“That’s not how it started,” Barbie said. “At first, it was just ordinary, tedious investigation. Then Mr. Hillerman convinced me to follow some leads in rather, er, unconventional ways. I managed to get some financial and medical information through less-than-legitimate sources. I didn’t think it was anything very helpful to the case, but my client asked for it and was willing to pay a premium for it, so I did what he wanted.
“When I learned that Ms. Kingsley had spent a couple of nights at your house, and I shared that information with my client, he asked me to search the house for any kind of proof of an affair. I refused.”
“Oh, really?” Adam asked, his voice laced with sarcasm.
Barbie returned his gaze calmly. “Really. I’d been willing to bend the law a bit for the kind of money he was paying, but I drew the line at breaking and entering.” She sighed heavily. “But he’d been setting me up all along. I don’t think he really cared about that financial or medical information—he just wanted me to do something illegal so he could use it against me. He said if I didn’t search the house, he’d turn me in.”
I frowned. “But since he’s the one who paid you for the information, wouldn’t he incriminate himself if he turned you in?”
“Yes. But, as he pointed out, I had a lot more to lose. All he had to do was disrupt my ability to work, and I wouldn’t be able to afford to keep Blair at The Healing Circle. He’s got enough money he could retire right now if he wanted to, so even in the worst-case scenario, he’d come out all right. It wasn’t anything he would go to prison over.
“Besides, how could I prove he ordered me to do it? He wasn’t stupid enough to give me written instructions. Hell, he wouldn’t even give me instructions over the phone.”
“But now that he sent the letter to Brian, he’s blown everything out of the water!” I said.
“Has he?” Adam asked. “We can’t prove he sent the letter.”
I motioned at Barbie. “She can testify that she gave him the information.”
“And he’ll deny it. Right now, we have her word against his. And he’s a very respectable attorney who has nothing to gain by sending information like that to Brian.”
That made me frown. “Neither does she,” I said, once again motioning at Barbie. If she objected to being talked about in the third person, she didn’t say anything about it. “But let’s back up a step. You said Hillerman had nothing to gain by sending that shit to Brian, and you’re right. So why did he?”
Adam looked as puzzled as I felt. When we’d been assuming it was Maguire himself behind the letter, it had made a twisted sort of sense. But for it to be Hillerman…
“If things go south for him, he could ruin his whole career over this,” I mused. “Why the hell would he bother?”
We both turned to look at Barbie, who shrugged.
“I don’t know what it’s all about,” she said. “I didn’t ask very many questions. What I do know is that he has some kind of personal grudge against you.”
That knocked me for a loop. “I don’t even know the guy! How can he have a personal grudge?”
“I don’t know. He tried to pretend he was just looking out for Mr. Maguire’s interests, but I could tell it was personal. He’d get this look in his eyes when he talked about you…” She flashed me an apologetic smile. “I don’t know what you did to piss him off, but it was something.”
“But I’ve never met him!” I said again. “The closest I’ve come to having contact with him was when he left a message on my answering machine telling me not to try to contact Maguire.”
Adam gave me a meaningful look, but I had no idea what he was trying to tell me. I tried to convey my cluelessness with my own meaningful look.
“We’ll talk about this later,” he said firmly. “Right now, we have something else to discuss.” He turned toward Barbie, a feral glint in his eye.
She swallowed hard. “So you’re going to arrest me, after all.”
“Give me one good reason not to.”
I could tell she was thinking furiously. And I could also tell she was too worried about her fate and that of her sister to figure out what Adam was getting at.
“Maybe you’d like to do some pro bono work for us,” I suggested.
Relief washed over her face. “I’d be happy to. I know I’ve made some terrible mistakes, but this,” she grabbed the letter and tossed it back across the desk to us, “is not something I ever thought I’d be a part of. If there’s something I can do to make up for it, all you have to do is ask.”
“There’s no way you can undo the damage you’ve caused,” Adam said. He pulled the photo out of the envelope and handed it to Barbie. Her eyes widened.
“I didn’t take this!” she said immediately.
“I know,” Adam answered. “It’s been doctored somehow, because that never happened. How about you start by trying to find out who created the photo and get them to admit it’s fake?”
Barbie looked at him steadily. “Is it really fake? Or are you asking me to find someone to lie about it?”
“It’s fake!” I said, my voice near a shout. I took a deep breath to calm myself. “Adam and I don’t have that kind of relationship and we never did. Forget what you think you know, because you don’t know jack shit.”
She held up the picture and gave it a thorough once-over. Then she nodded. “All right. I’ll see what I can do. I’m presuming if I find the party who made the photo, you’d like me to get evidence to link them to Hillerman.”
“Naturally,” Adam said.
I had a few other assignments I wanted to put her on, stat, but Adam gave me another of those damn meaningful looks. I still didn’t know what he was trying to tell me. Except for the “shut up” part. That, I got.
“Did you arrange to have those blood samples analyzed?” Adam asked Barbie.
She shook her head. “I just gave the stuff I found at your house to Mr. Hillerman. But considering the faked photo, he could have just lied about matching the blood. He knew he could make plenty of trouble without having genuine evidence.”
“True,” Adam conceded. “Just focus on the photo right now. I don’t suppose I need to tell you that Morgan and I were never here.”
She nodded briskly. “No, you don’t.”
“And, of course, you’ll let us know if Mr. Hillerman has any other assignments for you.”
She didn’t look too happy about that suggestion, but she nodded again anyway. “I suppose it would be hypocritical of me to worry about client confidentiality at this point.”
I couldn’t help but agree. Leaving Barbie to her work, Adam and I headed back out.
CHAPTER 11
I held my questions until we got into the car, but the moment Adam closed the door behind himself, I turned to him.
“So, what were you trying to convey to me with all those pointed glances?”
He buckled up and pulled out into traffic. “You seem to have come back to life.”
“Leave my mental state out of it and just answer the question.”
“Of course, you’re obviously not at the top of your game yet, or you’d have figured this out already.”
I reminded myself it would be a bad idea to smack Adam while he was driving. “Are you going to answer the question, or are you just going to kick me while I’m down?” I’m not usually one to play the guilt card, but sometimes you’ve just got to play the hand you’re dealt. From the corner of my eye, I saw Adam’s lips tug down in a mild frown. I guess he didn’t feel all that guilty.
“You’re forgetting that there’s more than one person in your body,” he said, eyes on the road. “If a man you don’t know suddenly seems to have it in for you, chances are good it’s not you he’s after.”
Adam slammed on the brakes suddenly and just avoided crashing into a guy who apparently forgot you’re supposed to look to see if someone’s coming before you pull out of a parking space. Adam cursed and leaned on his horn.