Chapter 16 #2
“Six years ago, my wife was coming home from her shift as an ICU nurse at Louisiana General.” I nod as it’s the same hospital where Yasmine does most of her rounds.
“She was hit by a man who’d fallen asleep at the wheel.
She died instantly, but he made it out with only a few scratches.
I knew he’d been drinking, but he was a prominent local businessman, and somehow his breathalyzer results mysteriously disappeared.
Nothing I did brought her any closure. So I understand all too well the need for justice. ”
“What was her name?” I ask, remembering her cheerful smile from the pictures. His unwavering devotion.
“Sylvia. Her name was Sylvia.” He looks down, emotions warring over his face before he gulps the rest of his sweet tea.
I look away, giving him privacy. After a moment, he clears his throat.
“Right. Well, like I said, I’m going to focus on footage from nearby cameras, and hopefully, something will turn up.
I’ll also see if I can rely on my sources to get some clarity on your father’s financial dealings.
If he’s in debt for gambling, like you say, then I’d bet my hat there’s something in his finances that will shed more light on what happened. ”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Not that he would ever give me access to his bank statements. I’m pretty sure if I showed up to his house, he or Elizabeth would slam the door in my face… or worse.
“I’m afraid not. But if you can talk to Devin again, I think he’ll be the one to crack first out of everyone. He was nervous, you said?” At my nod, he continues, “Then I would keep up the pressure. It would be worth it to have another conversation with him.”
“I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance…” My voice trails off as I remember O’Connor’s insistence that I attend the charity gala with him.
“Actually, there’s an event in a month or so that I could invite my father to that he may not be able to refuse, and if he attends, then Devin will absolutely be with him.
It might be the perfect opportunity to confront him again. ”
“Perfect. When is the—”
The doorbell interrupts, and Broussard checks his feed on his phone and sighs. “Excuse me. My neighbor has more packages delivered than she knows what to do with. They’re always leaving them here instead.”
“Sure thing,” I say, with a don’t worry about it gesture.
As he heads to the front door, my thoughts are already shifting to how I’m going to convince O’Connor to invite my father. He was receptive to my half-assed seduction this morning to distract him from what I was really doing this afternoon. Maybe it could work again?
The doorbell goes off again.
Kissing him hadn’t meant anything. The only thing I’d felt had been disgust.
The lie sits in my thoughts for a second, just long enough for me to feel how disingenuous it seems—before I hear the gunshots.
I’m on my feet and running toward the sound before I think twice. Over the sound of my flats slapping against the floor, there’s the glaring lack of any other noises—no screams, no moans, nothing. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. I can’t do this again.
The front door is open, and Mr. Broussard’s body is sprawled half in, half out of the threshold. A pool of blood spreads underneath him. Before I fall to my knees beside him, I fist a doily from one of the side tables and press it into the blood seeping from his shoulder.
Retrieving my phone with my free hand, I somehow manage to call for an ambulance, whispering reassurances to Mr. Broussard.
My brain goes fuzzy and white for a minute, or maybe longer than a minute.
Nearby, an older couple spills out of an identical cottage.
Someone is screaming, shouting, but all I can take in is the blood.
Instead of Mr. Broussard’s body, I see my mother’s.
Instead of the sidewalk, I see the grand staircase of our former home, where I found her the night she died.
By the time the nightmare releases me from its grip, bystanders hover, phones pressed to their ears or cameras poised to photograph the morbid tableau. I stare numbly at nothing for so long that an ambulance and several police cars materialize seemingly out of nowhere, right in front of me.
The paramedics take Mr. Broussard, and I push to my feet, still clutching the bloody doily, as I experience everything through a layer of cotton. It’s not until someone shakes me, hard, that I focus on the person in front of me.
My brows furrow when I recognize Reggie, Yasmine’s brother. Dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt, he has his badge and gun strapped to his waist.
Nick Donovan, captain of the New Orleans Police Department Homicide Unit, strides toward us.
What is he doing here? I think dully. Did Reggie hear my name and call in the cavalry?
That’s absolutely something he would do.
They shuffle me to a sedan with darkened windows, and Reggie shoves me inside before climbing in after me.
“Catriona!” Reggie says, one hand cupping my cheek. “Are you hurt? What happened? C’mon, sweetheart, you’ve got to talk to me. Donovan,” he shouts through a crack in the window. “Get a medic here for her. I think she’s in shock. Can you hear me, Ri? C’mon, girl, say something.”
Time telescopes around me. I’m here, and I’m not here. Someone is begging to go to the hospital. To follow the ambulance and Mr. Broussard, and once Nick and Reggie finally agree, I realize that the person begging was me.
“What were you doing here, Ri?” Reggie demands, his deep baritone comforting in its familiarity. “Can you tell me anything about what was going on? Give me a clue here. Did you see anything that happened? When I heard your name at the station, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I try to remember the cover story I’d come up with at the first meeting with Mr. Broussard, but the truth spills out instead.
“He’s a private investigator. He’s been helping me look into my mother’s death.
We were having some tea when the doorbell rang.
He thought it was from”—I swallow hard, then push the panic from my mind—“a deliv-delivery. The next thing I heard was the gunshots. I found him in the doorway. I don’t know anything else, I swear. ”
He curses fiercely. “Jesus Christ. You got so fucking lucky. They could have hurt you, too.” There’s a pause before he continues, “I can’t believe you didn’t come to me. I would have helped you. Does Yas know about this?”
I shake my head. “Not everything. But she knows I’m looking into it.
I couldn’t drag you into it, too. It was a long shot, anyway.
I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t, in retrospect.
I mean, look what happened to Mr. Broussard?
” My voice cracks by the end. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you or Yasmine. ”
“Goddammit, Ri. I care about you. I don’t give a fuck about the department—sorry, Cap—”
Nick waves him away.
“I would have helped you. Yasmine mentioned you were torn up over your mom, but she never said you thought someone killed her. Christ, Catriona.” He scrubs a hand over his close-cropped hair.
“You’re practically walking into bullets for fuck’s sake.
Yasmine is going to kill me, bring me back to life, and then kill me again when she finds out what happened. ”
“It’s okay, Reg. I’m fine. I promise. I’m just worried about Mr. Broussard. This is all my fault. Are we close to the hospital?”
“We’re almost there,” Nick says with a no-nonsense voice. “Did you get a look at the person who rang the doorbell?”
I catch Nick’s gaze in the rearview mirror and try to school my expression despite the panic.
As a former behavioral analyst with the FBI, he’s the kind of man who I swear can sometimes read what you’re thinking just by looking at your face, as evidenced by his direct, penetrating stare.
They used to call him the human lie detector because until the year he left the FBI, he was never wrong.
And the one time he was, it resulted in his leaving the FBI altogether.
“I was in his office. I didn’t see anything.”
I let out a breath when we pull into the hospital parking lot, and he has to look away.
Reggie bustles me up to the floor where they brought Mr. Broussard, and I let him tuck me into a waiting room while they attempt surgery to repair the damage.
Because I’m not family, I’m not privy to any more information than that.
Reggie tries to get me to leave, but I won’t budge, and he won’t tell me anything more than they’re still processing the scene.
“I knew something was going on when you wouldn’t answer my text messages.”
I glance up at the familiar voice, and my face crumples at the sight of Yasmine standing in the doorway of the waiting room, her familiarity a balm. She drops to her knees in front of me when I dissolve into tears for the first time in… I can’t remember how long.
“Shh,” she says, and I suck in a desperate breath, breathing in her familiar scent of vanilla from her favorite perfume laced with traces of antiseptic and mint.
“When Reggie called me, I knew it was you. I nearly had a heart attack. You’re not ever allowed to do that to me again,” she says into my hair.
“He’s a little tattletale. Always has been.”
“I’ll make sure to tell him you said so.”
When I finally suck back the tears, I give a watery laugh. “I’m sorry. I know you’re probably busy.”
Yasmine takes the empty seat next to me, and I don’t resist when she arranges me until my head rests in her lap. “Shut up.”
I do, letting myself relax completely as she runs her hands through my hair.
Time passes, I’m not sure how much, and I drift in and out of reality, reliving the moment I heard the gunshot over and over and over again, like I do when I’m caught in memories of my mother.
God, I hope he’s okay. I don’t know if I can handle losing someone else.
“I know you’ve been keeping things from me,” she says after a while and cuts me off before I can object.
“Don’t try to deny it. You’re a shit liar.
I’ve known you were up to something since you came back the night after the Halloween party, looking like you’d been through the wringer.
You’re going to tell me what’s going on, and it better be the truth. ”
“What would you say if I told you O’Connor isn’t just a billionaire businessman?” I swallow hard. “What if I told you he’s something much worse?”
“I’d ask if you need me to help you disappear. I’m sure we can hustle you up a fake ID or something. I’ve seen enough movies to figure it out.”
My responding chuckle is watery. “He’d find me.”
“Seriously,” she says, tugging at my arm until I roll over to face her. “Do I need to worry about him? You can tell me.”
I press a hand to my tired eyes. “No, I can handle him. But I didn’t want to involve you any more than I already had. His life is dangerous. Really dangerous. And you’re the most important person in the world to me. It wouldn’t have been fair of me to drag you into it.”
“You’re going to need to explain to me what you mean by really dangerous,” she says gravely.
“Not here, but maybe when you come over for that girls’ night? We can do it at your place if you’d be more comfortable there.”
“No, I’d rather go to yours. I don’t want my parents or Reggie eavesdropping.”
“I—” Then I hear the raised voices in the hallway, and I sit up, trying to discern what they’re saying.
One of the voices I’d recognize anywhere.
“Where. The. Fuck. Is. My. Wife.”
O’Connor is here.