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“This photo shoot?” Rogers, the female detective, pulled a plastic bag out of the portfolio she held. She handed the bag to Olivia.
Olivia’s stomach lurched at the image. It was Angela’s picture from the article, with the word ‘bitch’ scrawled across her face in bold red letters.
“What is this?” Hearing the hitch in her voice, she tightened her grip on James’s hand and silently prayed she wouldn’t break down in front of the police.
“Is this a picture from the article you mentioned?” Detective Rogers asked.
“Yes. What’s going on? Who...” Olivia’s breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she teetered on the edge of the breakdown she was fighting so hard to avoid. But then James squeezed her hand, settling her and pulling her away from the edge. Feeling steadier, she met Detective Rogers’s gaze head on. “Who would do this to her? Is it because of the article?”
“We can’t say.” Rogers held her hand out and Olivia passed the bag back to her. “Right now it’s just one small piece of the puzzle.”
“When you were at the photo shoot, how did she seem? Happy? Anxious?” Michaelson spoke again, drawing her attention away from his cold partner.
“Excited. We were all so excited and a little nervous, I guess. But I mean, that’s normal, right?” She looked to James, who nodded and squeezed her hand again. “It’s normal to be excited and nervous. She didn’t seem scared, or worried someone might kill her over her face in a fucking magazine.”
The initial shock at being questioned by the police was wearing off. Anger, hot and righteous filled the void left behind.
“Liv.” There was no scolding in James’s quiet, soothing tone. “They’re just asking questions. It’s part of the process.”
Swallowing her anger and grief, she nodded and focused on the detectives again. “Anything else I can answer for you?”
Michaelson stood and shook his head. “Not at this time. Thank you.”
With one last squeeze of her hand, James stood and ushered them out. It took longer than it should have for him to return, and the anger she’d held back during the interrogation began to boil over.
“So,” she snapped when James returned to the living room. “What did they say? Should I be on house arrest until they catch this asshole?”
To her surprise, he grinned. “You know me well, don’t you? No, they don’t think there’s any threat to you or the others in the article. Like they said, it’s just a piece of the puzzle.”
“The puzzle.” She all but spat the words at him. “She’s not a puzzle, James. She was a person. And someone killed her. Because she was good at her job? Maybe a little too cutthroat for some neutered jackass in a suit? Fuck that.”
“We don’t know why, yet. We might never know. And it pisses me off, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. It pisses me off. And it scares the shit out of me, because there’s a small piece of it that touches you. I could kill this sonofabitch for even that small piece of horror touching our lives.”
What did it say about her that his anger soothed her own? Olivia stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, her head tilted back. “I love you.”
His arms came around her, safe and comforting. “I love you too. But you’re not going to like what I have to say next.”
Alarm bells rang in the back of her mind. “Uh oh. Why?”
“Your plans for tomorrow, with Shannon.” Lifting a hand, he tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Instead of going out, have her come over for dinner.”
“What?” She tried to pull away, but his arms tightened around her, holding her in place. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
Despite the icy warning in his tone, she shook her head. “I’m not changing my plans.”
“You will if I say so, young lady.”
She opened her mouth to argue, to tell him to go to hell and that he couldn’t control her. But a small, quiet voice reminded her that this was what she’d asked for. She’d wanted her daddy back, and this was what daddies did. They protected their little girls. With that in mind, she took a deep, steadying breath. “Yes, if you tell me to change my plans, and that’s your final decision, I’ll accept it. But can we talk about it? Please?”
It had been the right tack to take. She saw it in the way his mouth lost its tightness, the way his eyes softened. “We can talk about it.”
“I love that you want to protect me. But you can’t lock me away like a princess in a tower. I have a life and a job.”
