Chapter Two
Devers Residence
White Street
“Hello! I’m home.” Brenda closed the door behind her and abandoned her wheeled bag. She tossed her handbag onto the sofa.
“Mommy!” Janey rushed from the kitchen. Her beloved nanny, Mallory Lawrence, hung back but gave Brenda a big smile and a wave.
Brenda crouched down and hugged her little girl until she started to wiggle.
“Too tight,” she said with a giggle. “Did you bring me something?”
Brenda released her and wrinkled her nose as if the question were ridiculous, then she smiled. “What do you think?”
Janey grinned. “Yes!”
While the child prowled in her mother’s suitcase, Brenda pushed to her feet. “Shall we order your favorite pizza for dinner?” Figuring out something to prepare was the furthest thing from her mind just now.
Janey glanced up, nodding enthusiastically. “Cheese!”
“Cheese it is then.”
The four-year-old waved the gift shop bag that held an angel necklace and did a little happy dance. Then she dashed off to her bedroom.
“She does love cheese pizza,” Mallory said, walking across the room to give Brenda a quick hug.
Brenda had never been more grateful for Mallory than she was the past few weeks. Having the convenience of a childcare giver who could move in at a moment’s notice for an extended stay was a true godsend.
Brenda laughed. “Please don’t tell me you had it for dinner last night.”
Mallory smiled and shook her head. “Lunch today.”
“Oh no.” Brenda scrubbed at her forehead. “I’m sorry. I should have asked.”
Mallory waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. I should get going anyway.” She smiled. “Peter is taking me out tonight.”
Peter was Mallory’s boyfriend. They had been dating for two years.
Brenda expected a proposal anytime. Selfishly Brenda hoped a wedding wouldn’t change their working relationship.
Janey loved Mallory. Neither Brenda nor Scott had any living parents, and they were both only children.
Sadly, most all the people at Scott’s memorial had been his work friends.
When had they stopped having real mutual friends?
Sometimes Brenda couldn’t help thinking how sad the whole situation had been. The disconnection to family had never been more overwhelming than it was now. With him gone, their daughter had no one except Brenda. And Mallory.
Brenda pushed the worry aside. She’d gone there entirely too often since the accident. Continuing to dwell on the subject was not good for her mental health or for moving forward.
“Well, thank you.” Brenda sighed. She had considered telling Mallory about the man she saw in the airport, but she didn’t want to sound paranoid. And the whole encounter sounded entirely paranoid.
Mallory gave her another hug. “Any time you need me.” She drew back. “I mean it, Brenda. Call me anytime. I know how hard things are right now. I want to help any way I can.”
Brenda nodded. “I will. Thank you.”
Mallory smiled, her eyes sparkling. “Your book is going to be a movie!”
Brenda laughed. “It is.”
They hugged again, and then Mallory was on her way.
Brenda stood at the door for a bit after she drove off and watched as the last of the parents picked up their kids from the school across the street.
She really loved this neighborhood. The idea that Janey would be able to attend school right here across the street was the reason she’d chosen this house.
She had known from the day she got married six years ago that she wanted to live near the school her children would attend.
Since she was a writer, she worked from home. It was the perfect situation.
After a minute or two, Brenda closed the door, wheeled her bag into her bedroom and prepared to clear it out and stash it away.
The house was small. An historic bungalow in Huntsville’s famed Five Points Historic District.
It was a quiet neighborhood, and walking to the supermarket was one of her favorite parts of living here.
The downtown entertainment district and historic square were a mere mile to her left, with tree-lined sidewalks the whole distance.
Same with the supermarket to her right—less than half a mile, actually.
Most anything she might need was either within walking distance or available via delivery.
And there were really good neighbors. She didn’t know any of them as well as she might like, but they were always friendly and considerate.
This house was one of the best choices of her adult life.
Scott had never been happy here. He had far grander ideas.
Ten months ago, after the separation, he’d bought a mansion on the mountain above Jones Valley in an exclusive gated community.
There wasn’t even a playground. But the move had confirmed for Brenda that it was over.
He had known full well she wouldn’t move, and he obviously hadn’t cared.
She put her suitcase away in the closet and took her toiletries to the little en suite bathroom.
The efficient bathroom and larger walk-in closet had once been a bedroom, but the former owner had turned the room into the must-have amenities for a primary bedroom.
The house still had two other small bedrooms—one of which she currently used as an office.
Brenda had really wanted a second child by now.
She had thought about adding one of those popular shed type offices when the time came to free up that third bedroom, but her husband had shut down that plan. One was enough, he’d insisted.
That old anger simmered inside her. So much of their marriage she now regretted, no matter that it was difficult to hold a grudge against a dead man. And certainly she did not regret having sweet Janey.
The memory of the man she had seen in the airport nudged her. She picked up her cell phone and found Detective Warren Shelton’s number in her contacts. Maybe she should call and tell him about the encounter.
She bit her lip and considered it might not be such a good idea.
The whole thing actually sounded a little outrageous now that she’d had time to really think about it.
Scott was dead. He’d died in an explosion at his office along with his partner and another colleague.
It had been a Saturday morning so, thankfully, the entire staff was not in the building.
The only reason Brenda had known he was at the office that day was because it was his weekend to have Janey and he’d had to beg off picking her up until Saturday afternoon.
Brenda never minded him canceling his time with their child, but Janey did.
She might only be four, but she expected her father to show up when he said he would.
The police were still investigating the explosion.
Initially there had been some suggestion of a potential gas leak.
But she’d heard nothing else about the cause so far.
She understood that the police couldn’t share details while they were investigating, but sometimes it almost felt as if she were a suspect.
She shook her head. Of course she was a person of interest. One of the victims was her estranged husband.
Brenda tossed yesterday’s clothes and her nightshirt into the laundry basket before checking on Janey.
Her little girl had recently discovered the world of Barbie and loved playing with the collection she’d received for her birthday last month.
Her favorite was the Barbie with the purple hair.
That day was the last really comfortable, actually nice time Brenda had shared with Scott. Just one week before the explosion.
She blinked away the memory. Their daughter looked so much like her father, with her coal-black hair and sky-blue eyes.
His eyes were the first thing that had captured Brenda’s attention.
She, on the other hand, had sandy-brown hair—not quite blond, not entirely brown—and brown eyes.
Really dark brown eyes. Her little girl hadn’t inherited a single one of her physical characteristics.
Maybe she would be tall and slim like her father too.
Brenda had always struggled with her weight.
At a mere five-three, it only took a few pounds to make a difference.
Scott never failed to point out a single extra pound.
Not thinking about him.
Brenda wandered back to the kitchen and considered making a sandwich.
She’d been so out of sorts at the airport after seeing that man she’d forgotten about coffee or breakfast. Then, on the plane, she hadn’t bothered with anything from the lunch menu.
Maybe she would just go ahead and order the pizza she had promised Janey.
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, and the doorbell rang.
Since she wasn’t expecting anyone, it was likely a salesperson.
Living in such a walkable neighborhood, it was not uncommon to have solicitors popping by more frequently than perhaps in other areas.
She didn’t mind most of the time. Scott had hated it.
He made it a point to be rude to any stranger who showed up at their door.
Brenda chastised herself for thinking of him again. They’d been separated for nearly a year. It should be easier than this.
She peeked out a window to see who had stepped onto her porch.
Detective Shelton. How strange. She’d just thought about calling him.
Maybe there was news about the investigation.
Three weeks seemed a fair amount of time to wait for news, but she really had no idea how long these things took.
She did a good deal of research related to criminal investigations for her novels, but fiction wasn’t the same as real life.
In fiction, all aspects of the plot had to work into a reasonable timeline.
Though she tried to keep the details realistic, some things were far more interesting to the reader if the details weren’t so close to the real world.
In any event, this wasn’t a criminal investigation.
She opened the door and manufactured a smile. “Detective Shelton, I was just thinking of calling you.” When he didn’t smile back, Brenda went on edge.
“May I come in, Ms. Devers?”
“Of course.” She opened the door wider in invitation. Once he was inside, she closed it, automatically turned the lock. Since her front door opened directly into her living room, she gestured to the sofa. “Please, make yourself at home.”
The detective had been here many times. He took his usual seat on the far end of the sofa.
She chose the well-worn side chair. It was her favorite, with its pink-and-white gingham fabric.
Something else Scott had disliked about this home—her shabby-chic style and the way she’d furnished it.
How had she ever believed they had anything in common?
“Ms. Devers,” the detective began, “you’re aware that our investigation into the explosion has been ongoing.”
“Yes.” She nodded, hoping the whole thing was nearing completion.
Not that she’d been overly involved in any aspect of what the police were doing, but it was just something else hanging over her head.
Along with the insurance business and a million other little things she would love to get cleared up.
“As you know, we initially tried identifying the three victims of the explosion using dental records.”
“Yes, you explained this to me.” It occurred to her then that she should check to see that Janey was still playing in her room.
“One moment, Detective.” She hurried into the little hall and peeked into her daughter’s room.
Her little voice as she spoke for one of the dolls made Brenda smile.
She returned to the living room. “Sorry. I just wanted to see that Janey was occupied.”
He nodded. “Of course. Anyway, since we weren’t able to locate the dentist Mr. Devers used in Nevada before moving to Alabama and the one you listed here in Huntsville had no record of him, we needed another way to confirm his identity. We had much the same issue with his partner.”
“Tate Jenner,” she said. Like Scott, Tate had no recent dental records. His wife insisted the man had perfect teeth and never saw a dentist while growing up and didn’t bother as an adult. Scott, on the other hand, deemed himself too busy to bother—at least he had since Brenda knew him.
“Yes. Since we needed to do DNA for an official identification of the partners, we decided to do it for the third victim as well. We didn’t have any way of officially identifying him and hoped that perhaps his or a relative’s DNA would show up in some database.”
Initially, the third person present during the explosion was tentatively identified by the third vehicle in the parking lot, but that wouldn’t make the cut as an official identification.
“You took samples from Janey and Trek.” Though Brenda hadn’t been concerned about Janey understanding the process, Lena, Tate’s wife, had really worried about Trek, her and Tate’s son. He was older and quite possibly understood exactly what was happening.
“The results are in,” Shelton said, “and we’ve confirmed the identity of Mr. Jenner and a second man, Clinton Pratt.”
Brenda nodded, but a buzzing had started in her ears. What was he saying?
The better point was what he hadn’t said. He hadn’t mentioned Scott.
“DNA from the remaining victim was not a match for Scott.”
Brenda stared at him, her face pinched in surprise. “What?”
The fact that her mind had instinctively and instantly snagged on the idea that something like this was coming when Scott’s name wasn’t mentioned among the results did absolutely nothing to lessen the impact. How was this possible?
“Your husband was not one of the victims in the explosion.”
Brenda thought of the man at the airport, and her mouth opened to tell the detective as much, but no words came out.
What he was suggesting made no more sense than the idea that she had actually seen her husband at LAX.
If Scott was alive, he would have told her…
surely. It had been three weeks. He would have come to see Janey.
He would have been trying to salvage his business.
No. This couldn’t be right. There had to be a mistake.
Definitely a mistake. This was impossible…wasn’t it?