Read Online The Scent of Lies: A Paradise Valley Mystery by Debra Burroughs - Free Book Online

placed it on the bare table in the center of the room.
    “I’ll leave you for a few minutes so you can open the box in private, Mrs. Parker.”
    “Thank you,” she said, looking down at the box.
    She had butterflies in her stomach and as soon as she was alone, she snatched open the lid and peeked inside. The diamond ring wasn’t there, but what was, shocked her. Three passports with Evan’s photo, all with different names—Michael Boerner, Alexi Krishenko, and Sean McDonough. There was a gun she did not recognize as one of his, several sizeable, bound stacks of cash, some foreign currency, Euros she guessed, and a bronze key—perhaps a house key or the key to a padlock. With the foreign currency and passports, she thought perhaps the key might be for an apartment in some exotic European city.
    Then at the bottom of the box lay a photo of Evan, maybe ten or fifteen years younger, with his arm around a woman. She was about his age and had long wavy black hair and deep brown eyes—maybe Italian or Greek.
    Emily dragged one of the straight-back wooden chairs away from the table and sank down onto it, her knees weak at the realization that she didn’t really know Evan at all. Feeling like an elephant had just sat on her chest and then sent his friends to do the mambo in her stomach, she crossed her arms on the table, laid her head on them, and tried to pull in enough air to keep from passing out, or throwing up.
    After a few minutes, Emily decided to take what she wanted and put the rest back in the metal box before the manager returned. She took the photo and the key. The rest would keep, for now. She was tempted to take the cash, but feared what it represented. If it was stolen money or payment for some kind of illicit activity, could she somehow be implicated in it? No, she decided, it was better to leave it here for the time being. She could always come back.
    On the way home, she stopped at a container store and purchased a stack of cardboard boxes. It was time to start packing Evan’s things away.
    * * *
    Emily spent the next few hours packing and thinking. With each item of clothing she folded into a box, she thought about a time when Evan wore it during the life they had together.
    Was it all a lie? Had he really loved her? “Who were you, Evan? Or should I say Michael or Alexi...maybe just Sean?”
    She interrogated him, as if he were there. “What were you into? Why are there passports and cash hidden away? What about the gun—did you kill someone with it? Is that why you’re hiding it?”
    She shouted and screamed at him through her fountain of tears. She pulled everything off the shelves and threw his things across the closet and into the bedroom. She pulled every piece of clothing and every hanger down from the rod and pitched them on the floor. “Damn you, Evan Parker! Was our whole marriage one big lie?”
    Finally falling, exhausted, into a crumpled heap on the cluttered closet floor, she sobbed loud, gut-wrenching sobs until she was worn out and no more tears would come.
    As much as she hated to disappoint her good friends, putting on a happy face and being around a host of people was the last thing Emily wanted to do, so she phoned Isabel to cancel on her and Alex for the following evening. She hoped they would understand.
    “What’s wrong?” Isabel asked.
    Emily told her about finding the key hidden in Evan’s side of the closet and some of what she’d found in the safe deposit box. She just wasn’t up to being around anyone else for a while after the shock and disappointment she’d experienced.
    “Oh, my gosh, Em. Passports, a hidden gun. I’m just, well...dumbfounded. I can understand why you’d be in shock, but now is not the time to be alone.” Isabel tried hard to convince her that being with friends would be the best thing for her.
    “The whole gang will be here. Maggie is even bringing a date. Please come, Em.”
    “Then I’ll be the only single person, the pitiful lonely