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start talking again.
    â€œYou started accepting money for your services,” I said, hoping to make the confession a bit easier for her.
    Heather’s eyes widened, and she recoiled. “No! I’m not a prostitute!” Her cheeks reddened with embarrassment.
    I held up my hands. “I wouldn’t judge you if you were,” I said, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. “But please, go ahead and tell me how you took advantage of the guys who hit on you.”
    She looked like she wanted to protest her innocence some more. I imagined most women who weren’t hookers would be mortally offended by my suggestion, but Heather struck me as being more defensive than most, almost desperately so. She might not get paid for sleeping with these men, but something about her interactions with them felt to her like a form of prostitution, one she wished mightily to deny.
    She let out her breath—and her protests—on a whoosh of air, then raised her chin. The tension in her neck and shoulders told me how unhappy she was about admitting whatever she was about to say.
    â€œI figured if married men were so all-fired eager to cheat on their wives just because they saw an attractive woman, then they deserved to be punished for it.”
    â€œUh-oh,” I said under my breath as the puzzle pieces snapped together in my brain. “You’ve been blackmailing them,” I said, swiveling my head to look pointedly at her expensive theater system, at the art, at the lamp that may or may not have been genuine Tiffany. “And somehow, this time it’s gone terribly wrong.”
    Heather squirmed in her seat and grimaced. “You could say that,” she murmured.
    â€œTell me what happened.”
    She huffed out a deep sigh. “The men I pick are always super-rich, and I always ask for a small amount of money. I want it to be way easier for them to pay me off than to make a big deal about things. They get angry, and they sometimes make threats, but in the end, they always pay.”
    â€œWhy do I get the feeling there’s an exception to that rule?”
    Heather ignored my interruption. “Early last year, I hooked up with this guy named Wayne Fowler. He seemed like just my type. Expensive suit, flashy watch, designer shoes . . . and a wedding band. We, uh, hit it off, and I took him back to the hotel room I’d rented for the night. I like to pretend I’m from out of town—it makes it easier for the men to tell themselves their wives will never find out. I had set up a hidden video camera and recorded everything. Then, the next day, I called him.” She shivered suddenly and wrapped her arms around herself. Her eyes glazed over as she temporarily lost herself in the memory.
    â€œI’d made so many phone calls like that before . . . I thought I was prepared for anything, but . . .” She shivered again, shaking her head and dragging herself back into the present. “I told you other guys made threats when I contacted them, but they were threatening to call the police, and I never really believed they would do it. For them, it wasn’t worth taking the risk of their wives finding out. But for Wayne . . . it’s not the police he threatened me with.” She swallowed hard. “He told me in detail everything he would do to me if that video was ever made public. And he meant every word he said, Nikki, I know he did.”
    Her face was pale, and her hands were shaking ever so slightly. Whether Wayne Fowler meant to follow through on any of his threats or not, Heather was convinced he would. However . . . “What does this have to do with Doug?”
    â€œWayne told me the only reason he didn’t kill me then and there was that the video might come out once I was dead. He told me I’d better hope nothing ever happened to that video, or he’d have the green light to do whatever he wanted.” She