No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 by Sara M. Barton Page A

Seven
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    “You still love
me?”
    “Of course I do,
Dori.”
    “Even though I screwed up
with George?”
    “Babe, that’s water under
the bridge. If I hadn’t let you down, you wouldn’t have been
looking for George or any other guy.”
    “So,” I sighed, “it wasn’t
my screw-up?” I was confused. What did Bosco really think? “It was
all your fault?”
    “Hell, no!” he shook his
head. “You’re no saint. You’re far too naive and you always trust
people, even when you shouldn’t. I’m saying that I should have
spoken up a long time ago. I should have told you how I really
felt. But most of all, I should never have signed those divorce
papers. I should have begged you to work it out with me. Instead, I
let you walk away, straight into the arms of the first guy who made
a big play for you, who just happened to be a con man. I know your
heart was hurting and you weren’t thinking clearly. I blame myself
for shoving you in George’s direction. Maybe if I had been more
forthcoming about my objections to staying in the house, we could
have worked something out. I never stopped loving you, Dori. I just
stopped loving the house after Kevin died. I needed a fresh
start.”
    I sat there a moment,
remembering the numbness I embraced through the empty hours. I had
wanted to feel good things again, to be free of all that ache.
George set my head spinning with all his attention. It was, for me,
a fresh start. Maybe it wasn’t George that was so attractive, but
the promise of a new life, any life, far enough away from the
sadness I still held inside, the tears that remained in the middle
of the night, when I was so alone and so vulnerable.
    “Maybe I needed a fresh
start, too,” I admitted, “in a different way. I didn’t want to give
up my memories of Kevin to get it.”
    “Kevin is always going to be
a part of us, Dori. That’s never going to change.”
    “I know.” I stopped myself
from saying more, knowing I was on the brink of tears. Bosco seemed
to notice that.
    “Come on. Let’s go look at
that envelope. And maybe the books, as well.” He took a small
flashlight from the glove compartment. I used my key and unlocked
the door, pushing open the door. My hand went to the light switch
on the wall, but Boscon stopped me.
    “We don’t want to turn on
the lights while we’re snooping.”
    Once inside Ralph’s office,
I followed the bright gleam of light to his desk. The pile of mail
was no longer where Gloria had left it. Apparently, Ralph had
returned from his photo shoot and gone through it. The envelope was
gone.
    “Damn!” I
muttered.
    “Maybe he tucked it in a
drawer,” Bosco suggested. He began pulling out drawers.
    “We shouldn’t be snooping
through his private papers,” I warned him.
    “His private papers are our
business, Dori. We own forty two percent of this company. You
forget I saw his prospectus before we gave him the last round of
funding. I want to know if he’s been cooking the books. He has some
reason for wanting our shares, and it’s not because he’s a swell
guy!” he hissed through the darkness. “Do you know his
password?”
    “For what? Now you’re going
to check his computer?” I was aghast.
    “Our money helped to pay for
that computer, babe,” Bosco pointed out. “Without our money, there
would not be a Dynamic Productions. Every time you took stock
instead of salary, you were solidifying your ownership of this
company. Ralph still acts like you’re the young ingenue he took
under his wing. I want to know what he’s hiding.”
    Bosco sat at Ralph’s desk,
trying possible passwords to no avail. We went through his family,
even trying his dog’s name as a possible password. Nothing worked.
“It has to be something easy for him to remember, a favorite
expression or saying. Think, Dori.”
    I did as he asked, going
through the many phrases I had heard from Ralph throughout the
years. As I did, an image stayed with me. It was the way Ralph
looked at