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CHAPTER17
* * *
Back at her desk Detective Sparks was faced with another dilemma. The journal used a pass code instead of a key and she was sure she was about to face the same dilemma as she had with the phone and was still facing there in fact.
She sat behind her desk turning the thin volume over and over in her hand while officer Bailey did some follow up calls. They were still trying to pin down the distributor of the dummy clown which she’d been surprised to learn was a more common product than she’d thought.
Hundreds of thousands of the things had been bought in the US alone and she was sure it would take them forever to get through them all. Luckily for her, she thought, was the fact that she could just cut the little strip of leather that closed the journal, something she didn’t want to do unless it was absolutely necessary.
“Let’s see here!” She tried the numbers Niall Davis had given her before, their wedding anniversary, and gave a loud yelp of pleasure when the strap fell open. “I’m in!” She answered officer Bailey’s questioning look. She settled down to read as his voice droned on in the background.
Riley had left the house hours ago to go make the rounds on the farm. The last sick calf was finally back on her feet and the way his men run things there really wasn’t any need for him to be there, but it’s something he liked to do.
Today he was using it as an excuse. He’d needed to get away from the house to clear his head. He’d been so focused on Val and her emotions that he’d neglected his. Sonya is someone that had become very near and dear to him. Not just because she’d been his wife’s friend, but because of the woman she’d been.
She’d been warm, loving, kind; all the things his wife hadn’t been in quite some time. As a matter of fact now that he thought about it, Val had changed for the worst right around the time of little Abigail’s birth as well. Poor little mite, she’d brought about so many changes in so many people, none of them good.
He seemed to be the only one not negatively affected by the child’s birth. Maybe that’s why he’d gone out of his way to be there for the child in her first months of life and even now years later.
Her mother had wanted nothing to do with her because of her illness, her father had been going through his own personal hell and had seemed to blame the child in a roundabout way. Even Valerie had been a bit standoffish with the little girl from the moment she’d been born.
There’d been a strain between Sonya and Valerie there for a while too he remembered, and his wife had even accused him of fucking their friend in a jealous rage. She’d got it into her head that his many visits to the Davis’ house while Niall was away was because he had an interest in Sonya and was there to fuck her.
It had taken a lot of talking and yelling to bring her down from that one and talk her out of confronting her friend. Thank heaven they’d weathered that storm without too much damage.
But now he was afraid the rumors floating around town would send his wife back into depression again. Not to mention what she’d said to him that had sent him out to walk the land while he thought things over. She’d confessed to him that Sonya had told her about a secret affair.
Something he vehemently refused to believe, which had enraged his wife for some reason. He recalled the look in her eyes when she accused him. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“No, I’m not, I’m just asking if you’re sure you’re not getting local gossip and a conversation with your friend mixed up.”
“You think I don’t know the difference between something she told me and what the local yahoos are saying? She told me more than a year ago, gloated about it really.” It was the way she said those words, added to the look in her eyes that made him believe that she was once again accusing him of having an affair with the now dead woman.
But if what she’d said was true that would mean he didn’t know Sonya at all. From all their talks he would’ve sworn that she was a woman still very much in love with her husband. He’d been the one to suggest marriage counseling to them and no one was happier than he when he saw them on the mend.
But if Sonya was having an affair, who was she having an affair with? He ran through the list of men in their small town and couldn’t come up with a single soul that would fit the bill. Of course it could be anyone.
Someone she met while shopping in the next town over, someone she met on the Internet or a friend of Niall’s anyone. But he was having a hard time reconciling with the fact of any such thing happening.
His wife wasn’t inclined to listen to reason and he didn’t want to alienate her further, not when they were only now getting back to the way things used to be. So he’d come out here for some fresh air and to clear his head. If this was true, then Niall was going to need him now more than ever.
* * *
Niall had spent a veryrelaxing afternoon in the pool with his children. His son, at almost seven was the only one of the three who understood what death meant. Even though it was his first brush with death, except for the one goldfish he’d lost when he was four, his little boy was a lot more worldly than he’d been at that age.
He’d enjoyed the lighthearted flirting between him and the nanny as well. Though he felt guilt in the beginning he’d easily squashed that emotion when he remembered that the woman he was being loyal to even in death had betrayed him.
When he thought of her in another man’s arms while he’d rebuffed every woman that had thrown herself at him and his money since meeting her, he felt murderous. So why shouldn’t he take what the delectable nanny was so obviously offering?
For that reason he’d offered to help get the kids cleaned up and put down for their afternoon nap after the lunch Nettie had prepared for them. He sat on the closed toilet and watched his older daughter at her bath since she thought she was a big girl now and didn’t need anyone to wash her, while Bridgette used the other bathroom down the hall to bathe the baby.
By the time he got Andrea dressed she’d put just a pair of pull-ups on Abigail who was half asleep by then. Because he knew what he was about to do, he headed downstairs to the kitchen and gave Nettie the rest of the afternoon off.
“But what about your dinner?” She had a pretty good idea what he was up to. She’d caught a peek at him and the floozy in the pool making eyes at each other, touching when there was no need to. It’s true she wasn’t very fond of the mistress before she died, especially in the last year or so when she turned strange, but the nanny wasn’t any better as far as she was concerned.
She’d thought Sonya too young, too wild for the young man she’d helped raise, and the nanny was even younger and more wild than the other woman had ever been. She didn’t know what it was with men that they let their privates lead them.
“I’ll order something in, you’ve been working too hard these last few days. In fact why don’t you go see your friends? You haven’t done that in a while.”
