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Ox interrupted before Lauren could react to DJ’s comment. “I’m guessing his wife wasn’t there. Or she would have tried to beat you with a pizza pan. I mean, that’s oneesposa enojada—I saw the way she looked at you when she was in the audience. She ain’t a fan.”
“I don’t know why. I’ve never even met her.” Her conscience poked her with a sharp nail. While she might not know for certain, Lauren had a pretty good idea why Heather didn’t like her.
“Well, you’re not paying attention then, luv. The way he looked at you? He’s still got feelings for you, girl. That’s why the missus is so pissed off,” Stevie said as he messed around with his Gibson.
“Whatever.” Lauren waved him off.
There was no more time for conversation once Fitz bustled into the room. He announced that lunch was over and they’d best get cracking. They worked through another song, but Lauren could tell that the producer wasn’t pleased with what the band was doing.
Later that night, she found herself thinking about what Stevie had said. She roamed through her apartment, restless, feeling caged. Did Danny still have feelings for her? She knew how she felt. Well, she thought she did. The old attraction was still there, and that remarkable level of comfort and trust.
Are these feelings just ghosts?she wondered.Echoes of what was?
She grabbed her notebook, the spark of a song flaring. But after about three scribbled lines, the ephemeral idea vanished into the night. Disgusted, Lauren threw the notebook down. It bounced off the sofa and sprawled on the floor. The pen followed. Lauren curled into a corner of the sofa and pressed her fingers to her temples.
If I don’t come up with anything soon, I’m done.
ChapterSeventeen
Danny stared down as the coroner’s assistant finished draping white sheets over the bodies at his crime scene. Under one of them, a man’s body. A fan of his blood spread out on the otherwise pristine hardwood floor. Beneath the other, a woman, the red marks around her throat a stark contrast to her pale skin. But what twisted in Danny’s gut were the two smaller sheets on the second floor of the townhouse. It was bad enough when kids died, but a full family murder-suicide? It left a raw, gaping hole inside him.
He was quiet and withdrawn on the ride back to the precinct and while he typed up his notes. It was an open and shut case—the husband had lost control. A neighbor told Danny that the wife had served her husband with divorce papers the day before. The townhouse had a security camera, and it had shown exactly what happened in gruesome, graphic detail.
The husband had stormed in, shouting, waving some papers in his hand. The wife screamed back. In a flash, the papers scattered, and the husband’s hands were around her throat. She’d scratched and struggled but sank to her knees as the pressure became too much. Once the wife was dead, he’d pulled her limp form into his arms as he cried.
Then he got up and paced, pulling at his hair and sobbing. Twice he went to the bottom of the stairs, and twice he stopped himself until, the third time, he disappeared upstairs. When he came down again, he was stone-faced. He went to his office, where he unlocked his gun safe and pulled out his Glock. Back in the living room he’d stared at his wife, her rag-doll body a heap on the floor, until he put the muzzle under his chin and pulled the trigger.
Rolling back in his chair, Danny rubbed his eyes. He tried not to think about the kids. They’d been suffocated. He struggled to master the sadness and fury in his heart. How could someone do that? How could a father put pillows over his children’s faces and press down? The oldest of the two had been about Tommy’s age, and all Danny wanted to do was hug his sons. Feel them in his arms, hear them laugh and tease him, saying Daddy was getting all huggy.
Despite his very primal need to touch his sons, assure himself they were fine, Danny was reluctant to go to dinner. The case had already made him late, and the very last thing he wanted to do tonight was go to a potluck at his parents’ house. They already ate there nearly every Sunday, but his mother seemed convinced that a few extra family dinners would fix the problems between him and Heather. And to add to the drama, Heather had accused him a second time of sleeping with Lauren—an accusation he vehemently denied once again. He was getting tired of being falsely accused.
By the time Danny arrived, dinner was being cleared off the table. The boys, along with Cole, were in the TV room with their grandmother.
“Sorry I’m late.” His jacket landed on the back of a kitchen chair. He leaned to give Heather a kiss on the cheek but only grazed her as she turned her head away without a word. Danny sighed and saw Maggie and his father glance at each other.
“Heather…”
“Late again.” Frost coated her voice.
“Don’t start. We caught a case—” He watched as she dumped a plate full of pasta—what he assumed was supposed to be his dinner—into the garbage.
“I’m not starting anything, Danny. You started it. Clearly, you’re not ready to finish it.” She wiped her hands on a towel and stalked out of the room, brushing past Richie on her way. Maggie gracefully slipped out as well.
“Un-fucking-believable,” Danny muttered under his breath.
Danny stood and fumed as Richie went to the refrigerator. He grabbed cold cuts, cheese, tomato slices and a leftover dinner roll. A minute later, he handed the makeshift sandwich to his son. Danny just blinked at it.
“Gotta have something for supper,” his father said.
“I suppose.”
“Want to talk about it?”
Danny offered a non-committal grunt. “I had a crappy day at work, and I’m so tired of fighting when I’m home. I’m tired of getting accused of something I haven’t done.”
“And what’s that?”
“Having an affair with Lauren.”
