But Not For Lust by BJ Bourg (comprehension books .txt) 📕

of the parking lot. When traffic had cleared, I drove onto Main Street and scowled. “I can’t think of a single secret you have that you wouldn’t want people to know. You’re as close to perfect as anyone I know.”

“Please!” she said with a grunt. “I can give you a long list of names who’ll fight you over that statement.”

“There might be some people who don’t like you, but you don’t have any embarrassing secrets.”

“For starters, I wouldn’t want anyone knowing that I murdered a poor innocent frog that one time.” Even mentioning it made her shiver a little. The look of disgust was so real on her face that I didn’t even laugh. “And I wouldn’t want them knowing that I’m forever afraid of frogs now and that I have to throw my boots around like a crazy person to make sure one hasn’t crawled inside.”

While my face was stone cold expressionless as I drove, my insides were in stitches. At dinner one night on a cruise ship during our honeymoon, Susan had told me that her fear of frogs stemmed from an incident that happened when she was a little girl. She used to wear these little red boots every time it rained, and one day the ditches had flooded and she was in a hurry to go play outside. She had kicked off her sandals and shoved her right foot into the boot, smashing a frog that had crawled inside. She had described the scene in great detail, and seemed really disturbed by it all.

“Your secret is safe with me, Love,” I said as we stepped from my Tahoe and trudged up the steps, carrying the food with us. “They’d have to pay me a hundred dollars to reveal that one.”

She took a step away from me to create some distance and then shot a fast, but playful, round kick to the back of my leg. It didn’t hurt because she didn’t want it to hurt, but the potential was certainly there.

“You’re lucky I want another baby,” she said playfully as we pushed through the door. “Otherwise, I would’ve aimed for your bread basket.”

I laughed. Lindsey looked up from the book she was reading and saw us enter with the food. We barely had time to drop the food in the break room when she was making an announcement over the intercom that lunch was served.

“Hey, Lindsey, is that Clint?” Amy shouted from her office. Her voice sounded as demanding as ever, and I was glad to hear it. “Is he back from interviewing that girl?”

I followed the sound of her voice and found her approaching the door to her office at a slow walk.

“Oh, good, you’re here.” She stopped and teetered where she stood when she saw me, putting out a hand to regain her balance. “Now I won’t have to bust my ass in front of everyone—just you.”

I stepped forward to help steady her, but she waved me off.

“I’ve got it,” she said in a voice that told me not to argue. “I need you to see something.”

I waited until she had lowered herself into her chair. I then crowded her side of the desk, looking at her computer monitor.

“Okay, so I ran every name you had in that little notebook, but nothing stood out as odd. No one had priors for kidnapping or murder, and nothing in their past suggested they would grow up to be some sadistic killer.” She minimized the screen that was up and maximized another. “I began checking their social media footprints. I’ve learned that J-Rock couldn’t rap for shit, Neal likes taking pictures of money and rings, Ty likes to write poems about shrimp boats, and two of your witnesses are screwing each other.”

She said the last part so casually that I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Wait…what?” I asked.

After sliding the mouse back and forth across the desktop and making some images disappear while others appeared, she finally stopped and leaned back when she located the picture she was looking for. It was of a birthday party and there were dozens of people in the room. I recognized Betty Watts sitting at a picnic table. She was holding a small saucer with a piece of cake on it in her left hand. She held a fork poised in her right hand. I leaned forward to study the other pictures carefully. I pointed to a man sitting on the opposite end of the table from Betty.

“Is that Nikia Billiot?”

“It sure is.” Amy nodded and smiled triumphantly. “He’s screwing Betty. Well, she could be screwing him. I’m not positive about the exact arrangement. Either way, they’re doing the nasty and she’s married—but not to him.”

I scowled and studied the picture again. They were on opposite sides of the table, and Nikia wasn’t even looking at Betty. His eyes were focused on the piece of cake in front of him.

“How do you know that?”

Amy pointed to another man who sat close to Betty. “You see this guy?”

I nodded.

“That’s Betty’s husband, Dillon, and he’s doing the talking in the picture,” she said. “Is Betty looking at Dillon?” Without waiting for me to answer, she said, “No, she’s looking at Nikia. Everyone else is looking at Dillon, but she’s looking at Nikia.”

“Come on, Amy,” I said, studying the picture for a third time. “How can you deduce that by simply looking at this picture? She could be looking at Nikia because he said something in response to what Dillon was—”

I suddenly stopped talking and clamped my mouth shut. More importantly than whether or not they were sleeping together was the fact that they knew each other.

“Hold up,” I said slowly. “So, the woman who almost hits Ty in her car is at the same birthday party as the man who calls in a tip to the