Second Chance (Hudson Valley Murder Mysteries #2)

Chapter Five

T he detective rings the doorbell less than a minute after Daniel gets up to make his tea.

Tony, who hasn’t made it out of bed yet, groans when he hears the buzzer. Daniel’s going to be grumpy. He likes his calm mornings.

When he hears the knock at the door, quickly followed by her voice, he struggles upright and rummages for whatever clothes they left on the bedroom floor last night. If he leaves Daniel to his own devices, he’ll spend the entire conversation glowering at her, in part because she couldn’t have waited ten minutes for the kettle to boil.

The other part is that he hates her.

Daniel would never say so, of course. He’s very polite, even when she isn’t there, and they’re talking about last year’s events in the privacy of the few people who witnessed the full story. Daniel always makes sure to mention she was just doing her job. That’s how Tony knows Daniel really, truly hates her. He says meaner things about Colette than he ever would about Detective Taylor.

“We had nothing to do with Professor Lawrence,” Daniel says before the detective can get a word in edgewise.

Tony, still in his glasses and the basketball shorts he wore over earlier this week, peers around the corner. “Hi, Detective.”

“Mr. d’Angelo. This is a surprise. May I come in?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. Tony can practically hear Daniel grinding his teeth.

She also doesn’t take off her shoes.

“I half expected to find Professor Ravel here as well.” She examines the apartment as if Colette will appear from behind the dumb table with a foot like a bird’s. “What a shame. I’ll have to speak to her separately.”

Daniel smiles blandly. “How about I go get her quickly, then you won’t have to.”

Tony interprets that to mean, fuck if I will let you anywhere near Colette alone .

“That would be great.” The detective sounds and looks equally bland. Tony’s positive her feelings on Daniel and Colette are as vitriolic as Daniel’s.

“Do you want some coffee?” Tony asks when Daniel’s gone, the door falling shut behind him.

Detective Taylor smiles at him. “Sure, thank you.”

If Tony takes a small amount of pleasure in spooning out Daniel’s god-awful instant coffee, he won’t say it. Worf trots up at the sound of the kettle boiling; Daniel always feeds him while he’s making tea.

“Hey, boy.”

Purring, Worf squeezes his way between Tony’s legs, rubbing his cold, wet nose along Tony’s calf.

“Gimme a second,” Tony laughs. He fills up Daniel’s strainer with his tea leaves and pours hot water over Daniel’s cup and the one he prepared for the detective. Then, Tony grabs the cat food out of the fridge and puts a spoon and a half in Worf’s dish.

Worf keeps purring while he eats, which is ridiculous and adorable.

Tony sets out both mugs on the coffee table as Daniel returns with Colette in tow.

“Wonderful.” The detective pulls out a notepad. “The gang’s all here.”

Colette’s smile is poisonous.

“So.” Detective Taylor is apparently unphased by the open hostility and the bad coffee. “Professor Amelia Lawrence. Any connection to you three?”

Daniel shrugs. “We work for the same college.”

“Did you know her?”

“Is she dead?” Daniel asks.

Detective Taylor frowns.

“You were speaking in past tense.”

The detective takes another sip of her coffee. “Professor Lawrence passed away in the intensive care unit last night. I can’t share any more information about an active case.”

“Well, what are you here for, then?” Colette asks.

“Just…making sure none of you are involved. Or intending to be involved.”

“Getting involved in an active police investigation sounds like a terrible idea,” Daniel says with an entirely straight face.

Tony meets his eyes and raises an eyebrow.

Almost imperceptibly, Daniel shrugs. It is a terrible idea, something Tony has told him seventeen times since he did it. Daniel always argues the point that his and Tony’s involvement is what stopped Colette from going to jail.

“It does, doesn’t it.” The detective sets her mug down. “Similarly, I would hereby caution you against interviewing potential witnesses. Or potential murderers.” The last, she says with a pointed glance in Tony’s direction.

It’s Daniel’s turn to give Tony a smug look.

“Gee, ma’am. Sounds pretty dangerous. Who would do something like that?” Tony widens his eyes as far as he can.

Speaking entirely to her coffee mug, the detective says, “An excellent question.”

After a pause that drags on too long to be comfortable, Colette pushes away from the counter. “Given I have done none of those things, I imagine my presence in this conversation is superfluous.”

The detective doesn’t have an answer for her. Colette is right. Colette is absolutely, 100 percent correct. She did go to a crime scene she shouldn’t have, but the detective doesn’t know about that, and anyway, Daniel started it. The only thing Colette is guilty of is being framed for murder by an insane literature professor.

Detective Taylor seems to know she’s on thin ice because she gets up and straightens her blazer. “I’m glad we’ve had this conversation, given I found this on your front door.” She slaps a sheet of paper onto the counter.

Daniel flinches.

It wouldn’t be out of place in a Nancy Drew book or a particularly campy episode of Murder, She Wrote . Someone actually used letters clipped from newspapers or magazines to spell out “Don’t look into Lawrence.”

Tony can’t help it. A laugh bubbles up from somewhere in his chest, sounding unhinged. He only manages to stop when Colette glares at him.

“Isn’t that evidence?” Daniel asks. “Shouldn’t you check for fingerprints or something?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you.”

Colette cocks her head to the side, brow furrowing.

“I may not be Sherlock Holmes,” Taylor says, “but I can tell when I’m being pranked.”

Daniel frowns. “You think…we did this?”

“It’s an obvious way to insert yourself in an ongoing murder investigation. Again.”

“We didn’t even know Amelia Lawrence was dead before you came here, and you think we sat down to make a collage?”

“I think you would have called me if I hadn’t come.”

Daniel stares at Taylor blankly.

“Well,” Colette says tartly. “You’ve clearly made up your mind.”

“I have. If any of you think of anything actually important, call me.” For a moment, Taylor pauses, perhaps tempted to add something to the tune of before you get involved . Then, she seems to think better of it and says instead, “Oh, Mr. d’Angelo?”

Tony winces. He hoped this was over.

“I’ll need to speak to your sister, as well, since she was taking Professor Lawrence’s class. Is she still living at your parents’ house?”

“We both are. She’ll be there or at the garage until classes start back up at Lobell.”

The detective nods firmly and strolls out the door.

Daniel waits about two minutes before turning on Tony. “ Gee, ma’am ?” he repeats incredulously. “What are you, an extra from West Side Story ?”

“Oh, come on.” Tony rolls his eyes. “She was speaking in past tense, huh, Sherlock?”

“I think you both made equally clear you have no intention of taking responsibility for your actions after Mario’s death.” Colette shakes her head at them, but her mouth is twitching.

“And she has no intention of apologizing to you for wrongful arrest,” Daniel mutters.

“Nor should she. As much as it pains me to say it, it was her job.”

“She should have thought about that before she chose her job.”

Tony sighs. “Maybe she did. Drink your tea, sweetheart.”

Daniel lifts out the strainer, picks up his mug, and takes a deep sip. It’s probably way too strong and lukewarm, which is how he likes it, the weirdo.

“So.” Daniel sets the mug down carefully. “I’m guessing none of us crafted the fun little message on the door, huh?”

“Nope.”

Colette steeples her fingers. “Is it a threat?”

“Sounds like it.” Tony studies the sheet of paper. “Why not type out the message and print it?”

“Maybe the person doesn’t have a printer?”

“If it’s someone at Lobell, they’ll have access to a printer.” Daniel considers. “Then again, it’s not the sort of thing you want to get caught printing at the library.”

“Could it be someone who was on Stacy’s…side?” Colette grimaces at the word choice.

Tony is dubious. “Was anyone?”

“Not that I know of. And her husband and kids don’t live here anymore. They won’t have heard about Amelia Lawrence.”

“So, it was probably the murderer.”

Tony swallows hard. “Great. So. The murderer was here. And knows where you live. And the police won’t take it seriously. That’s…that’s comforting.”

“Is it too early to start drinking?” Colette asks.

Tony wants to say no and get out the wine, which means she’s been a bad influence on him. “Do you think…do you think maybe the detective should know about Lily?”

“What about Lily?” Daniel sets his mug down.

“For one, she’s worried people will think it was her.”

“She thinks what ?” Colette asks sharply.

Ignoring Colette, Daniel says, “What would we tell the detective? This key witness is afraid you might suspect her? Knowing Taylor, she’ll get the handcuffs out immediately.”

“I’m sorry. Lily thinks she’ll be a suspect?”

Daniel drains his tea. “Yes, since she found Professor Lawrence, and they’d had a…disagreement via email.”

“That would have been good to know.”

“Why?”

Colette rubs her hand over her forehead. “Sean, her boyfriend—he was one of my summer advisees. He came to see me yesterday and was very concerned about her. I told him he had nothing to worry about.”

Daniel and Tony both wince.

“And, uh…” Tony considers his word choices, trying not to piss off Daniel. “We’re sure it wasn’t one of them who left the message? Trying to keep you from talking to the police about Lily’s concerns?”

“I hope it was,” Daniel says.

“Why!”

“Because then it wasn’t an actual murderer at our home.”

“Ugh,” Tony sighs. “Well, we can at least hope they’ll be more careful about who they arrest this time? So even if the detective does follow up with Sean and Lily, they should be fine.” Tony guesses it was probably embarrassing for Detective Taylor, last time around.

Colette’s mouth quirks downward. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Daniel starts angrily putting the mugs in the dishwasher. It’s an easy tell he’s thinking about something that pisses him off. Otherwise, he’d probably leave them out until tonight. “Police reform—” he starts, but both Tony and Colette shake their heads.

“You do not need to convince us about the necessity of reform,” Colette tells him.

Daniel opens his mouth.

“Or,” Tony adds hurriedly, “about all the other social structures more in need of funding than the police.”

“I wrote the grant proposal for the crime show project with you,” Colette reminds Daniel.

“And I watch all the crime shows with you two as punishment for my sins,” Tony throws in.

Really, he doesn’t mind. Tony likes a good police procedural as much as the next person, although they’re slogging their way through Bones right now, and the later seasons are dire, both politically and from a storytelling perspective. Watching it is kind of torturous, what with Daniel on one side complaining about war crime apologia every time Booth is on screen and Colette on the other complaining about poor representation of the field of anthropology every time Brennan opens her mouth. Collectively, Tony would estimate they spend about 80 percent of each episode’s runtime complaining.

Personally, he thinks Angela’s character assassination is the worst part of the later seasons, so that takes up the remaining runtime.

If their Bones marathons are what academic research is usually like, maybe Tony is smarter than he thought.

It takes a moment to get into the swing of their morning routine. Daniel has to head into college today for meetings with some council he’s on—Tony loses track sometimes—so they get dressed in a hurry while Colette makes toast in the kitchen.

Worf hops up onto the bed and chirps inconsolably to make sure they know he doesn’t want them to leave. Tony pets his flat head in apology before threading his belt through the loops of his jeans.

“Gotta do laundry this week,” he says.

“Mm,” Daniel agrees. “Here or Kingston?”

Tony shrugs. “Probably here. I’ll let you know. Promised Ma dinner today though.”

“If you—”

“Nope, you’re coming.”

“Honey.” Daniel pauses to look at Tony, three buttons still undone at the top of his shirt. “If there’s a lot going on, with Gianna and Lia and your parents, especially now, I get it. As much as I love your mother’s cooking, I can stay home alone.”

Tony swallows. He pads over to the bathroom and unscrews the little plastic dishes his contacts rest in overnight. He can’t talk while he’s putting them in; for some reason he needs to open his mouth while he does it. It gives him time to look for the words he’s not sure he has. Gianna being questioned by the police about a dead professor again isn’t a small deal. It’s awful, and on top of the hectic pace at the garage with all of them switching up their schedules to make it possible for her to go back to college, the stress will get to everyone.

But no one’s talking about it.

No one’s said anything except Tony and his big dumb mouth, asking Gianna over and over if she’s all right. Spending another whole night not talking about it while no one in the room seems to understand that he’s gasping under the strain when Daniel could be there and know— Tony doesn’t want that.

“I want you there” is all he says in the end.

To his credit, Daniel nods with no further protest. “I’ll be there, then. Pick me up?”

“Of course.”

Tony sleepwalks through work, leaving customer interaction to Gianna at the front desk. It’s Pa’s day off, and he’s taking it, which teaches Tony to be thankful for small mercies when the detective shows up. At least Pa doesn’t have to see this happening all over again.

He’s not sure if his parents have forgiven him for keeping Gianna’s secrets for as long as he did.

Kyle doesn’t ask questions about the brief and seemingly friendly conversation the detective has with Gianna, which is also kind. Tony can still feel Kyle’s eyes on him as he immerses himself in the inner workings of a middle school teacher’s Audi, but he tries to ignore it.

It works until closing when Gianna steps through the door into the garage with the baby on her hip. “You coming home tonight?”

Tony bangs his head on the hood of the Audi as he straightens up.

“Yeah, for dinner.”

“Okay.” Gianna’s voice is so even, so untroubled Tony has no alternative but to believe her. “I’m heading out. You’ll lock up?”

“Yup.”

After a few minutes, the decisive jingle of the bell in the front office announces her departure.

Tony closes the hood and wipes it down.

It’s only when he hears Kyle’s voice that he realizes they haven’t talked all day. “You doing okay, kid?”

Tony knows he should appreciate it. It’s the question he wishes Gianna would answer. It’s the question he wishes she would ask him sometimes.

“I’m not a kid.”

“Just checking. That’s me done for the day too.”

“See ya.”

Daniel texted him some time in the afternoon to let Tony know he’s out of detergent, so Tony detours through Red Hook on his way back from Kingston. It would be way faster to hit up the Target at the Kingston Mall, but the Hannaford’s in Red Hook has the bougie brand of pesto Daniel likes and also a significantly lower likelihood of Tony running into someone he vaguely knows and has to make small talk with. Anyway, if he’s picking Daniel up at work, he’d have to cross the bridge either way.

It seems a solid idea all the way up until he remembers the road works blocking the direct road from Kingston, which means he has to drive through Red Hook proper. Red Hook is the worst. The intersection by the gas station collects all the rush hour traffic running between Rhinebeck and Germantown. When the road was built, apparently no one remembered people sometimes turn left at intersections, so there are ten- to fifteen-minute waits at a red light every time Tony ends up here because some bozo in a pickup has essentially parked in the middle of the road. For a hot second, from a distance of half a mile, Tony thinks he’ll get lucky. But sure enough, the light turns red before more than two cars can get through. Tony gets stuck behind the goddamn Lobell college shuttle at the worst intersection in the state.

He’s not kidding. Based on this intersection alone, he cannot fathom someone got paid to do urban planning in this town.

“Swear to god,” he mutters to no one in particular, grinding to a sudden halt behind the shuttle, right next to the dinky little tea shop Gianna loves. “I’m gonna petition Andrew Cuomo personally to build a fucking left-turn lane.”

Behind him, someone honks way too close for comfort.

Tony gnashes his teeth, lifting his foot off the brake and rolling forward the scant few inches between him and the shuttle.

He checks the rearview mirror.

It’s that goddamn ’07 Toyota Camry. Ironic mustache Sean sits in the passenger seat, and Lily rolls to a stop way too close for comfort. In the mirror, he can see she’s been crying. Even after nearly rear-ending him, her eyes aren’t on the road. Instead, she’s staring at her boyfriend and gesticulating wildly. Her hands are still on the wheel, but she slaps it several times in quick succession as if to make her agitation disappear.

A wordless sound of frustration makes its way out of Tony’s throat.

Neither of them should be behind the wheel. They’re a danger on the roads. And why the fuck Lily’s the one driving when she found her professor stabbed less than three days ago is a mystery for the ages. She seems as though she’s unstable enough to leave threatening messages on her professor’s door.

After another two full cycles of the traffic lights up ahead, Tony to makes it around the corner, and he spends the entire interim staring at Lily in the mirror. She’s obviously upset, talking nonstop, hands flying around. Sean’s mouth barely moves in response, but his hand is on her shoulder. As far as Tony can tell, this does not calm her down. A pang goes through him. He wonders if he would have been that calm, that stable at Sean’s age. He doubts he would have been able to keep it together for someone else to the extent Sean is. At least Sean has Colette to talk to. It’s good he knows to seek out help. Whatever Lily is going through, he can’t carry it for her, and by the looks of it, trying is making it harder on them both.

Tony hopes he’s never too much for Daniel to carry.

Tony shakes himself out of his reverie when traffic starts up again, and he can finally get to the store. He rushes through shopping, then dumps the detergent and some things for dinner tomorrow in the back seat.

Daniel waits for him in the big parking lot at the back of the lecture hall at Lobell. He’s dressed for work in a light blue button-up, beige pants, and the leather briefcase Tony laughed at the first time he saw it. The shirt brings out Daniel’s eyes. If Tony didn’t know better, he’d think everything was fine. But he knows Daniel well enough by now to read the troubled tension lingering around the corners of his mouth.

“How was your day?” he asks as Daniel gets into the car.

Daniel sighs, rubbing his palms over his face. “Not great.”

Tony reverses out of his parking space, ignoring the little sputter the motor does every time he switches gear. Time to check under the hood again soon. This car, it’s killing him. “You gonna elaborate?” He switches to drive and exits the lot.

“Do you want me to?” Daniel shifts in his seat. “It’s all about…”

“I’d rather know.”

Daniel doesn’t immediately start talking.

“Look, you have way more reason than me to be upset. You knew Amelia Lawrence. You’re—”

“It’s not a competition.”

He’s so fucking calm.

Tony takes a shaky breath, switching on his turn signal and making a left onto Campus Road. “Please.”

It’s so quiet in the car he hears the click of Daniel’s throat as he swallows.

“We have to resume classes. After last year, we can’t afford to have a big gap in education going on. But administration wants a police presence on campus while the culprit is still on the loose.”

“Can’t see that going over well.”

Daniel is by no means alone in his deep skepticism toward the police as an institution, not at a liberal arts college in upstate New York.

“What about Campus Security?” Tony asks.

“You mean the three middle-aged guys whose job is to stop college kids from smoking pot in public?”

Tony winces. “They all do that anyway.” He’s walked across campus often enough, waiting for Daniel to be finished with a class or a meeting. The times he doesn’t catch a whiff of weed are rare.

“Oh, yeah. Clint’s been known to take a hit in exchange for his silence.”

“Right. So. Police presence.”

“Yeah. We’ve got parents wanting to pull their kids out of class and get a refund on tuition since campus ‘isn’t safe.’” Daniel even does the air quotes; Tony spots it out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s not.” Tony wasn’t expecting his voice to sound so harsh. He clenches his fingers on the steering wheel.

Daniel doesn’t answer.

“Aren’t you scared?” Tony carefully keeps looking straight ahead at the road. His contacts itch.

It’s a long moment before Daniel says anything. When he does, he sounds defeated. “No.”

Tony glances over at him incredulously.

“You know,” Daniel says, “last year, I was so scared the first night after it happened?”

It’s rhetorical, but Tony didn’t know. For someone who tends to overthink himself into anxiety attacks, Daniel always seems ridiculously sanguine about everything related to crime—except for the part where he thought Gianna might be a murderer.

“Couldn’t leave my apartment at night all week,” Daniel continues, “in case the killer was out there waiting for a second try. But then…”

“Then the killer was out there and shot you.”

“Yeah. The worst already happened, so how bad could it get this time?”

It takes Tony significant effort to keep his voice level. “That is insane. If the letter is genuine, the killer is threatening you, personally.”

“Believe me, I know.” Daniel scrubs a hand through his messy hair. “I’m sure I’ll get scared eventually. It will hit me, and I’ll be a mess, but I…haven’t gotten there yet. Objectively, that could be a good thing because—don’t take this the wrong way—it kind of seems like you’re the one who’s freaking out this time.”

Tony bangs the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull over.”

Tony does, gravel spraying out behind the wheels as he comes to a rough stop on the shoulder.

“Look at me.”

Tony swallows heavily and does.

“Tony,” Daniel says gently. “You know you went through something incredibly traumatic, right?”

Tony opens his mouth to protest— he didn’t. It was Gianna who lost someone important to her. It was Colette who was wrongfully arrested. It was Daniel whose friend was murdered right outside his building by his other friend. And Daniel was this close to falling into the river from a distance at which water becomes harder than concrete. But Tony can’t get the words out.

“Stacy’s gun was pointed at you. She kidnapped you after everything Gianna and I did got you dragged into her orbit. You have every right to be scared and to need people in your life to support you right now.”

Tony takes a few deep, measured breaths, but in the end, he can’t manage more than a nod.

“Want me to drive?” Daniel asks.

“You hate driving my car.”

Daniel shrugs. “True. But I also hate seeing you upset.”

They switch, and Daniel cursing about the way the key sticks in the ignition and the squeaky noise the windshield wipers make when it starts drizzling keeps Tony distracted for the rest of the drive.

He hasn’t talked about it much, the hour or two after Stacy Allan pointed a gun at his chest with shaking fingers and walked him into the woods to kill him. Tony went through it with the police, of course. They had to write down an account of everything that happened, but otherwise, he didn’t think it worth mentioning.

He remembers sacking out in the hospital waiting room with Jeff while Daniel was in surgery after Stacy shot him in the hand. Jeff knew enough of what happened to give a rough account of events when Detective Taylor showed up with Colette.

The detective reviewed the story with him over weak hospital coffee, and Tony told her about it, feeling as if he was hovering above his own body. He remembers burning his tongue on the coffee; he doesn’t remember any of the words he said.

He does remember how it happened, of course. He was in Stacy’s office, asking her a series of innocuous questions about how to get Gianna back into school after her education was summarily halted by her pregnancy. Stacy gave him a whole series of tips and pamphlets, all of which turned out to be useful. Tony found them in the inside pocket of his jacket after it was all done and saw no reason not to use them. He left them on the dining room table for Gianna. Stacy might have murdered a man, but no one could accuse her of being bad at her job.

That was how he got her. When Tony realized she wouldn’t give him anything useful about Mario’s murder based only on questions about accommodations for students who were single mothers, he tried a different tack. He told her how angry he still was at a dead man for getting his sister in the situation she was in. It wasn’t a lie. The anger still chokes Tony sometimes, how Mario derailed Gianna’s life so thoroughly, and he didn’t even live to deal with the consequences.

And Stacy—Stacy agreed. Vehemently. So vehemently, it shocked Tony.

He and Daniel planned for Tony to press her for information because she had access to the emails being used to frame Colette. Neither of them thought, until that moment, she had anything to do with the murder. But Daniel has this thing he says when he gets frustrated at his own tendency to overcomplicate everything, this theorem—Occam’s razor. The simplest answer is often the correct one. Faced with a woman ranting on and on about how terrible it was when men took advantage of their students, a seed of doubt started to grow in Tony’s mind.

Like an idiot, he pushed it. He asked if maybe, possibly, Stacy thought the murderer did the right thing. Next thing he knew, she whipped a handgun out of her green fake-leather purse and told him he really shouldn’t have asked.

The rest of it was logistics. Stacy took his phone off him, had him unlock it with his fingerprint, and texted Daniel to throw him off the scent. She hid the gun in the folds of her coat as she marched him out of her office and down toward the woods. During winter break, Lobell campus was mostly deserted, so it was easy to act as if they were going for a walk.

Tony didn’t think to be scared until he stood over the water with the gun in point-blank range of his face.

Maybe Tony has worked too hard to forget it because now Daniel has brought it up, he can’t find his way back to equanimity, to forgetting how scared he was when reality sank in.

Tony thinks of Daniel saying the worst has already happened, so he can’t summon fear. He thinks of Lily’s face, tiny in his rearview mirror, shaking and crying and trying so hard not to let this ruin her second chance. He thinks of Sean, projecting calm and nonchalance and only letting Colette know he’s secretly worried. Tony thinks of Colette trying her hardest to never need anyone. He thinks about how, last time, they stumbled on the murderer by accident. This time, the murderer left a fucking note on the door.

There’s nothing he can do about any of it, and that’s what he hates most of all. He doesn’t know how to handle not being able to fix things.

They finally get to his parents’ house, and eating dinner with them feels like trying to breathe underwater. Tony talks shop with Pa—it’s slow going now summer break’s over, with fewer people driving up to Boston or down to the city every other day. Tony agrees with Ma about making up another get-well-soon basket for Kyle’s wife. Apparently, her doctor’s visit revealed she has what might be early stages of arthritis as a consequence of Lyme disease, so she’s not out of the woods yet.

Gianna asks Daniel if there’s been any news.

Daniel tells her it’s probably not dinner conversation with a sidelong glance at Tony.

“Are you going to the memorial thing for Professor Lawrence on Thursday?” Gianna asks.

“Yeah,” Daniel says. “I was planning to. You too?”

Gianna shrugs. “If I can find a babysitter. I only took one class with her, but still.”

“You can bring Lia,” Tony offers. “I’ll hang out with her outside.”

“Thanks.”

Daniel bumps their knees together. “You don’t have to come.”

Tony feels, ridiculously, as if he’s being protected from something he doesn’t understand. “It’s okay. I didn’t know her, but you both did. I can be supportive.”

Under the table, Daniel rests a hand on Tony’s leg.

Tony presses into the touch, trying to communicate that a memorial won’t be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. He can handle a memorial. It might actually be a relief, to be there with Daniel and Gianna, to keep an eye on them. To make sure whoever did it isn’t getting close to them, making good on their threat.

Tony never told his family about that afternoon, he realizes. They know Daniel got shot. They know who did it. They don’t know about the part where Tony nearly got killed. He never thought it was worth mentioning until right this moment. Stacy never cared about him as a person; he just happened to be in her way. Now that Daniel has pointed out why it was so important that Tony was losing his shit because of it, Tony can’t understand why he ever thought it wasn’t.

For a moment, he considers reaching for Daniel’s hand resting on the tabletop, right where everyone can see it, and telling him he’d rather they stick together all the time. It’s what he’d do if they were at home, turn it into a romantic gesture instead of an admission he feels most safe when they’re together, when he can keep Daniel in his line of sight.

But he’s never held Daniel’s hand in front of his parents. He’s never let himself need comfort so obviously in front of Gianna.

It’ll keep. Daniel will let him fall apart when it’s only the two of them, when Tony can find the words he needs to say, and that will need to be enough.