’d do something like that?” Jack tried not to laugh at the lack of guile in the crusty man.

“No I don’t. But I had to ask and hear what you had to say about it.” Thankfully, Bill’s voice dropped in volume. “I’ve had three contractors call me already, concerned I’ll back out of the tower project based on a few lousy articles in The Oregonian. Don’t people think for themselves anymore? Anyone who knows you knows this story’s a bunch of donkey crap.”

Donkey crap? If there was one person he wanted on his side, it was Bill Hendricks. The man’s words were as good as gold in this state and could go a long way in spinning Jack’s crumbling public image.

Jack hung up the phone after another minute of Bill’s monologue, rubbing absently at the deadened patch of skin on his right thigh. If Bill Hendricks was running into people questioning his company’s business future, then other people were having doubts. This rotten publicity was going to be a bitch to handle. How much permanent damage had Michael Brody done to Harper Developing?

“Mr. Harper, your sister’s on line two.”

“Thanks, Janice.” He’d forgotten to tell Janice not to put Melody’s calls through too. She probably wanted him to make an appearance at some benefit or had a philanthropy check to cosign. No one was better at spending the company money for good causes than his older sister. Reluctantly he picked up the line.

After Melody’s call, he sat back in his chair, unable to fight the grin spreading across his face. One of his problems was on the way to being solved. Fate had just handed him a golden opportunity and he was going to take full advantage of it.

He had a fancy party to go to.

In the early evening’s darkening hours, Lacey dashed to the gymnastics academy, finally escaping from the cop who’d sat outside her house all day. He’d hung around until Detective Callahan had called back, updating her on the body found that morning. Attorney Richard Buck had been murdered. Another link to DeCosta. Lacey glanced over her shoulder in the dim parking lot as she left her truck. She’d been twitchy all day, but she wasn’t going to hide under the bed.

Again, the detective suggested she leave town. She told him she’d spend the night at her father’s place. Tomorrow she was attending a fundraiser at Portland’s luxurious Benson Hotel. Maybe she’d get a room there afterward.

Callahan told her Frank had been released from jail, and Lacey said again that she didn’t want to press charges. She wasn’t scared of Frank; she simply didn’t want to deal with him. And she had a hunch he’d learned his lesson. He’d never spent the night in jail before, and she knew the memory would stick with him awhile. What would his patients think if they knew he’d been in jail for assaulting his ex?

She might drop that threat in Frank’s ear if he whined.

Lacey pushed open the heavy door to the gym and inhaled the distinctive smell of disinfectant and sweaty bodies. Her body relaxed at the odor. There was a harmony, a coherence that calmed her whenever she entered a gym; she was in her element. Tiny muscular girls and boys worked the equipment. Shouts of encouragement and rock music from a floor routine echoed off the walls. Her practiced eye followed a teen on the beam.

Between throwing Jack out of her house that morning, Michael’s furious departure, that nasty morning article on page one, Richard Buck’s death, and the topper of her ring being found at the new murder site, she’d become a mental mess. She’d struggled to think straight. She hadn’t wanted to think at all. Her first instinct had been to crawl in bed and put reality at bay with a few mind-numbing pills. It’d taken a lot of strength not to do so. She’d held the bottle of Xanax in her hand for five minutes before putting it back on the shelf, recognizing the signs of a depressive downswing. She’d known her best bet was to throw herself out of the house and get some exercise, hence her escape to the gym. If she’d crawled into bed, it might have been days before she emerged. Unacceptable. She had to find out the truth about Suzanne.

How could Michael print another story about Jack? She shook her head. The article was accurate, of course. Michael wouldn’t print a story without first triple-checking every fact. At least the article had been in the paper’s late edition. Its circulation was a fraction of the morning edition. Lacey crossed her fingers that a new flashy story would push Jack’s name off tomorrow morning’s front page.

Michael had been more than a little irrational when he’d stormed out of her house after seeing the kiss on the disc. She’d chased him out to his vehicle and banged on the window, but he’d simply shaken his head at her, obviously not wanting to talk, and had driven off.

Michael was lucky he was out of state tonight. She was going to throttle him next time she saw him. He was acting like a spoiled kid who didn’t want anyone else playing with his toys.

Little arms wrapped around her thighs and Lacey bent down to give Megan a hug. She’d been teaching tiny tot tumbling once a week for three years now and loved every minute of it. Four-year-olds percolated with energy and life. Each week Lacey would create a different obstacle course that involved basic tumbling skills and games. Zealously, her class would tackle the challenge as she spotted them at the trickier spots. Leaping into the giant pit of sponges, jumping on the trampoline, skipping on the low balance beam.