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There was what I assumed was a wedding photo, too – Jack looking incredibly hot in a tux, and two groomsmen on either side, all smiling.
He’d mentioned he’d been divorced, but he didn’t say how long ago. I scanned the photos quickly, looking for a bride. There wasn’t one. There were a number of women, biker-chick eye candy – one here, a different one there – but no repeats. Nobody that would qualify for ‘wife’ status.
My private investigator mind churned into overdrive. The house showed no signs of a female presence; the décor was all very masculine. All the clothes in the closet were his.
It had probably been awhile.
But I was curious.
“You were married?” I called out.
“Where’d that come from?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
“This picture of you in a tux.”
He laughed in the other room. “Looking at my wall o’ memories, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I told you I was divorced.”
“I know – but you didn’t say when.”
“Two years ago.”
“Oh,” I said, relieved – and, to my surprise, a little bit jealous. The women in the photos were all good-looking. Some were surgically enhanced. I was going through the photos, mentally ticking them off – She looks a little like me – she looks NOTHING like me – when I stopped dead.
There was a very familiar photo at the end of the row.
It was of a dive bar with a jukebox in the background. Red neon lights cast a pink glow on everything. In the photo, Jack had his arm around a smiling blonde in a white tube top and low-slung jeans. There was a butterfly tattoo visible above her right hipbone.
The one she’d gotten for her 18th birthday.
Ali.
In the heat and frenzy of last night, I had totally forgotten her. Had totally forgotten why I was here in this town.
The shame of that realization crushed me.
Like a ghost or an accusing angel, she’d appeared to remind me of my purpose, and how far I had strayed.
It’s hard to describe the mix of emotions I felt.
Sorrow – to see my dead cousin.
Guilt – that I had betrayed her.
Repulsion – that maybe I had unknowingly slept with a man she had, too.
And terror…
…that I might be standing fifty feet away from the man who had killed her.
MIDNIGHT LUST
1
Fiona
