Page 17 of The Perfect Deception (Jessie Hunt #40)

Jessie waited for Elise Prager to continue but she seemed to enjoy lingering in this moment, where she knew something valuable that they didn’t. Jessie looked down at the table between them and gulped hard, hoping to swallow her exasperation. She’d promised Ryan that she wouldn’t go right at Prager, but it was becoming an increasingly difficult promise to keep.

“We’re waiting with bated breath.”

Amazingly Ryan managed to mix mild sarcasm and charm as he said it.

“Well, then, I won’t make you wait any longer,”

Prager told him.

“In addition to my charity work, I run a little side project that I like to call ‘life swapping.’ Ever heard of it?”

That could mean any number of things but Jessie refrained from saying so.

“Explain it to us,”

Ryan requested.

“Of course. I help facilitate swaps for couples that are interested in injecting a little excitement into their sometimes humdrum lives. That means that these couples temporarily exchange lives, including homes, routines, and most intriguingly, spouses.”

“This is a thing?”

Jessie asked, unable to keep silent any longer.

“Everything is a ‘thing,’ Jessie. You should know that by now. Is it really that shocking that these folks, all quite wealthy and often bored, might enjoy the thrill of stepping into someone else’s life for a little while?”

It wasn’t. Jessie had encountered far more unusual arrangements, ones that were inherently dangerous and illegal. This might not seem to meet that threshold on its face. But now she finally had a potential motive. No matter how innocuous this kind of agreement appeared, it involved the tender feelings and fragile egos of multiple people, some of whom might not be prepared for how it hit them emotionally. It was also telling that neither husband mentioned anything about this.

“So you’re saying that the Maplewoods and Dominiks engaged in one of these life swaps?”

she confirmed.

“Not just once,”

Prager said, looking way more delighted by all of this than felt appropriate considering two people were dead.

“They swapped twice.”

“Explain how that worked.”

Jessie noted that Ryan refused to engage the woman in her desire to be as gossipy as possible. He just wanted the facts.

Prager seemed to sense this—at least a little bit—and made an attempt to calibrate her tone.

“In many ways, it’s as simple as it sounds. The first time the wives swapped. They switched houses and followed the routine of their new home. The second time around the husbands made the transition. In both cases, other than their jobs, they’d exchange responsibilities and perks. Everything from the mundane—going to a different dry cleaner, driving a different car, and eating different meals—to the more titillating, was on the table.”

“To be clear, are you saying that they switched sexual partners when they did these swaps?”

Jessie asked.

Prager offered her a condescending smile.

“I don’t honestly know the answer to that. It was between the couples. I gave them general guidelines but they chose the specific rules. If they just wanted to play house, that was up to them. If they wanted to play doctor too, well, you’d have to ask them about that.”

“We will,”

Ryan assured her.

“But for now let’s stick with you. You said this was a side project for you. What does that mean exactly? Did you get paid? Were there other couples doing this too?”

Prager paused before replying. It appeared that she was trying to determine how to answer without revealing too much.

“Let me answer this way. Yes, there were other couples. I hope you understand that they are counting on my discretion. I shan’t be revealing the names of anyone not involved in a double murder.”

Jessie was slightly tempted to butt in and tell Prager that she would share whatever info they needed or face the consequences. But since the woman was being generally forthcoming, she held back. Prager continued.

“As to your first question, I was indeed paid to facilitate the swaps, although I consider the amounts nominal. The payments were primarily to cover administrative costs. My role was to take the profiles these folks had given me and find the most compatible matches for them. Sometimes that meant some unconventional pairings. It didn’t always pan out. But the more I worked at it, the better I got. It’s a pretty smooth process now.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

Ryan asked.

“Nearly two years now.”

“You said it didn’t always pan out?”

Jessie noted.

“Was that the case with the Dominiks and Maplewoods? Did any of them ever express reservations?”

Prager shook her head vehemently.

“Not at all. In fact, the reason they did a second swap was because the first one went so swimmingly. I never heard a single complaint after either one.”

“No jealousy?”

Ryan wondered.

“You never got the sense that one of the four participants wished the swap was more permanent?”

“I’ve had that happen on a few occasions with other couples and it was not fun. But never with these two. They seemed to have a very healthy attitude about the whole thing.”

Ryan was unconvinced.

“Then what was Michael Dominik so exercised about when you met him at Cordy’s earlier?”

Prager shrugged.

“It wasn’t anything all that suspicious. He wanted answers I couldn’t give. Did someone on my staff have access to their home security information? Had anyone else I worked with been upset that they weren’t paired with him and Cassandra or with the Maplewoods? Was there some kind of vendetta? I guess he was trying to make sense of all this by doing some amateur detective work.”

“And what did you tell him?”

Jessie asked.

“The same thing I’ll tell you. I have no staff for the swaps. It’s supposed to be very confidential and bringing in someone else would undermine their privacy. And no, there were no hard feelings when it came to pairings.”

“That’s it?”

Jessie got the sense that Prager was holding something back.

“Michael was also worried that the swaps would come to light publicly and make them look like freaks,”

she admitted.

“I told him that I had no intention of sharing anything about their arrangement unless I was legally obligated to do so. Then he left and you two walked over to my table, so my assurances lasted less than five minutes. I feel bad about that but it appears that it wasn’t up to me.”

It most certainly wasn’t. Jessie wondered at what point she or Ryan would ultimately end up letting Prager know that her claims of confidentiality with her clients were an illusion. If they wanted that information, they’d get it. But for now, there was no need to fight that battle. They had a bigger one on their hands.

Jessie glanced over at Ryan to see if he was thinking the same thing as her. It was clear to her that he was. The fact that she could read his expression so easily, even after months apart, was reassuring.

They needed to talk to the husbands again. Neither Michael Dominik nor James Maplewood had acknowledged these life swaps when interviewed. In fact, in Jessie’s eyes, not even mentioning something so obviously relevant amounted to lying about a factor that could be crucial to their wives’ murders.

That didn’t automatically mean they were involved. But it was awfully suspicious. And it demanded answers