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Daniel listened to the phone ringing in his ear, counting. One, two, three. “Come on, Nicole, come on,” he whispered. Ray shifted on the narrow couch as if he could hear the desperation in those words in his sleep. Daniel’s new brother-in-law had dozed off in mid-sentence a few minutes earlier. Daniel didn’t have the heart to wake him. His own eyes burned with fatigue. He should sleep, but first he wanted—needed—to tell Nicole not to give up on their marriage—to leave this other man out of it. It was after nine, but she shouldn’t be in bed already. Maybe she saw his name on the Caller ID and ran the other direction.
The ringing stopped and a rustling sound followed by clattering assailed his ears. “Sorry, I dropped the phone. I mean, hello, it’s Nicole.” She sounded disoriented. “Any news on Benny?”
“No. No news.” Daniel beat down the emotion that admission elicited. Just the sound of her voice sent a quiver of longing through him. He should be in his living room, on his couch, sitting next to her. They should be drawing comfort from each other. He’d destroyed that possibility with sheer neglect. Now he was in danger of losing her to someone who apparently appreciated her more. “Were you asleep?”
“No. No, I . . . I was . . . I mean . . .” She sounded nervous, maybe even guilty. About what? “I wasn’t asleep.”
“I wanted to talk to you. About this afternoon. I mean, you know, when we—”
“Kissed? When you kissed me?” Her tone fired up with unmistakable anger. “And then went into a bedroom and hugged another woman?”
“I told you—Deborah was trying to wake me up. There was no hug—” Daniel shut his mouth as Ray stirred on the couch and his eyes opened for a second, then he sank back, slumbering again. Daniel reeled in his emotions and schooled his voice in a whisper. “Surely you can see the irony in the accusation. Come to Pastor Wilson’s counseling session. We can work this out.”
Another voice—a masculine voice—spoke in the distance. Something about leaving. Daniel strained to hear. “Who is that? Is it him?”
“I have to go.”
“Wait! Your new boyfriend is there? While the kids are upstairs? What do you think this is doing to them, Nicole? This isn’t right—”
“I have to go.”
Dial tone buzzed in his ear, a monotonous, irritating reminder of how far away Nicole had gone. Daniel forced himself to breath in and out for a few seconds. Then he punched a button. Christopher’s cell phone number popped up and dialed. His son answered on the second ring. “Pop! Did you find Benny?”
“No,m’ijo, not yet.”
“I want to live with you. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Daniel swallowed the urgent need to probe about the man in his house. He would not use his son to spy on Nicole. “Squirt, give me time to make things right with your mom. Then we’ll all live together again as a family. I promise.”
A stifled sob greeted that optimistic statement. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep. Mom has a boyfriend and he’s here. Right now. I saw them. They were . . . kissing.”
Daniel let the phone sink to his lap. He could hear Christopher’s voice calling him, asking him if he’d heard, if he were all right. He’d heard, but he wasn’t all right. Finally, he lifted the phone to his ear. He had to reassure his child. “Just give me time, Son. I’ll fix this. I promise.”
It took several minutes of reassurances before Daniel could hang up the phone. His exhaustion was so acute he could barely raise his hand to lay the phone on the table. The sound of the screen door slamming forced him from the vicious cycle of his thoughts. Ray’s yelp of surprise reflected the fact that he’d heard it, too. He sat up straight, clutching a pillow to his chest, his curly hair sticking up all over his head. “I thought everyone headed home for the night.”
Daniel stretched, trying to get the kinks out of his shoulders and neck, and shake the last few minutes from his brain. “Alex said Detective Cooper is coming back to talk to you.”
Ray dropped the pillow and rubbed his face with both hands. “Right. I wish I had more to tell him.”
Cooper strode into the room, ragged hat in one hand. His eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks covered with white stubble, but he managed a grim smile. He sank into the rocker across from the couch. “We need to talk.”
Not exactly a friendly overture, but Daniel didn’t blame Cooper. It had been a long, ugly day. “Would you like some coffee?”
Cooper shook his head. He slapped his Stetson onto his lap with a half-hearted flourish. “I need to get the name of the previous owner of this property—or the family who rented it, at least. I want Alex to try to track him down first thing in the morning, while we’re in Huntsville.”
Ray began to massage his left leg, a look of pain on his face. “Where’s Alex? I thought he was with you.”
Daniel caught Cooper’s curious gaze and spoke quickly. “I asked him to check on a couple things for me and then go home. The guy was dragging.”
Ray shrugged, his eyebrows lifted. “This early? He’s a night owl. A couple of hours is a full night’s rest for him.”
Daniel glanced at Cooper, who remained silent, his gaze still on the papers strewn across the table. The guy wasn’t going to give him up. Good. Ray didn’t need to know about Deborah’s behavior. Not tonight. “He’ll be back in the morning. Let’s finish this so you and Susana can check into the honeymoon suite. Detective Cooper, did you get a COD? A timeline?”
Before Cooper could answer, Susana trotted in to the room, a purse in her hand. “Marco’s asleep—finally. He’s so distraught over Benny, I’m concerned about leaving him, even if it is just for the night.”
She talked fast, her cheeks pink. Daniel glanced at Ray and then averted his gaze. The pain that had been on the man’s face seconds before had disappeared behind a careful mask. “We can skip the hotel and stay here, if you think it’ll help.”
“I’ll be here. So will Piper and Samuel,” Daniel broke in. This situation would not rob his sister of an occasion for which she had waited a very long time. Trying to hide his exhaustion, he picked up his coffee cup. “If he wakes up during the night, I’ll sit with him. You guys go. We know where to find you if we need you.”
