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“Was there a police report?” Molly asked.
Burke handed her a copy of the report that Gabe had memorized, down to the printer stripe that ran across the width of the page six inches from the bottom margin.
Molly’s brow furrowed as she read the very short report. “This says that your father’s body was found by his neighbor.”
Gabe swallowed. “Mrs. Dobson, yes. She and my mother were best friends for as long as I can remember. She found my dad’s dog in her flower bed and brought him back. Said she was already fussin’ at Dad when she opened the kitchen door.” Nausea rolled through his stomach, making him grateful that he hadn’t eaten that morning. “She found him slumped over the kitchen table. His gun was on the floor where it appeared that he’d dropped it. There was an empty bottle of Grey Goose and an empty glass next to his head.” He rubbed his hands over his face, wishing he could wipe the image from his mind. But he couldn’t. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see his father. Lying there in his own blood and brains.
Gabe wished he’d never looked at the photo. Cursed the cop who’d shown it to him.
Cursed the fact that he’d been too busy to be there when his father had needed him most. Not to beg him not to kill himself, because Gabe knew that his father hadn’t done so.
If I’d been there, they wouldn’t have hurt him. They wouldn’t have dared.
Or maybe I’d be dead, too.
“Gabe? What kind of dog?”
Gabe’s gaze flew to meet Molly’s, her question jerking him back from the awful place his mind had gone. She waited patiently for him to answer, and he got the feeling that she’d asked the question at least once already and that he’d been zoned out for longer than he’d thought.
“Lab mix. Some golden in there. Maybe some pit bull. A mutt, really. Goes by Shoe.”
“Like your restaurant?”
“No. S-h-o-e. Like on your feet.”
One corner of her mouth lifted. “Because he eats shoes?”
The tightness in his chest lessened a bit, enough for him to breathe. Thank you, Molly. “That, too. My dad called my mom his petit chou. When I was little, I asked why he called her a shoe.” His eyes burned at the memory. “After she passed, Dad was so lonely. I talked him into getting a dog from the shelter. One day he came home with this half-bald mess who’d been so stressed out that he’d scratched himself raw, but that dog loved my dad already. Within five minutes of settlin’ in, he stole one of the shoes I’d left there. Dad called him Shoe and it stuck.”
She smiled, and it warmed him, deep inside where he’d been so numb. “Where is Shoe now?”
“At my house. Dad insisted that he’d trained Shoe not to eat shoes, but I keep mine on a high shelf, just in case.” He drew a breath and let it out. “Thank you. We can keep going.”
“If you’re sure.” At his nod, she asked, “Was Grey Goose his drink of choice before he got sober?”
“It was. Everyone knew it. Mom got him a bottle every Christmas. He wasn’t a drunk, not then. He started hitting the bottle hard after she passed.”
“But he got sober,” she murmured.
“He did. He was so proud of himself and we were proud of him. The family. My aunts and my uncle and cousin.” He closed his eyes again. “I’m going to have to tell them about this, sooner or later, and, though it makes me a coward, I’m dreading it.”
“Maybe tell them later,” Burke said softly. “No need to burden them just yet.”
No need to make them targets, too.Gabe didn’t need for Burke to say the words out loud. He’d known from the very beginning that it would come to this.
“It doesn’t make you a coward.” Molly waited until he opened his eyes. “You love your family, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s perfectly natural not to want to cause them emotional pain.”
He shrugged. “Emotional or physical.”
“That, too,” she allowed. “The report says that your neighbor discovered your father’s body the next morning, but it doesn’t say whether or not she heard a shot.”
“She didn’t,” Gabe said. “I asked. She was beside herself after she found him, second-guessing herself, asking what if she’d checked out the scratching noise that she thought she’d heard the night before, which was probably Shoe at her door. She heard the dog scratching, but not a gun firing.”
“And the gun found with your father’s body didn’t have a suppressor.” She exchanged a glance with Burke. “Did he own a suppressor?”
