Skeleton Key by Jane Haddam

hot tub—and took a long sip of scotch. “You’re in a remarkably good mood for a night when Kayla called.What did you do, catch her trying to get in the front door and throw her out?’
    â€œNo,” Deirdre said. “I couldn’t throw her out if I wanted to. She has a key.”
    â€œYou have a key,” Peter said.
    â€œMaybe half of Litchfield County has a key. The female half.”
    Peter didn’t answer. Deirdre slugged back pink champagne.
    â€œI was just thinking,” she said. “About you. And about me. And about Kayla-rich-as-shit-Anson.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd I was thinking I wouldn’t complain about her so much if I was going to do something about her. Only I couldn’t think of what to do about her. You don’t see her because you like the way she is in bed.”
    â€œMaybe I do.”
    Deirdre made a face. “She’s got money, that’s what it is, lots and lots of money and there isn’t anybody on earth who can compete with that. All those old movies about how men don’t want to marry an heiress because she’ll end up taking their balls away is just so much crap. Men don’t care what happens to their balls at all.”
    â€œI don’t think that’s entirely accurate. Besides, I don’t see what it is you think you’re—”
    Deirdre’s champagne glass was empty. The bottle was on the tub collar next to her elbow. She got it and filled up again, squinting at the glass as the liquid went into it, as if she were measuring something and the measurement had to be precise. Her blonde hair was so close to white, it looked like light. Her eyelashes were at least half an inch thick, plumped out by mink strips.
    â€œSomebody else called while you were out,” she said. “Except this time I picked up.”
    â€œWhile the message was still running on the machine? How did you know who it was?”
    â€œI didn’t.”
    â€œThat was stupid, Deirdre.”
    â€œMaybe. Maybe not. Do you want to know who it was?”
    â€œI take it it wasn’t Kayla.”
    â€œIt might have been. It might have been anybody.”
    â€œWhatever that’s supposed to mean.”
    â€œIt’s supposed to
mean,”
Deirdre said, “that there wasn’t any voice after I answered the phone. There was breathing. There wasn’t any voice. But I don’t think it was Kayla Anson’s breathing.”
    He should have brought the bottle of scotch to the tub with him, instead of leaving it on the bar. Now, if he wanted to fill his glass, he would have to get up and walk across the sunroom to do it. He would have to walk out there in the open, as naked as the day he was born.
    â€œWell,” he said, very carefully, “that could have been anything. That could have been a telephone solicitation.”
    â€œFunny time of night for a telephone solicitation.”
    Peter’s glass was empty. It was so empty, it looked as if it had never been used. He stood up carefully and began to climb out of the tub.
    He could not possibly know who that call was from. It didn’t make any sense. There was no such thing as telepathy. It could have been a phone call from Santa Claus at the North Pole as easily as it could have been a phone call from anybody else.
    â€œSo,” he said, “you mean this person just called up and breathed in your ear.”
    â€œFor a long time.”
    â€œMaybe it was a random obscene caller. Dial the first number that comes into your head. Get a woman. Hit the jackpot.”
    â€œIt wasn’t that kind of breathing.”
    â€œThat must have been bizarre. I’m surprised you didn’t hang up on him.”
    â€œI thought it was a woman I’d be hanging up on. It was a woman’s breathing. If you know the kind of thing I mean.”
    Peter knew nothing at all about the kind of thing she meant. He got to the bar and started pouring