Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
The bell on the toaster chimed the next morning, and the smell of waffles wafted from the kitchen, which meant either Delia was awake and fixing herself breakfast or Vero was doing it for her.
I sat up and reached for my rumpled yoga pants, turning them right side out before dragging them on. I had them halfway up my thighs and froze as I registered the deep voice coming from the kitchen. “Two waffles, coming up.”
“With syrup?” Delia asked in a voice that was unusually sweet for her, given the early hour.
“Know where your mom keeps it?” Nick asked.
“In the pantry.”
“Roger that. What time does she usually take you to school?”
“Eight o’clock,” Delia answered around a mouthful of food.
“How about we let her sleep and I’ll drive you?” I peeked into the kitchen, relieved to find him fully dressed, his shoulder holster framing his tie and his neatly tucked dress shirt.
“I’m not going to school today,” my daughter said matter-of-factly.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I got sup’ended for beating up a boy,” she explained. Nick frowned to hide his amusement as he drizzled syrup on her waffles. “But Vero and Daddy said it’s okay because Cooper wouldn’t stop pulling my hair. I told the teacher, but she didn’t believe me.” Delia cast curious glances at the badge on Nick’s belt. “Do you think I should have gotten sup’ended?”
He thought about that as he poured himself some coffee. “I think if you told the teacher someone was hurting you, then your teacher should have listened. What did your mom say?”
“She took me out for ice cream.”
Nick’s mouth curved into a smile. He hid it behind his coffee mug when he spotted me leaning on the doorframe behind her.
“Good morning,” I said, taking his mug as he held it out to me. I closed my eyes, savoring the fact that he knew just how I liked my coffee. It was almost as good as his preferred method for waking me up. He knew exactly how I liked that, too. “What are you doing here?” I asked cryptically enough that Delia wouldn’t grasp the subtext. Nick had driven me home five hours ago and had ended up staying the night.
“Figured I’d let you sleep and take Delia to school. How long until she can go back?” he asked me over his shoulder as he popped a waffle into the toaster for himself.
“Two weeks.”
“Must have been one heck of a beatdown.”
“Two bruised ribs and six stitches.”
Nick looked impressed but did a good job of hiding that fact from Delia, who was too busy licking syrup from her empty plate to notice. I reached to take it from her before she could get any more syrup in her hair.
“Mommy,” she asked as I wiped her face and hands, “will the police let Daddy come over today?”
I paused, her question taking me off guard. I wasn’t sure how long they could keep Steven without bringing up charges, but I didn’t imagine Mike Tran would be eager to let him go. I wiped her sticky forehead and kissed the wrinkle between her eyebrows. “I don’t think so, sweetie. I think Daddy might be suspended for a little while longer. But we’ll take him out for ice cream when he gets home.” She brightened a little. “Go wash up,” I said, dabbing at her bangs. “And remember to use soap. You’ve got syrup all over you.”
“Are you and Nick going to take a bath, too?” she asked cheerfully.
Nick cocked an eyebrow as I shooed her up the stairs.
“Don’t ask,” I said as he handed me an Eggo and put his arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I forgot to set my alarm and I overslept. Delia has no idea I spent the night. I was dressed and making coffee by the time she got up. I told her I just got here.”
“Thanks,” I said, grateful that he had spared me the need to have any more conversations with Delia about my choice of bathtub partners.
While I wasn’t hiding the fact that Nick and I were dating from my children—and they had seen their father living with someone else within weeks of our divorce—I wasn’t ready to share that piece of our relationship with them yet. Some part of me still felt guilty for enjoying it as much as I did. Maybe it was the lingering doubt that I deserved this much happiness. Or maybe it was the fear that it couldn’t possibly last. They had already lost so much. And if Steven went to jail for murder, they were about to lose a whole lot more.
“Morning, Detective,” Vero said, rubbing her eyes as she shuffled into the kitchen.
“Hey, Vero.” Nick checked his watch and reached for his coat. “I hate to run, but I’ve got some things to do before I head to the station.” He poured his coffee into one of my travel mugs and came to stand in front of me. “Today,” he reminded me, pointing toward my bedroom where Mrs. Haggerty was still sleeping. He leaned down to steal a kiss on his way out the door. “I love you. I’ll call you in a couple of—” He froze, his face inches from mine, wide-eyed and speechless, as we both registered what he’d just said. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, his fingers rasping over the stubble. “I should go,” he said softly. “I’ll call you later.” He dropped a tentative, quick kiss on my lips. I stood motionless in the kitchen as the front door closed behind him.
“ That was an interesting development,” Vero said as she poured a mountain of sugar in her coffee.
“That wasn’t a development. He obviously wasn’t thinking and it just slipped out.” I dropped an Eggo in the toaster for Vero and wiped the crumbs from my hands, as if none of this mattered. Which was a big fat lie. It totally mattered, and I was pretty sure I’d spend the next few hours playing back Nick’s parting words, dissecting every syllable. “It was probably force of habit.”
“Force of habit ?” She cocked a hip against the counter, her low-riding pajama bottoms dragging on the floor. “You think he gets up every morning before dawn to make coffee and breakfast and say I love you to someone else?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. He clearly didn’t mean it.”
“Just because he wasn’t ready to say it doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. Look at Javi. He was in love with me for three whole years and never once said it. Face it, Finn. Detective Hottie is head over heels in love with you and it just slipped out because he happened to let his guard down.”
“Thank you, Dr. Ruth.”
Vero’s phone vibrated on the counter. Javi’s name flashed on the screen. She jabbed it, sending his call straight to voice mail.
I raised an eyebrow. “If you’re such an expert on relationships, why did you just hang up on your betrothed?”
“He’s not my betrothed . And I hung up on him because he’s being an idiot.”
I frowned. “What did he do?”
“He refuses to tell me how many women he dated before we got back together.”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Of course I want to know! What if he slept with a hundred people while I was away at college?”
I doubted that. Javi had been madly in love with her since they were kids. “Maybe he didn’t sleep with anyone.”
“Have you seen him? He’s ninety-nine percent pheromones, Finlay. He should come with a warning label. There had to be someone . Oh, god…” She clutched the counter like she might be sick. “That’s even worse. What if there was only one. What if they were serious? What if she met his mom ?”
“What if you’re worrying for nothing?” I plucked the waffle from the toaster and shoved it in her hand. “Maybe he just doesn’t want you worrying about something neither of you can change and he wishes he could take back?”
A door opened upstairs. Mrs. Haggerty came down, wearing a brightly colored coordinated knit set and her big orthopedic shoes. She seemed a little less dour. Her gloom from the day before apparently had lifted, and I hoped that meant she had finally heard from her grandson.
She pinched the wire frames of her glasses, squinting through the narrow lenses at me as she took in my sleep-disheveled hair and wrinkled shirt. “Are you ill?”
“No.”
“Good. Then I’d like two eggs, poached, with a slice of wheat toast. And some orange juice,” she added, puttering toward the table.
“And that’s my cue to go,” Vero said under her breath, taking her coffee and waffle upstairs with her as the children came bursting into the kitchen. Delia’s hair was wet and her feet were bare. Zach was still wearing his pajamas.
“What’s this?” Mrs. Haggerty asked, frowning at Delia as the children zipped past her and opened the pantry. “It’s Monday. Why aren’t you at school?”
“I’m not allowed,” Delia said, putting a foot up on a shelf so she could reach the fruit snacks for Zach. “I got in trouble for hitting a boy because he pulled my hair, and I have to stay home for two whole weeks.”
“Two weeks!” Mrs. Haggerty tsked. “You go right upstairs, young lady, and get ready for school.”
Delia blinked at the woman.
So did I. “Mrs. Haggerty, Delia was suspended. She’ll be staying home with us today.”
“My hearing is just fine,” Mrs. Haggerty said stubbornly. “The girl was perfectly clear, but this is unacceptable. A young woman’s education should never be hindered by the actions of a poorly behaved boy. Shame on that school. I should call the principal and give them a piece of my mind. Your daughter will be attending class today. Only she’ll be doing it here with me.”
I shook my head, wondering if my hearing was the problem. “With… you?”
“I’m perfectly qualified, if that’s your concern. You have writing implements and notebooks, I presume?”
“Yes… but—”
“Then we’ll get started right after I have my breakfast. Let’s get on with it!” Mrs. Haggerty clapped her hands impatiently. Delia raced upstairs to finish getting dressed, with Zach in hot pursuit.
I sighed and set a pan on the stove. If nothing else, it would keep them both busy for a while. Maybe I could get a few loads of laundry done and sneak in a few hours of work. I took out the eggs, grabbed a tube of orange concentrate from the freezer, and dropped a dollop of butter in the pan while Mrs. Haggerty settled in at my kitchen table to wait for her meal. She set her massive cell phone in front of her and turned up the volume as loud as it would go.
… a new person of interest in the Gilford Dupree murder investigation. Steven Donovan of South Riding, owner of Rolling Green Sod and Tree Farm and former resident of the house located directly across the street from the property where the body was found, has been detained by Loudoun County police for questioning. According to an anonymous source, Donovan had been secretly involved with Penelope Dupree, the victim’s wife…
I rushed to the table, frantically turning down the volume on her phone, hoping the children hadn’t heard any of it. Max was on the screen, detailing what they had uncovered about Steven and Penny’s affair.
The smell of burning butter shook me from the phone. I dropped it on the table, leaping to the stove to slam a lid on the smoking pan. I turned down the heat, wiped out the blackened butter, and started Mrs. Haggerty’s breakfast over.
“I always said that man was worthless,” she grumbled.
“That’s none of your business,” I said, cracking her egg hard enough to leave a little shell in it.
“It was everyone’s business, the way he paraded his affairs around, always traipsing that real estate woman in and out of your house. He certainly wasn’t quiet about it.”
I gritted my teeth as I plucked two slices of singed bread from the toaster.
“I hope they lock him up. You and those children would be better off for it.”
I snapped off the stove, scraped her egg and toast onto her plate, and dropped it in front of her.
Nick was right. Mrs. Haggerty needed to go. Today.
I carried her phone upstairs with me to Vero’s room and banged on the door. Vero opened it, one eyebrow raised as she gestured for me to come in. She sipped her coffee while I dialed the number Brendan had left me. If he wouldn’t answer my calls, maybe he would answer his grandmother’s.
Brendan’s phone rang no less than a dozen times. I let out a frustrated growl. “His voice mail still isn’t picking up.”
“He’s probably avoiding her,” Vero said. “The woman’s a royal pain in the ass. I wouldn’t blame the guy for wanting to get as far away from her as possible.”
“He was in a hurry to get home when he dropped her off here. Maybe he just miswrote the number.”
“ Hurry is an understatement. He couldn’t get out of here fast enough. The guy laid enough rubber in the street to outfit the tire department at Costco. I’m telling you, Finn, he’s ditching his grandma.”
“I don’t think he would do that. They’re very close.”
“If they’re so close, why didn’t he come pick her up first thing this morning? You saw the news. By now he’s seen it, too. If he was so worried about his grandma, do you really think he’d leave her here, living under Steven’s old roof with you?”
She took Mrs. Haggerty’s phone and opened the contact list. There were only a handful of entries in it. Vero held it between us as she scrolled to Brendan’s name. “See? That’s the same number he gave you. Face it, the guy’s ghosting her, Finn.” Vero thrust the phone back in my hand and reached for her laptop.
“What are you doing?” I asked as she opened a search engine. She typed Brendan’s full name into the search bar as I looked over her shoulder.
“I’m finding out where he lives so we can go to his place and escort his ass back here.” Vero reached for a notepad and jotted down an address. “This must be it. You get Delia ready to go. I’ll go find Zach’s shoes.”
“We can’t leave Mrs. Haggerty alone.” The woman was far too nosy. Giving her unfettered access to snoop inside my house seemed like a dangerous idea. Especially given the secrets Vero and I were keeping. It was bad enough that my ex-husband had been publicly implicated in a murder case. But if Mrs. Haggerty was to discover Vero was living under an assumed identity to avoid an arrest warrant in Maryland, that would only make things worse, and we didn’t need that fun fact coming up in a neighborhood watch meeting. We’d be on Mrs. Haggerty’s radar for the remainder of her days, and with our luck, I was pretty sure she was going to outlast both of us.
“I’ll go talk to Brendan,” I said. “You stay here and keep an eye on Mrs. Haggerty. And don’t let her anywhere near my office.” The last thing either of us needed was for the woman to read my unfinished manuscripts and recognize the plot of my own life inside them. Hell, she could probably write my novels herself, given how much she’d seen through her kitchen window over the years.
“What am I supposed to do with her while you’re gone?”
“Nothing. When she gets tired of playing homeschool, put on the TV and let her watch reruns of Jeopardy! Just keep her busy, and don’t let her snoop.”