Page 95 of Pretty Poison

The older man’s cheeks continued to flush, and Rocky worried about his health. Queen Bea would kill him if he gave Harvey a stroke.

“Nah,” Rocky said. “I’m here to speak to Ms. Girard.”

Helen nodded, then picked up the phone from the reception desk and dialed an extension. She spoke softly, but Rocky heard her request assistance getting Harvey back to his room. She hung up and knelt down next to Harvey’s chair. “Deidre is coming to take you back to your room.”

“I’d rather go to Beatrice’s.”

“Might want to slow it down there a bit, Mr. Marks,” Helen said.

The older man chuckled. “She’s a hell of a woman, your nana.”

“This I know,” Rocky said. “I’m expecting you to treat her right.”

“Deal,” Harvey agreed, extending a hand toward Rocky.

The two men shook, then lulled into an awkward silence while waiting for Deidre. Luckily, she didn’t take long. The nurse studied Rocky for a second before looking at Helen. He saw a silent communication between them. Helen nodded, and Deidre wheeled Harvey away.

“Care to step into my office?” she asked, gesturing to one of the frosted doors she and Harvey had passed through.

“Sure.”

Helen punched a code into the keypad and pushed open the door when it unlocked. The rehabilitation room was exactly what he’d expect to find in any physical therapy facility, but the equipment was modified for seniors with impaired balance and other disadvantages. It smelled like Clorox and Bengay.

Helen passed through the room and led Rocky to a small office at the rear of the facility. The space was neat and tidy with very few personal items on any of the surfaces. One of them was the same photograph Tess had on her bookshelf.

Rocky picked it up off Helen’s desk and studied it closely. “You love her,” he said.

“I do.”

Rocky looked up. “You’re in love with her.”

Helen said, “I always have been and always will be.”

Rocky returned the photo to its place of honor, then sat down.

Helen folded her hands on the desk and leveled a direct gaze at Rocky. “I told Tess I didn’t want to participate in this investigation, but she asked me to do it anyway. She believes in you. Do you really think Tess is innocent?”

“My gut tells me she is. Help me clear her name.”

Helen took a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”

There were so many things. Like earlier, Rocky’s thoughts swirled around in his head like a cerebral cyclone. “Who’d Tess go on a cruise with?”

Helen looked down. “Richard Beauford.”

“Her attorney?” Rocky asked, hoping he kept the judgment from his voice.

Helen chuckled dryly. “Tess isn’t the kind of person to live by herself for long.”

“Weren’t there a dozen years or so between Bob Duncan’s death and her marriage to Donald Trout?”

“Fifteen,” Helen said. “Tess and I traveled a lot. We settled in Albany because her oldest daughter lived there. We took jobs and shared a home.”

“You were a couple?”

Helen pinched her lips together and sat quietly for a second before answering. “No. We’ve never had a sexual relationship.” He noticed she hadn’t said intimate. Thanks to Asher, Rocky understood that a couple could be intimate without sex. But was Helen’s remark wordplay or deliberate? “Do you believe in soulmates, Mr. Jacobs?”

He thought about the love he felt for Asher. “I do.”