Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Liam
I lurked in my truck, watching cops and forensics techs trooping in and out of the D’Onofrio house.
Finding the place tossed had been a shock.
Weird as hell for lightning to strike the same place twice, and just a week after Lucia’s death, too.
It made me nervous and queasy, like I was missing something important.
A vague, discomforting almost-thought that kept flitting out of sight before I could put my finger on it.
Maybe because I was short on sleep. Around two-thirty a.m, I’d given up on sleeping and headed to my furniture workshop. The slow, detailed work of joining without glue or nails was one of my favorite pastimes. It put me in a mellow, focused, zen kind of place. The next best thing to sleep.
Currently, I was working on a dining room table. For my future family. One long enough to feed a dynasty. Sometimes I imagined what it would feel to see it loaded with food, my family gathered around it. Just a vague, hopeful fantasy in my head.
It usually gave me a connected feeling. I’d figured that working on that table would be just the thing to link me with reality, and my true, bedrock values.
But I’d bombed on that. My fantasy future wife was a bland, formless fog of vague possibilities, whereas Nancy D’Onofrio stood out, brilliantly sharp and clear, every vivid, stylish detail of her. Those cool, slender fingers, twisted through mine.
At a certain point, erotic fantasies had overtaken me. They involved Nancy, and the dining room table. Her, perched on the edge, graceful legs spread wide. Me, on my knees, my tongue deep inside her. Her hands wound into my hair. Writhing and whimpering.
Working on that table would never be the same again.
I’d gotten out of the house before Eoin was up, and the first thing I’d done was to drive by the D’Onofrio house.
The bitch of it was, Nancy wasn’t even in the damn house.
It was enough for me that she’d been in it the day before, and that she’d be in it again today.
How childish was that. I was pretty far gone.
Well, I’d paid for my fatuous bullshit. I got to be the dickhead who bore the bad tidings. Because that was what happened when a guy started poking around in the hornet’s nest of a woman’s messy, complicated life. He got stung.
Even so, I was glad it fell out this way. Better me than her. If she’d been that upset hearing about it on the phone, it would have scared her out of her wits to see the house trashed, all alone, with no warning, after finding her mother dead less than a week ago.
Nancy’s battered black Volkswagen appeared, and pulled in behind my truck. My heart rate kicked way up. She’d driven herself up here. Of course. Stubborn female.
She didn’t spare me so much as a glance as she got out. The wind fluttered her dark blue blouse, but did not budge a wisp of her smooth hair. Her profile was stark and pure as she stared at the house. Her face was so pale, she looked like she might faint.
I got out of my truck and folded my arms over the heavy thud in my rib cage, as if the woman didn’t have more serious things to worry about than my horn-dog crush. She turned at the sound of the car door, and her chin went up.
I considered my options and went for it. Full-on overbearing. “I see you decided to drive yourself after all.”
“Of course,” was her cool retort. “I can’t afford to call a car all the way up here. It would cost me a fortune.”
I let my silence criticize that decision, and a flush of anger bloomed on her cheeks. “Did you call your sisters?” I demanded, just to double down on the scold.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Not yet. Nell’s teaching and never answers her phone anyway, and Vivi’s upstate doing a crafts fair. I’ll tell them about all of this later. Once I know exactly what happened.”
“Huh,” I said. “It always seems to be you who has to take care of the messy details.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That is not their fault! They’re perfectly willing to help me! They’re just busy, and you had my number, not theirs!”
Now her head was high, her eyes snapping. Excellent. She looked better now. Nothing like putting a man in his place to perk a woman up.
“Uh, yeah. Of course,” I murmured, suitably chastened.
She trotted up the stairs with a spring in her step that she hadn’t had before. I caught up with her, saw marks under her eyes that the makeup did not hide. I wanted to offer her my arm, but her hands were white-knuckled. Bracing herself.
I followed her in as she looked around. The place had been brutally tossed.
Every piece of furniture was upended, every sofa cushion and pillow slashed, every breakable thing crushed.
The tiles he and Eoin had hauled in were scattered everywhere, shattered to pieces.
Lengths of lumber were scattered around like huge matchsticks.
There were jagged holes in the walls. A photograph of Lucia and her three daughters smiled up from the floor, covered with chunks of broken glass.
Nancy bent down and reached for the pieces. Her hand shook.
“Please don’t touch anything, ma’am,” said an evidence tech, a frowning middle-aged woman. “It might be better if you waited outside. Until we’ve finished.”
“Oh. Um, let me just take a look,” Nancy said. “I’ll be quick.” She took a step farther into the room and let out a cry of distress when she saw what lay at her feet. To me, it looked like a formless tangle of wire and chunks of broken glass and stone.
“Oh, no.” Nancy’s voice shook. “The sculpture that Vivi did for Lucia. ‘The Three Sisters.’ It was one of Lucia’s prize possessions.” Then she turned and saw the intaglio writing table. Her hand flew up over her mouth. “Oh, dear God. No.”
The plastic cover she’d bought had been tossed aside, and the plane of the table smashed in.
The two pieces lay collapsed in on themselves, splintered edges ragged.
The four-by-four used to break it lay among the broken pieces.
The jade plant was torn apart on the floor, chunks of dirt and leaves scattered everywhere.
Better judgment clamored at me, but I ignored it and grabbed her hand.