“About that, may I speak plainly, Mrs. Harper?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. Because you were sleeping with him.”

Her expression of outrage was so phony, it was painful to witness. Harper’s mouth fell open, and she put her hand to her chest, as if the suggestion that she’d been unfaithful to her husband was giving her palpitations. It was all Spenser could do to keep from rolling her eyes.

“Sheriff, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she gasped.

“With all due respect, Mrs. Harper, save it. Your affair with Hamill is indisputable fact at this point, so your outrage is unnecessary.”

“I’m a happily married woman.”

“Look, I’m not here to judge you. The state of your marriage is not my concern and I couldn’t be less interested in it. I’m trying to solve a murder—”

“He was murdered? I thought Seth had a heart attack?”

“That’s not the case.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’re certain.”

“My God,” she whispered.

“Mrs. Harper, I need you to focus,” Spenser said. “And more importantly, I need you to answer my questions and be honest with me.”

“I’m being honest with you, Sheriff,” she said, though her voice lacked conviction.

Spenser walked in, wanting to be a little more delicate about the matter. She didn’t want to be abrupt or make the woman feel like she was dropping the hammer on her. But she was married to her lie, probably for good reason, and the only way to get her to move off that spot was to give her a shock to the system.

“Mrs. Harper, did you know that Seth Hamill had been filming your… encounters?”

The woman’s eyes bulged and her face blanched and for the first time since she’d started her string of lies and denials, she seemed to be rendered speechless. Harper quickly gathered herself and picked up her teacup. Seeing how badly her hand was trembling, though, she set it back down and started to wring her hands together instead.

“Come again?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Did you say Seth was making recordings? Of us? Together?”

“How do you think I know that you were having an affair with him?”

Her face paled even further, which made the red in her cheeks glow even brighter. Harper’s eyes shimmered as they flooded with tears and the trembling in her hands grew even more pronounced. She sniffed loudly and ran a hand through her hair. She turned to Spenser with a strange, sorrowful expression on her face.

“Sheriff, you have to understand—”

“Mrs. Harper, as I said, I’m not concerned with the affair itself. It’s not my place to judge you,” Spenser cut her off. “What you need to tell me is whether you knew he was making these recordings or not.”

“No, of course not. I had no idea.”

“Did your husband find out about the affair?”

She shook her head. “No. Seth and I were discreet.”

That seemed to be a common theme among Hamill’s paramours. He was good at keeping the affairs he was having a secret, which was a benefit to the women he was sleeping with, but perhaps more for himself. Spenser doubted most of these women would have slept with him had they known they were simply one link in a much longer chain. But then, perhaps some of them wouldn’t have cared.

“Did you and Seth argue?”

She looked perplexed by the question. “Argue? What would we have argued about?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps one of you wanted more than the other was willing to give?”

“No,” she said and sniffed again. “Seth and I were what we were. He was an exceptional trainer but an even better lover. He gave me something I needed—something that’s been missing in my life for a long time—and we were content with that.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“If you’re asking me if I was a scorned lover and took my revenge by killing him, you’re way off base, Sheriff. I cared about Seth, sure. But I wasn’t in love with him. Like I said, he simply filled a hole that exists in my life. With my husband gone so often… I’m sure you get the picture.”

“I do.”

“It was nice to have the attention of an attractive man. It was nice to be made to feel special and desirable again. It was nice to be wanted again,” she said. “But make no mistake, I had no illusions about what Seth and I were. All I wanted was what we had. Other than those moments we shared together, I didn’t want anything else from him, nor him from me.”

Spenser studied the woman carefully, searching for any sign of deception. But she saw none. Harper looked genuine, and Spenser heard only sincerity in her words. There was a poignancy in her voice that was striking. But the sadness quickly dried up along with her tears and Harper’s face hardened, her expression darkening as anger stole over her.

“I can’t believe he filmed us,” she said, her voice hard. “Why would he do that?”

Spenser shook her head. “I don’t know, Mrs. Harper.”

“There were others, I take it.”

“There were.”

“And do you think these secret recordings are why he was… killed?”

“It’s unclear at this point. We’re still pursuing a number of investigative leads.”

She looked away, staring into the distance and the wheels in her mind seemed to be spinning wildly. Spenser imagined it was a lot to take in. Harper swallowed hard and turned to her.

“Does this… these tapes… they don’t have to be made public, do they?” she asked softly.

“At the moment, I can’t say. I’m not quite sure how they factor into my investigation just yet—”

“Sheriff, my husband can’t find out that I was having an affair. Please.”

The panic in Harper’s voice was mirrored in her eyes.

“Please,” Harper begged. “This can’t get out.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t promise you this isn’t going to be made public,” she said. “Like I said, I have no idea yet how this plays into my investigation.”

Tears raced down her cheeks, and she looked like a woman who was watching a bomb that was falling, ready to blow up her entire life. Ordinarily, Spenser would have brushed it off. She’d always believed that if we make our own beds, we have no choice but to lie in them. And running around behind your husband’s back was a choice she’d made. For some reason, though, Spenser was gripped by pangs of sympathy for her.