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“Tell me something, Mrs. Brady,” Liam said with false politeness. He leaned his forearms on the table and stared her down. “Did you love your husband?”
She stiffened. “I loved him very much, and he loved me. In every way.”
“Every way?” he asked in a silky voice. Sharp jealousy twisted in his chest again, and as irrational as it was, Liam couldn’t help but goad her.
Cora cleared her throat, and Liam could feel her staring at him with uncertainty, though he kept his gaze trained on Margaret.
“What are you getting at?” Margaret demanded.
Cora placed a warning hand on Liam’s arm. “I think what Officer O’Connor is trying to say—”
“I’m asking if you had a physical relationship with your husband,” Liam interrupted. “John Brady was decades older than you, so it’s hard for me to believe he satisfied you in every way.” An old codger like her husband could never keep up with Margaret’s sexual appetites. If the past was anything to go by, she needed much more than that man could give, no matter how “truly happy” he made her.
Margaret’s mouth fell open in outrage.
“I’m talking about sex, Mrs. Brady,” Liam said sardonically. “You are familiar with it?”
The steely glint in her gray eyes was lethal. “You tell me, Officer O’Connor.”
“Mrs. Brady, if you’ll just give us a moment?” Cora scraped her chair back and jerked her chin at Liam to follow her.
Out in the hall, she spun to face him. “What the hell is wrong with you? We’re supposed to be trying to get her to open up and talk. If you’re trying to pull some good cop, bad cop thing, it’s not working. You’re just pissing her off.”
Liam clenched his fists and turned away. He had to rein it in, but Margaret’s confession made him want to kick something. He was acting ridiculous, and he knew it. He loved Cora, so none of this should matter, but his damned pride didn’t seem to agree. Fool! Sometimes, he felt as if his old life was melting into this life, and the edges were starting to blur together. It was hard to remember that he had no actual relationship with this current version of Margaret. The angels had set everything up. This life wasn’t even real for him. None of it was. In the past, Margaret had been head over heels for him. She was the one who’d first approached him. She was the one who’d sent him messages to visit whenever her husband was out of town. Her husband had been one of the wealthiest men in the county, and everything she’d wanted was handed to her on a silver platter...everything except affection. Everything but love. She used to tell Liam she wished she had a different life; she’d wished she could be someone else. Liam had felt the same about his own life. Those similarities were what drew them together in the first place. They’d been like flint and tinder in the beginning, burning hot and bright whenever they got close. Margaret had been—and still was—a beautiful woman, but Liam had always figured it was the very clandestine nature of their relationship that made it so irresistible in the first place. It had been too intense to last; they’d always known it. Eventually they’d burn each other to ash. Both of them existed in worlds that caged them in, so they’d clung to their tumultuous affair because it was an escape. Margaret never promised anything, and he’d never expected anything, and it had been fine, for a while. But that was before he’d met Cora and allowed himself to hope... Before he fell in love and everything crumbled to dust.
He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to come up with an explanation for his outrageous behavior. He barely understood it himself. Not for the first time, he cursed the angels for throwing him into this sea of confusion. “You’re right, Cora,” he finally said. “I just thought if I got her all riled up about her husband, she might let something slip.”
Cora rocked back on her heels and the tension in her shoulders eased. “Go and take a break, Liam. Get some coffee or tea or whatever it is you need to get your head on straight.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Go cool off. I’m taking it from here.” She yanked open the door, stepped inside and closed it in his face.
He stood in the hall, waiting for his conflicted feelings to settle. When that didn’t work, he went outside to run a few laps around the building. Running to get nowhere. Like a twenty-first-century lunatic.
A car honked on the busy street. The air smelled like hot asphalt and dust. Someone drove by with loud, wailing music on the radio. He recognized the song. It was the one about knocking on heaven’s door. Liam grimaced. If only it were that easy. If only he could be certain he had a place waiting for him there. He stumbled to a stop, suddenly struck by the realization that this wasn’t his place, but neither was the past anymore. There was only one desirable path left open to him, and he had to give up everything he cared about to get there. What if he couldn’t do it? He felt like a rowboat lost at sea with a storm on the horizon. What if, no matter how hard he paddled, he got sucked under and couldn’t find his way back up?
