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himself being reeled in a little further, despite his resistance to the idea. He knew he was on slippery footing.
    “Did your husband have any enemies?” Nick asked her.
    Suzy thought for a moment, but it really didn’t matter how long she took, she decided. She would arrive at the same conclusion: she didn’t think so, but she didn’t know for sure.
    With a sigh, Suzy shook her head. “Not that he ever mentioned, but to be honest, I really don’t know. I know that Peter was away at night more and more. When I asked him about it a couple of times, he said that he was working late on a case.” It had sounded like an excuse to her at the time, but maybe she was doing Peter a disservice. “Maybe he was,” she said out loud. “But at the time, I thought that there was another woman in the picture—or six.”
    How had she arrived at that number, Nick wondered. Most women would have said one or two. “Six?”
    When he said the number, it sounded foolish. Suzy shrugged. “Sorry, that was flippant. I really don’t know how many he was seeing—or if he actually was seeing someone else. My pregnancy had me pretty miserable and looking back, maybe I took it out on him.”
    Added to that, she’d worked until a little more than a week before she delivered. What that translated to, Suzy thought, was that she and Peter hardly saw each other toward the end.
    Nick wasn’t quite ready to allow this line of questioning to drop just yet. “Did you ever find anything concrete to back up these suspicions, something that might have got you thinking he was seeing someone else?”
    “I didn’t look,” she admitted, unconsciously raising her chin again defensively. “I didn’t want to be one of those snooping, bitter women.” Besides, she thought, as long as she didn’t find anything, there was always the hope that she was wrong. Other times, she was fairly sure she wasn’t wrong. “To be honest,” she continued in a distant, quiet voice, “I was a little relieved when I thought that Peter was seeing someone else.”
    Nick came to his own conclusions: a guilty conscience might welcome a level playing field. “Because you were seeing someone, as well?” he guessed, watching her face intently.
    Stunned, she stared at him. Despite the growing chasm between Peter and her, she’d never once thought of seeking solace in someone else’s arms. She might not have been in love with Peter, but she was definitely loyal to the institution of marriage.
    “What?” she cried, thinking she’d heard wrong. But the expression on the detective’s face told her that she hadn’t. “No, of course not. Why would you say something like that?” she asked.
    “Just a natural assumption,” he answered mildly. “If your husband was seeing someone, that made you feel less guilty about you seeing someone.”
    “You have it all wrong,” she informed him with more than a touch of indignation.
    “Then enlighten me.”
    Suzy took a breath. She really didn’t like baring her soul this way, but she knew she had no choice. If she kept things back from this man, she was certain that he would think the worst.
    “If Peter was seeing someone else, that would have made me feel less guilty about not having feelings for him.”
    Now, there was a novel approach to marital discord, Nick couldn’t help thinking. “I see. And when did you stop having feelings for him?”
    Suzy shrugged again, her slender shoulders rising and falling beneath the light blue cotton blouse she had on. She thought of telling the detective that was none of his business, but he’d probably counter that protest by telling her that right now it was. She might as well avoid a verbal squabble with him and just answer the question.
    “I don’t think I ever started to have feelings for Peter, not the deep, everlasting kind. Don’t get me wrong,” she cautioned quickly, not wanting the detective to come away with the wrong impression. “There was a really intense attraction