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“That's . . . probably wise,” Teddy said, and then sat down and shut up. Ginny sat next to him, with Este presiding in a straight-backed chair, as regal as any queen.

Ginny took the lead, laying out what they'd learned, in as gentle a manner as she could, telling her about Wendy's findings with the ledger.

When she had finished, she leaned back slightly and let Teddy pick up. Este was so pale, he felt like he was kicking someone when they were already down, but he went on, telling her about seeing Williams at the antineuter meeting.

The guy had been with them since the beginning, based on the photos they saw. Hearing all this couldn't be easy, or pleasant.

“The evidence we've gathered isn't conclusive,” Ginny said when he was finished, “and we don't want to accuse anyone. But there
is
evidence, and we can't ignore the fact that they all point to Dr. Williams being involved in at least part of what's been going on here.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

Teddy had thought she would throw them out then and there, blaming the messenger for the message. But Este Snyder was of sterner material than that; he recognized the tight-lipped, drawn-cheekbones signs of a woman steeling herself to deal with unpleasantness: he'd seen it enough growing up.

“While I am not happy that he has any connection whatsoever with those . . . lunatic vandals,” Este said, “the fact is that simply attending a meeting—and you admit that he was not there for the entire thing—isn't cause for suspicion. He might have been there for much the same reason as you, after all. He has seen firsthand the damage they do, maybe he wanted to confront them directly.”

Teddy had to admit that she had a point. And his own observations that the animals didn't like him seemed too silly to even mention. He wasn't too fond of his own doctor, and he
knew
why the guy stuck him with needles and looked in his ears.

Almost instinctively he looked over his shoulder toward the door at the far side of the room, but it remained closed, the receptionists' cubby dark. They didn't have the usual Plexiglas window, just an open space. He supposed there wasn't much need for it. He'd never understood why doctors' offices had it, except to keep sneezes at bay.

“At least ask him.” Ginny was pushing, despite Este's clear reluctance. For the first time, he regretted the fact that they weren't, actually, investigators. Going directly to the suspect and asking questions themselves would have avoided this scene, but the book he'd gotten,
Investigation for Morons
, had been clear on what they could and couldn't do, and actual direct questioning of a suspect was in the “do not.” And yeah, they could have gone in all casual like, but if he clammed up and called a lawyer, and sued them for harassment? Ginny and he were both in the service industry—something like that could cost them jobs, for the rest of their careers.

“Absolutely not.”

Teddy narrowed his eyes, looking at Este. Something in her voice . . .

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

“What?” Both of them turned to look at him, Gin with confusion, Este with a seriously scary glare.

He'd been glared at by pros in his life. Este was good, but not that good.

He addressed himself to Ginny, intentionally putting Este out of the conversation for the moment. “She doesn't want us talking to him, she won't confront him about the missing money . . . there's more than just protecting the shelter here. She's protecting herself.”

It was a guess, but he was used to trusting his instincts on things like that, the way a person stood, and looked, and the tone of their voice. Was someone drunk? Violent? Crazy? Lying? Were they dangerous, to him, to themselves? All the things he'd learned to see, and decide on, in a minute's turn.

He might be wrong, but he didn't think so.

“Ms. Snyder.” Ginny Mallard, when formal, was scary-cold. “Is there something about Dr. Williams that we
should know about? Something relevant to the investigation?”

Este licked her lips, and some of her fierce certainty faded.

“He . . . knows some of the people involved in that group. He's not a sympathizer, but he knew some of the members, from other, less . . . radical groups. I suppose he went to ask them to back off.”

Teddy hadn't hung around, so he couldn't say for certain, but it was a reasonable explanation. Ginny looked at him, her eyes asking for an opinion, and he shrugged slightly, and then nodded. It made sense, and since they had no real proof the graffiti was tied in to the missing money anyway . . .

“There's no need to question him about what happened in the office,” Este went on. “He wasn't involved in . . . any of the things going on.”

“But he did have access to the main office?” Ginny asked, picking up the fact that Este had brought up the office, when they'd been talking about something else.

“I mean he— Yes. He did.” She would have lied if she could, Teddy could tell from her expression, her body language, but she'd spoken without thinking, stressed into an incautious outburst, and once caught, she knew better than to backtrack.

“Because . . .” Ginny prodded her to finish.

“They were having an affair,” Teddy said, still watching Este's face. “And they were using the office as their meeting place. Safer, more secure than a hotel, somewhere she
controlled, where they both had a reason to be at any time, and nobody would question it.”

*  *  *

Ginny Mallard wasn't exactly a prude, and she'd seen and heard enough of people's private lives, working as a concierge, that it was hard to shock her. But Tonica's comment left her flat-footed and maybe, just maybe, a little horrified. Not about the affair, and not at the fact that Este obviously liked younger men, but that they did it in the office . . . There wasn't even a couch!

It made it incredibly difficult not to visualize that small office, the desk covered with papers, and imagine . . . No. Not going there. Think of anything other than that. Especially since she hadn't gotten any in months.

“How do you know that he's not responsible?” she asked instead. “If you gave him access to the main office, trusted him here when everyone else was gone . . .”

“He didn't steal the money,” Este said. “I did.”

As conversation stoppers went, that one was damned effective. Ginny realized that her mouth was hanging open, and shut it with a snap. On the sofa next to her, Tonica wasn't doing much better.

“You . . . what?”

“I stole the money. Jimmy . . . he came in one night he wasn't scheduled, my own fault for giving him a key, and letting him know the security passcode.” Este drew herself up, and then exhaled. “He heard us, listened in like a little sneak thief, a voyeur. Listened and took notes and the next
morning called me to set up lunch, said he had something we needed to talk about. I thought it was about the books, of course, so I said yes.”

“He blackmailed you? Threatened to tell Roger?” That was cause enough for murder.

“He threatened to tell everyone. I spent most of my life arranging other people's public faces. I know what bad PR can do, even to someone as far out of the spotlight as I am now. A scandal—and an older woman with a much younger man is still a scandal, believe me, even at our age—would do no good, and possibly much harm. The shelter . . . this was our dream. A scandal could destroy it. And Roger . . . we've had our problems, but you know about his illness, his heart isn't good. I couldn't . . .”

“So you took the money to pay him off.” Tonica shifted, leaning forward to stare at her. “And got Nora, who is in no way qualified to be handling these things, to take care of the money. And then Nora, not being as dumb as you thought, hired us to investigate. . . .”

“I asked Nora to take over before . . . before everything. She was the best choice for it. . . .” Este almost smiled. “She proved she was the best choice, by realizing that something was wrong, despite my best efforts to confuse the issue.”

She had said something about it being a mistake to give the assignment to Nora, Ginny remembered. That was what she had meant.

“But I couldn't dismiss you without raising even more questions—and keeping you close allowed me to know where you were going.”

“And now he's dead,” Ginny said bluntly. “You know this makes his cause of death suspicious—and you the prime suspect?”

Este blanched, and her hands pressed down against the arms of her chair as though she were trying to hold the furniture down. Either she hadn't thought of that, or she hadn't thought they'd be tacky enough to mention it.

Ginny was feeling distinctly tacky just then. Also seriously irritated.

“Did you kill him?”

“No! God, no.”

Ginny looked at Tonica, who was studying the older woman, and saw his head tilt forward, barely a nod of his chin. He believed her.

Tonica was their body language specialist, the people-reader. She should trust his take—but Ginny wasn't convinced. Logic said Este was the prime suspect, and prime suspects lied. She had already lied to them, over and over again, and had been cheating on her partner to begin with, so not the world's most truthful person—although she supposed she could see where Scott Williams was more appealing than Roger.

People behaved badly. This was not news. But how badly?

“So the thing we were hired to solve is now officially solved, if not actually fixed. And I'm not sure it even matters, because even before then,” and Ginny tapped the copies of the records, “you were being stolen from. That leaves you still shy, what, twenty thousand dollars out of your budget, over the past few years?”

“Twenty thousand. Dear God. And no, I can't replace that.” Irritation replaced the fear in her voice. “No wonder we were always scraping by, budget-wise, no matter how many donations we got. How the hell did we miss it?”

“My accountant took a look at your records, and says your bookkeeper was trying to unravel that, but it was really well done. Very subtle.” Ginny paused. “He may have been crap as a human being, but Jimmy was good at this job. And he didn't like mysteries.”

Hard to imagine a blackmailer being conscientious enough to unravel another person's theft, but maybe he didn't like competition. Or wanted to take notes for his own use. Who the hell knew, and the guy was dead, so they couldn't ask him.

“There are only so many people working here,” Tonica said, leaning back again. “And only half of them have access, assuming you weren't handing out keys to every good-looking male. So who was cooking the books?”

“And who killed Jimmy?” Ginny asked. “Because at this point, I'm not buying the utter coincidence of a blackmailing, about-to-discover-embezzlement bookkeeper's having-a-stroke, dying alone thing anymore, are you?”

Neither of them were, based on their expressions. Then Este's expression changed again, looking over their heads, her eyes widening just enough to show real shock. “Roger?”

For a guy on the other side of sixty, Roger was pretty fast with the gun. Tonica had only just started to get out of the sofa when the weapon was pointed at him, the dark metal
looking ominously, well, ominous. Ginny wished briefly that they'd let Georgie come in with them—the dog had already proven herself against one gunman before—and then she started looking for something within reach she could use as a weapon.

He'd come in through the clinic itself: nobody in the front office would know he was in there with them, assuming anyone even knew
they
were in there. And these old warehouses were solidly built; odds were nobody would hear the gun going off, either.

“I knew, when you said you were meeting with them, that it would all come out,” Roger said, his gaze only on Este. “Finally, it would all come out.”

“You
killed
him?” Este sounded more than surprised; she sounded horrified.

“You
slept
with him?” Roger replied, his tone mocking hers, although—weirdly to Ginny's ears, not unkindly. He sounded more . . . resigned.

“You were the one cooking the books,” Ginny said, everything clicking in place with a firm snap. “Sliding money out would be easy for the guy who was handling the finances, paying the bills, and nobody would ever know—until you got sick and had to be replaced.”

“Why?” Este had stood up, but not moved, staring at her partner. “Why on earth would you do that? If you needed money, all you had to do was ask!”

“It wasn't about the money,” Roger snarled, the amiable façade cracking under his fury. “It was about
you
. Screwing him, here, in the office.”

“What?” She stared at him. “You haven't been interested in sex for years, even before you got sick!”

“That didn't mean you should sneak around, in
our
office!”

“I so didn't need to know this much about other people's sex lives,” Ginny said, not quite under her breath.

“You've been having this affair with Williams for how long?” Tonica asked. “Two years? Three?”

Este nodded, her gaze still locked with Roger's.

“Same time he's been fiddling with the books,” Ginny said. “Tit for tat?”

“You were going to destroy it all,” he said to Este, the words so carefully enunciated, they might have had actual edges. “Everything we worked for, so you could play cougar, and scratch your itch.”

“So you were going to destroy it first,” Ginny said, standing up—slowly, not wanting to freak him out, but not able to sit there passively. If she could move a foot away, he'd have to cover both of them with one gun, and they'd have a better chance. Maybe. “And then what, blame Williams for it? Or Este?”