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His wife grabbed onto his arm and held on tight, sending Ellie one of those proprietary looks that said, “Stay away from my man.”
“Don’t run off,” she told her husband. “It’s all just too terrible, and we need to stay together.”
“She with him?” Stahd asked Ellie, hooking a thumb in the direction of the morgue.
“I—um—Delta’s here,” she said, wondering if she should warn him that Delta was snuggled into McCrae’s embrace. But it might be over by now anyway. “Could I get a statement from you? I’m with Channel Seven.”
“My daughter-in-law killed my son,” he said. “That’s your fucking statement.”
“Oh, babe,” his wife cooed, pressing his head against her ample bosom, still eyeing Ellie. “Oh, babe.”
Lori, Ellie remembered. Who’d left him once, but it didn’t appear, by the way she was hovering over him, that she was going to make that mistake twice.
Tanner’s father paused for a moment, and Ellie watched a stunned look sweep over his features as if it had finally hit him that his son was really dead, gone from this world. But then he clamped down on those emotions and headed for the morgue once more.
“Would you like to give an interview?” Ellie called after him, injecting just the right amount of empathy into the question to allay the fears of his insecure wife.
Stahd stopped and thought a moment. “Yes,” he said. “Stay right
here. I’ll be back.”
Ellie watched him and his wife head down the hallway to the morgue together, Stahd moving at a half run, while wifey mewed platitudes and dogged after him in a pair of Manolo Blahniks that Ellie had lusted after herself but couldn’t afford. When they were out of sight, she tried Rob again, getting through this time with no problem—small miracle—and said she was getting a story to add to her piece from Dr. Stahd, who’d just learned his son had died from his injuries.
Rob said, “Get it.”
As Ellie clicked off, she felt a pang of something akin to remorse. Immediately she squelched it. Yes, she was very sorry that Tanner had been killed, and she sure as hell wanted Delta or whoever had done it brought to justice, but there was no reason to sit back and grieve when there was work to be done, work that could inform the public and, yes, help her career.
Probably Delta did kill him. Maybe she’d just had enough of his cheating, his narcissism, his lack of character . . . all the pieces of Tanner that everyone had ignored in high school but that had become self-evident over time. He’d still looked pretty good, Ellie could admit, and she sure as hell would’ve done him back in the day . . . maybe even more recently . . . but, well, it was too late now.
She spared a thought for the young man who’d been such a star in high school . . . but then her thoughts turned to Bailey and Carmen.
Amanda was right. They sure as hell were one unlucky class.
Chapter 18
Dead. Tanner was dead. Not injured and recovering. Dead. Delta wanted to burrow deeper into the comfort of McCrae’s arms, but it was a false safe harbor. Almost from the moment he reached out to comfort her, she could feel him pull back. It helped wake her from the alien world she’d been sleepwalking through.
“I saw him,” she said.
McCrae looked toward the door marked MORGUE. He’d seen enough dead bodies to know the wealth of feeling behind those three words.
“Are you related?” the doctor asked McCrae as he checked his watch.
“No,” Delta and McCrae answered at the same time, slowly pulling apart.
“Well . . .” He seemed momentarily stymied by their answer, then nodded to them as he returned to his duties, clearly ready to hand the matter of Delta over to McCrae, regardless of their relationship.
He’d barely gotten out of sight when Tanner’s father and Lori suddenly appeared in the hallway.
“Lester,” Delta managed through a tight throat.
The elder Dr. Stahd gave McCrae a hard look. Though he wasn’t physically comforting Delta any longer, the vibe must have been in the air, because Stahd’s mouth tightened and he glared at her.
“Already at it, girl?” he asked.
“Lester,” Lori protested faintly.
“I’m so sorry,” Delta said.
