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“My pleasure, little one. Ready for your movie?”
“Mmhmm.”
Chuckling, James reached for the remote. For his own comfort as much as hers, he left her where she was, snuggled on his lap while they watched her movie.
Chapter9
Services will be held Wednesday afternoon…
By the time she’d reread the same sentence for about the twentieth time in a row, the words had begun to jumble on the page.
Services. What an oddly simplistic word for a time filled with such grief.
Should she go? It seemed like the right thing to do, but just the thought of stepping foot inside that funeral home sat like a rock in her gut. She hadn’t really even known Angela all that well, since they’d only met the one time.
“Why the frown, little one?”
At the sound of her Daddy’s voice, she looked up and found him hovering over her, concern etched into his features. She handed him the tablet without saying anything, relieved when his expression shifted from concern to sympathetic understanding.
“I know this is hard for you, but I’m sure it would mean a lot to her family if we went.”
“I thought you might say that,” she mumbled.
Before he could press the issue, a melodic tinkling echoed through the house. With an irritated glance toward the entryway, James handed her the tablet again. “I’ll be right back and we can talk about the service.”
Figuring it was simply a delivery of some kind, she went back to scrolling through her social media. It wasn’t until she heard her husband’s hushed, angry tones that she sat up, straining to hear the conversation.
Who the hell was at their door, and why did James sound so pissed?
She got her answer when James returned a few minutes later, a man and a woman she’d never seen before trailing behind him. The man, only slightly taller than the woman with a rounded stomach on an otherwise muscular build, wore sympathy like a mask. At least, that was how it seemed to her, something fake he put on for the occasion. The woman’s face, by contrast, was completely flat, devoid of any kind of emotion.
But it was her husband’s expression that sent the chill racing up her spine. It was a kind of cold fury she’d never seen in him—and something she hoped to never see again.
“Liv, Detectives Michaelson and Rogers are here to ask you some questions.” That muscle in his jaw, the one that always let her know when he was trying to control his temper, jumped. “It’s about Angela.”
She instinctively reached for him, for his comfort, as her stomach tied itself into nervous knots. Taking her hand, he joined her on the couch and her gaze darted frantically between him and the detectives. “Angela? What about Angela?”
“We’re sorry to interrupt your Sunday, ma’am.” The male detective—Michaelson, according to the badge he’d flashed in her direction—spoke with the same fake sympathy in his voice he wore on his face. “May we sit?”
She looked to James for direction, only to find he was already gesturing to the loveseat, albeit with rather thinly veiled hostility. The pair sat, their rigid postures making them look even more out of place in her warm, comfortable living room than they had when they’d been hovering over her.
Michaelson spoke first, and she fleetingly wondered if they were going to pull some good cop/bad cop deal on her. “How well did you know Ms. Winters?”
“Not well. What’s this about?”
“Breathe, Livvy.” Despite his obvious anger at the situation, James’s voice was soft and soothing, the way it always was when she was on the verge of panicking. “Just answer their questions, baby.”
Tightening her grip on his hand, she inhaled deeply and tried to draw strength from his touch. Just answer their questions. She could do that. “I only met her once, when we were doing a photo shoot for a magazine article.”
“This photo shoot?” Rogers, the female detective, pulled a plastic bag out of the portfolio she held and handed it over.
Olivia’s stomach lurched at the image. It was Angela’s picture from the article, withBITCHscrawled across her face in bold red letters.
“What is this?” Olivia whispered, unable to tear her eyes away from the horrifying image.
“Is this a picture from the article you mentioned?” Detective Rogers pressed.
“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, pulling her away from the cliff’s edge. Feeling steadier, she met Detective Rogers’s gaze head on. “Who would do this to her? Is it because of the article?”
