Chapter Two
Ethan set the cup of water on the desk next to Livvy. “Drink this,” he insisted.
He seriously doubted that mere water was going to put any color back in Livvy’s cheeks. Or eliminate that shock he was seeing in her pale green eyes. In fact, nothing might help with that, but he had to try anyway.
This wasn’t about the stress that her anxiety was putting on the baby. It was about Livvy herself. They might not have been the best of friends as they once were, and he might’ve felt the guilt from hell just looking at her, but Ethan hated to see her hurting like this.
And she was hurting, no doubt about it.
All thanks to the blasted note that had shaken her to the core. It’d shaken him, too, but Ethan was trying to push it aside and help Livvy deal with…well, whatever the heck this was.
“The note could be a lie, meant to taunt you,” he pointed out.
Not for the first time. He’d said as much in the cruiser when Grace had told them to leave the crime scene, return to the station and wait for her in her office.
But now Ethan added more. “As a cop, you’ve made enemies, and one of them might want to hurt you. ”
If that was it, then the enemy had succeeded.
Livvy, it’s time you remembered. Time for you to confess that you’re a killer.
Yeah, definitely a success.
Because of the best-friends deal that had started when they were both six and in foster care, Ethan knew how much her blank past haunted her.
Or a better word for it might’ve been terrorized her.
Not just the nightmares but those empty spaces inside her that should’ve been filled with memories and certain knowledge.
But she didn’t have that.
In fact, even her name was something that’d been given to her by the foster care system after they hadn’t been able to identify her or locate any possible kin. Now she had to be imagining the worst-possible scenarios for those blanks.
That she was a killer.
That at age six, she had ended someone’s life.
“You need to make a list,” Ethan said, trying again to get her to focus on anything but those blank spots, the dead woman and the note. “Write down anyone you think might want to get back at you by doing something like this.”
He took a notepad from Grace’s desk and dropped it and a pen next to the cup of water. Livvy finally looked up at him. “You think someone murdered a woman to get back at me?”
“It’s possible,” he had to admit. “But there are many reasons the woman could have been killed.”
She drank some water and nodded. “But one of the reasons for her murder could point right back to me,” Livvy said, and her voice cracked. “I didn’t kill her, Ethan.”
He looked at her as if she’d just told him she was an alien from Mars. “Hell, Livvy. I know that.” Ethan groaned and put his hands on his hips.
“But will everyone else believe it?” she asked.
And there it was. Something he hadn’t considered. The worry that because of that note, people would think she was a killer.
Ethan leaned down, took hold of her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “No one who knows you will think you killed that woman.”
She stared at him as if trying to detect any doubts about that.
There wouldn’t be any. He knew her down to her soul, and the only reason that best friends’ bond no longer applied was because of him.
Because of the mistake he’d made landing in bed with her on the first anniversary of his wife’s death.
Isabel’s death.
He’d been in such a dark place that night.
The grief had been eating him alive, and he’d turned to Livvy.
The grief was still there and felt as if it always would be, but he now had a mountain of guilt to go along with it.
Guilt over “betraying” his late wife and twisting Livvy’s life to hell and back by getting her pregnant.
Oh, she wanted this baby. He had no doubts about that either. He wanted it as well. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t given them both the unplanned upheaval of becoming parents. Parents who were both haunted by their pasts.
Ethan realized his gaze was still locked with Livvy’s. And that he still had hold of her shoulders. Was very close to her. So close that he felt that blasted heat stir in him. He practically snapped back, putting some much-needed distance between them.
Livvy continued to stare at him a moment later, and then she seemed to steel herself up. “The list,” she repeated, picking up a pen. “I’ll focus on what I can do to help with the investigation.”
“Good. I’ll do the same.”
And he took out his phone to try to chase down some preliminary reports of the crime scene. Later, he’d be doing his own list because anyone who wanted to get back at him might use Livvy to dole out some punishment.
Ethan had barely gotten started on his search when he heard the approaching footsteps, and several moments later, Grace came in. Even though it was barely ten o’clock, she already looked exhausted and headed straight for her coffeemaker. She poured herself a huge cup and offered them one.
Both Livvy and he declined.
Grace had a long sip of her coffee and dropped down into her chair behind her desk. “I won’t ask how you’re holding up,” she said, aiming that at Livvy. “I can see you’re shaken. Do you want to talk about that or get on with what I have to tell you about the investigation?”
“The investigation,” Livvy replied without a second of hesitation.
Ethan could already tell that she was shaking off the shock and she was in the full cop mode now. Good. Because he figured these next few minutes—hell, the entire case—was going to add another level to her night terrors.
“All right.” Grace nodded. “Here’s what we know. The dead woman is Zadie Covington.”
Livvy muttered the name as if testing it to see if it rang any bells. She shook her head. Ethan had to do the same. He’d never heard of her, and he was certain he’d never seen her before either.
“She died from bleeding out from multiple stab wounds,” Grace added.
“Self-inflicted?” Ethan asked.
“Probably not. The ME will give us a determination on that soon though.” She paused, had more coffee and pulled up some notes on her phone.
“We got a quick hit on identifying because her prints are in the system from a DUI she got a couple of years back. She was thirty-one and was born in San Antonio. No marriage on record, no kids. She was a certified nursing assistant, and her last known address is the New Hope Wellness Center.”
Everything inside Ethan went still. Because that facility was familiar to him. It was located about five miles from town and specialized in fertility treatments. Well, unconventional treatments anyway. Ethan had always figured the powers-that-be there preyed on women desperate to have a child.
That included his late wife.
“Isabel went there about six months before she died,” Ethan volunteered. “I didn’t go with her,” he added.
More guilt. More regret. If he’d gone with Isabel, she might not have been so desperate to try other measures to conceive. And since one of those measures had led to a stroke and then her death, Ethan wished he had something, anything, so that he didn’t feel as if he’d failed her.
Grace nodded, responding to what Ethan had said. “I’ll obviously need to go out to New Hope and have a chat with them,” she let them know.
“I can do that,” Livvy and he said practically at the same time.
Grace sipped more coffee and eyed them, no doubt trying to decide if that was a good move. “All right,” she finally agreed, “but let’s go over some things first. Tell me about that note. What do you think it means?”
Ethan wanted to blurt out an explanation, but this wasn’t his story to tell. It was Livvy’s.
Livvy drank more of the water before she spoke. “Since I was a kid… .since I was found at age six, I’ve had a recurring nightmare. A dead blond-haired woman in a bathtub. Lots of blood. Old house out in the sticks.” She swallowed hard. “That crime scene pretty much nailed my nightmare.”
Grace stared at her a moment. “I see. But you don’t know if you actually saw that scene before today or if it’s just a bad dream?”
“No,” Livvy assured her. “And I’m not sure why the note said I was a killer. I certainly don’t recall killing anyone, not even in the line of duty and especially not when I was six years old.”
Grace would have only been ten or so at the time Livvy was found, but she would likely recall the little girl who the sheriff had found wandering on the road into Renegade Canyon.
She had also likely heard about Livvy being found with blood on her.
But since no body or anyone injured had ever been found, that blood was essentially a twenty-eight-year-old mystery.
Of course, other things were a twenty-eight-year-old mystery, too. Including her name. Livvy, or rather Olivia, was what CPS had given her when she’d entered foster care. The Walsh surname had apparently been plucked out of thin air. Better than calling her Jane Doe, Ethan supposed.
“Who knows about this nightmare you have?” Grace asked.
Livvy glanced at him. “Ethan. He experienced the aftermath of it plenty of times. And Eden,” she added, referring to their fellow deputy Eden Gallagher, who’d also been raised at the Horseshoe Foster Ranch. “The half dozen or so doctors and therapists I’ve seen over the years. Oh, and your mother.”
Grace clearly wasn’t surprised by that. Her mother, Aileen, had been sheriff for several decades before she retired, and she’d been the one who’d actually found Livvy.
Throughout the years that followed, Aileen had checked on Livvy often, and Ethan had been there when Livvy had told Aileen about the nightmares.
But Aileen wasn’t a suspect here.
Even though she no longer carried a badge, Aileen was a cop to the bone, and she’d never do anything to hurt Livvy.
“I’ll want the names of everyone, including those doctors and therapists, who knew about the specific details of the dreams,” Grace spelled out. “That includes any of your former foster siblings.”