The First Wife by Diana Diamond

Author:Diana Diamond [Diamond, Diana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-312-32147-5
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2004-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

21

Jane smiled when she let herself into her own apartment. It was little more than a closet after a week in William Andrews’s penthouse, and the furnishings were bland. But it was hers. She had felt the heat of the spotlight and now she savored the delights of her anonymity. She kicked off her shoes, changed into jeans, and then scanned a week’s worth of mail while she waited for her coffee to perk. Then she sat down at her computer, logged on to the Times’ morgue, and began searching for Selina Royce.

It didn’t take her long. She started with the name and the year of Kay Parker’s death. When that came up blank, she went a year earlier. Two entries popped up. The first was an article on her move to the Andrews Cable News network from a cable service in San Antonio, Texas. Andrews had acquired the property, installed a new manager, and then brought Selina to New York. The second was a photograph taken at a cable news awards dinner. She recognized Andrews, a bit younger and leaner, and Robert Leavitt, whose hair was longer and parted in the middle. She also picked out Gordon Frier, one of the executives she had met on her trip to Paris. There were three women in the photo, one flashing Kay Parker’s society smile. Jane had to check the caption to identify Kim Annuzio, who, with her hair styled and wearing an off-the-shoulder dress, didn’t at all resemble the executive in slacks and blouse. Then, seated between Andrews and Leavitt, was Selina Royce, terribly serious and very attractive.

Her look was evening-news grave rather than morning-news giddy. She wore her dark hair long and close to her face. Her chin was held high, displaying a long neck that blended into perfect shoulders. Even in the computer reproduction of a grainy news photo, she seemed a happy marriage of brains and body, not at all unlike Kay Parker.

There was William, sitting comfortably between Kay and Selina, touching neither one of them and totally involved with the camera. It was a scene of harmony at a moment of victory, with the two women as alike as a pair of queens flanking the king. Yet within a few months Kay would be dead and William would be paying a monthly stipend to keep Selina in Paris. It seemed impossible. Jane couldn’t imagine what must have happened that morning at the ski lodge.

She went back through all her printouts. Over and over again was the mention of an intruder, a figure who seemed to have arrived from nowhere and disappeared without a trace. Someone Robert Leavitt would have had to pass on the road as he drove up from the inn to William’s aid. She found the newspaper report on the neighbors who had been questioned. What struck her was that none of them knew the others except by name and for a passing nod. They were all successful families who came up to the mountains on weekends precisely to be alone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.