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“You tell me.” She nodded at the laptop. “Why in the hell do you have an open case file on my fathers?”
Chapter Nine
“Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”
—Coco Chanel
Anton’s decade-old mug shot broke Sylvie’s heart. Staring back at her from the screen was a version of her father she’d never met, who’d never tucked her into bed after a nightmare or soothed her worries with lemon drops. He looked like shit in his booking photo. Quarter-sized pupils. Sunken cheeks. Cracked lips. Greasy hair going in every direction. According to the police report, he’d gotten busted for trying to score cocaine from an undercover officer.
She slid her shaky fingers across the screen as if the action could erase the image. “He hid his addiction well. We never saw him like this, but I remember vividly when he went into rehab.”
Anya crying into her pillow. Henry putting on a brave face with a smile so fake it nearly cracked his teeth. And she’d spent twenty-eight days planning for history to repeat itself. But thankfully, Anton hadn’t gone down the same suicidal path that her mother had while whacked out on drugs.
He’d come home. Shaken and unsure, but he’d come home to them.
She’d be damned if she’d let anyone take him back to that hell. Even Tony.
“You haven’t answered my question. There are police reports, interview notes, and more. Why do you have all this?”
Tony shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I can’t tell you.”
“Who is Keith Molson? What does his autopsy have to do with my fathers?”
Tony stomped to the desk and slapped the laptop closed. His strong hand stayed on the cover, nearly taking up the entire space with his wide palm and long fingers. “Stop asking questions you don’t want the answers to.”
“Of all the stupid things. If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked.” She shot out of her seat and jabbed a finger into his unyielding chest. “Tell me the truth.”
“Seriously. You don’t want to know.” Tony held up his hands, palms out, and took a step back. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She ground her teeth. She couldn’t stand the pity pooling in his brown eyes, threatening to drown her. Why did the people who kept promising they didn’t want to hurt her always inflict so much fucking damage? Her chest ached with the need for air. Keeping her jaw clamped tight, she inhaled a deep breath. It burned her nostrils but didn’t reach her lungs. It was like trying to breathe underwater using straws stuffed with newspaper. She gasped, fighting to drag in the oxygen she needed.
Panic slashed at her useless lungs. Her vision turned fuzzy. “Can’t…breathe.”
Tony straightened like a shot. “Where’s your purse?”
“Room.” Her legs folded underneath her and she thumped onto the couch.
He sprinted from the office.
She wheezed in another half breath, remembering her yoga instructor’s advice to visualize a place of serenity. She summoned an image of the ski lodge where she’d spent last Christmas with her family. The brisk wind against her cheeks. The swish of her skis as she sailed down the slopes. The nearly blinding white of the mountain peaks gleaming in the distance.
The sunlight flickered and thick gray clouds sealed out the light. Her lungs burned, the searing pain yanking her away from the darkening scene.
Tony’s face appeared over her, wavering like an oasis in the desert. He held out her puffer.
She wrapped her hand around his and brought the inhaler to her mouth. A blast of medication opened her constricted airway, followed by sweet, cool oxygen. Her muscles uncoiled and she sucked in a full, deep breath of air.
“Better?” He pushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead.
“Yes.” The single word scratched against her tender throat, but she couldn’t stop now, no matter how much it hurt, nor in how many ways. “Tell me why you have a case file on my fathers.”
He rubbed his hand across his five o’clock shadow.
“Please.” It hurt to plead, but she had to know.
Tony raised his gaze to the ceiling and fisted his hands at his sides. Then he looked back at her and his shoulders drooped. “They’re suspects in a cop’s murder.”
Her brain blanked as the idea skittered around her head like a marble on a sheet of ice. She gripped her inhaler like a lifeline. “They—” No.
