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“Why’d you call?” Sierra asked.
Nervous laughter bubbled in Leah. “Maybe because I never saw his body. I never anchored his death in my mind. When his grandmother had the funeral I was still too banged up to travel. I’ve only visited his grave once.”
“When’s the last time you called the detective?” Sierra asked.
“On our anniversary three years ago. For whatever reason, I had a little panic attack and needed to call. She was nice. Again, I sounded a little insane. Logically, I know he’s dead, but a part of me always doubts.”
A young girl with red hair and glasses, who had been the victim of a shooting, snorted. “I don’t trust anything or anyone. The system does screw up. I had my husband arrested for beating me and then, when the cops released him, they didn’t warn me. Twelve hours after he got out, he tracked me down and shot me. Three days after the shooting, I was recovering in the hospital, tubes stuck out of every end of my body, when the jail called to inform me he had been released.”
The women nodded. Several murmured warnings.
“I’m here tonight so you all can talk me off the ledge,” Leah said, smiling as if it would lighten the fear. She shifted her gaze to Sierra. “Not a real ledge. Just the proverbial ledge. I’m so tired of being afraid. I’m so tired of fearing every corner or odd sound I hear at night. I thought I was past it, but it’s all rushing back now.”
Sierra smiled. “Leah, you’re doing just fine. Give yourself a break. You suffered a terrible trauma. Give yourself time to absorb it.”
“So, you think that’s all it is?”
“You found a friend murdered. Give yourself a break. That’s a hell of an ordeal.”
“I need to give it time,” Leah said automatically.
“Yes,” Sierra said. “And if the police talk to you again, tell them what happened to you. They might cut you a little slack.”
“I know.”
Sierra recognized the evasion humming below the surface. “Talking to the cops will make you feel better. You’ll at least have them on your side.”
“Philip was a cop.” This was a detail she’d never shared before.
Sierra leaned forward a fraction. “Come again?”
“He was a cop. That’s how he was able to talk himself out of so many spots with me. Trust is kind of an issue for me.”
“You can’t judge all cops by him,” Sierra said. “There are a lot of good ones.”
“I know. I know. A good one saved me. If not for him, I’d have bled to death.” She ran nervous fingers through her hair. “I even had a date the other night, the first one in years, with a cop.”
“He a nice guy?”
“Seems to be.” A shrug and a smile, meant to soften the absolute panic, fell flat. “Though I kinda freaked out on the date. A little panic attack.”
“It was your first date.”
“I know. I’ve been thrown and I need to get back up on the horse.” God, how many times had she heard that analogy and thought it bogus?
Other women shared their stories, and though Leah tried to focus, their voices faded to the background. Philip wasn’t alive. And Deidre’s death was a terrible coincidence.
By the time the meeting ended, Leah’s worries lingered, but she didn’t feel so alone. As she walked to her car, her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number.
Let it go to voice mail, fear whispered.
Don’t be a baby. Her grip tightening, she counted the rings. One. Two. Three. On the fourth ring, she answered. “Hello.”
Silence answered her. Long tense seconds passed. She gripped the phone harder.
“Hello?”
No answer.
Her heart kicking into high gear and annoyed, she ended the call. Get a grip.
Still gripping the phone tight, she hurried to her car, slid behind the wheel, and locked the doors. The cold leather seat chilled her bones as she studied the still shadows for monsters.
Starting the engine, she glared at the phone. “If that’s meant to be a joke, Karma, it’s really not very funny,” She said out loud. Her heart raced a little faster. “Shit. I don’t need hang-ups on a good day.”
Distracted, she pulled out into traffic as a horn blared behind her coming from her blind spot. She hit the brakes, realizing she’d nearly driven into a tow truck. Damn.
Sweating, white-knuckled the wheel. The phone rang again, and she jumped. Glaring at the display, she watched the same number flash again. This time she let it ring, gritting her teeth until the phone finally went silent. Without checking for a message, she deleted the call from her phone.
Philip is dead. He is dead.
Chapter Ten
Tuesday, January 17, 8 A.M.
Tyler Radcliff dreamed of Deidre. She wasn’t laughing or smiling. She wasn’t wearing that red bikini he’d liked so much when they’d been in Aruba. Instead, she wore that damn black suit that had never been flattering, and her angled face was pale, gaunt, and bloodless. She’d moved toward him, her long arms extended as she reached for him. He’d tried to jerk away, but those ice-cold fingers connected with his brow, sending shivers through his body. She traced the ridge of his brow and with her lips hovering close to his ear said, “I loved you so much once. What went wrong?”
He jerked awake, his hands trembling and his body drenched in sweat. He rolled on his back and stared at the play of shadows across his bedroom as his hand slid to the side of the bed that had been Deidre’s. The sheets were ice cold. He rolled on his side and imagined her lying there, sleeping, a slight smile on her face.
He smoothed his hand over her pillow, hating that the down was plump and missing the subtle imprint of her head. Dee, how did it turn to shit between us?
With a groan, he rolled out of bed and tugged on a pair of jeans. Grabbing a T-shirt from the floor, he pulled it over his head and padded into the living room, where a half-full bottle of bourbon sat on the coffee table. Pushing an old pizza box off the couch and tossing it on the floor, he reached for the bottle as he dug the remote out of the sofa and turned on the television to CNN Sports.
He drank from the bottle as he glanced down at the wedding album sitting on the coffee table next to an empty bag of potato chips. The book was open to the last shot, taken just before they’d taken off for Aruba. Deidre was wearing a slim-fitting green dress she’d slipped on after the reception and he wore khakis, a white shirt, and a red tie. Handfuls of birdseed flew in the air above them and both had huddled close as they waited for the seeds to drop. Tracing Deidre’s smiling face with a callused fingertip, he drank, savoring the burn of the bourbon as it rolled down his throat.
What the hell had gone so wrong between them?
Their wedding day had been simple but beautiful. No fancy churches or reception halls for them. A small, intimate ceremony had suited them just fine.
He flipped several pages back to the picture taken before she’d walked across the grassy field toward him and the preacher. Curls peeked out from under her white veil, and she’d been so damn pretty he’d thought himself the luckiest man in the world. Later, at the reception, his hands had trembled just a little when he’d reached up under her skirt and removed the blue garter, which he’d tossed toward the single guys. In those days, he could barely keep his hands off her.
Hell, he’d never tired of Deidre in bed. She was wild and didn’t mind keeping it fresh and fun. Even right up until last fall, when he’d found the emails to the other guy, he was hot for her.
But the emails had struck him right in the face, like a sucker punch. Initially, he hadn’t been able to breathe, too shocked to think. Then slowly, as he reread the emails through the night, his frozen emotions had warmed to sadness and then heated to anger and rage.
If she’d walked in the door that day, he’d have killed her right then. No questions asked. For hours, he’d clenched and unclenched his fist as he imagined what it would feel like to wrap his hands around her neck.
He hadn’t told h
er he’d found the emails at first. Instead, he’d become obsessed with finding out the name of her lover. He’d taken to following her until the late fall day when he’d seen her dart into a trendy café in Franklin and sit down with a cup of coffee. She’d only been at the table a few minutes before a man had entered the shop. She’d risen immediately, and when he approached her, she had hugged him warmly.
Deidre had once hugged Tyler with that kind of passion.
Shit. He reached for the bourbon bottle and drank heavily. He set the bottle down.
The TBI agent had mentioned Leah Carson, Deidre’s new friend. He’d known the two had grown close but now wondered what secrets Deidre had shared with her. He didn’t need her feeding the cops stories about his troubles with Deidre. Still, as a cop he understood it was better to keep his distance from her. Better to let TBI do its thing and let the whole deal play out.
Better.
Smarter.
