Read The Widower's Wife: A Thriller for Free Online Page A

bet they had. Judging from the photos on the news, Ana Bacon was a good-looking woman with large, downturned eyes, a tawny complexion, and a straight, narrow nose. Nice figure. Pretty smile. The kind of woman most men enjoyed having around.
    “But you didn’t like her?”
    Michael rubbed the back of his neck. A tell, for most people. Smith was probably about to lie, maybe to avoid trashing a former employee. “I wouldn’t say I disliked her. She was nice. Very friendly.” Had he winked, the suggestion that Ana’s behavior had bordered on inappropriate could not have been clearer.
    “Flirty?”
    Michael tilted his head as if to rhetorically ask, Aren’t they all? A thick, platinum band glinted below the knuckle on his left ring finger. By age forty, about four-fifths of Americans had married. Roughly two-fifths of those got divorced. Ryan had never wanted to join the latter statistic.
    “Was Ana’s friendliness an issue for you?”
    Michael shook his head. “No. No. I didn’t care. Again, she was fine. Competent, for the most part.” He leaned forward. “Truth is, her husband was the real problem. He wasn’t working, but he couldn’t even remember to pick up the darn kid from daycare. She’d end up running out all the time to get her daughter.”
    Ryan wrote family emergencies in his notepad. Below it, he scrawled, Tom = Depressed? “Do you have the name of the daycare?”
    “Not sure. I think once I heard Apple something-or-other.”
    “I guess the Bacons didn’t have a backup sitter?”
    “I don’t see how they could have afforded one. We paid Ana well, of course, but she was just an admin, and she’d been out of work for a few years prior, so it wasn’t like she commanded top dollar. Her husband didn’t contribute anything.” Michael said the last comment with disdain, as if the worst thing a man could do was not make money.
    “She told you that?”
    Again, Michael scratched behind his neck. Ryan wondered what made the man more uncomfortable: the presence of an investigator or disparaging a dead woman.
    “Well, she didn’t exactly talk to me about it, but I’m guessing she wouldn’t have returned to work if her husband had a bunch saved.” Michael leaned back and lowered his head, speaking down his nose. “Between us, the guy didn’t manage risk right. Trade blew up on him. Cost his bank a hundred mil.”
    A smile cracked Michael’s mouth. Ryan got the sense that the details of Tom Bacon’s departure were an open secret on Wall Street, one that traders enjoyed sharing. Given that Tom’s wife had just died, Michael’s undisguised schadenfreude said something. But was it simply evidence of a competitive personality? Or did it have something to do with Ana?
    “I take it that he would have had trouble securing other employment?”
    “Losing that kind of cash on a single name would put anyone on the blacklist.”
    Ryan wrote down unemployable beneath the Tom equation. Providing that Michael wasn’t exaggerating, he’d just handed Ryan powerful reasons for Ana to be depressed.
    “Did Ana quit or did you fire her?”
    “I guess I put her on notice.” Michael shrugged in a what-you-gonna-do way. “I told her that she couldn’t keep taking off. She probably left to avoid needing to explain anything on her record. When she quit, I gave her a sizable severance because I knew that she was going through a difficult time. Came out of my pocket, since I didn’t actually fire her.”
    The boss emphasized the point with a poke at his breast pocket. Ryan thought of a silverback gorilla beating his chest, announcing to everyone in the vicinity I am the Alpha .
    “And she used that pay to go on vacation . . .”
    Michael’s lips pursed. The expression was the kind cocky men made when hearing about the misfortunes of others. He stood and extended his hand. “Sorry to cut this short—”
    “When did she leave?”
    His host’s face grew flustered. Ryan guessed he was used to people taking