believed that when she married, it would be for life, to a man who loved her unconditionally. She craved love like an addict—an emotional need any two-bit shrink would say lay in the debris of her broken childhood. And they would be right. Cissy had never experienced that kind of love, not from her grandmother, and certainly not from her egomaniacal mother or narcissistic father. She’d thought with Jack and B.J.—her own little nuclear family—that life would be different.
Oh, how wrong she’d been.
Now, sitting at the table they’d bought at a secondhand store and refinished together, their first of countless “projects,” she and Jack shared what they could salvage of the pizza and tried not to let the silence grow too uncomfortable.
She leaned back in “her” chair—the one positioned next to the French doors leading to the backyard. Cissy wouldn’t allow herself to think about their search for this house and how excited they’d been when they found it. It had been run-down, in need of “TLC,” the real estate ad had said, a “fixer-upper,” a “handyman’s dream.” This hundred-year-old Victorian had been all those things and more, but they’d both fallen in love with it the minute they stepped over its rotting threshold. They’d bought it, hired a contractor, and spent the next year working every night and weekend, ripping up thin, filthy thirty-year-old carpeting then stripping the hardwood floors and refinishing them to a lustrous sheen. They’d replaced or regrouted tile and peeled off layers of the ugliest wallpaper she’d ever seen. They’d worked to exhaustion, loving every minute of it.
And Cissy was certain she had conceived B.J. the very first night they’d moved in. Probably while testing out the durability of the living room floor. Now her eyes strayed to that room and the shining patina of the oak floorboards. Just around the corner was the fireplace, and there, on a sleeping bag that they’d used for camping, they’d created their first and only child. She’d thought she’d love Jack Holt forever.
Pushing that uncomfortable thought aside, she took another swallow of beer, then righted Beej’s sippy cup before he sprinkled milk all over himself, the high chair, and the surrounding walls and floor. Her son wrinkled his nose and showed off his new teeth. “Get down?”
“In a sec, honey.”
“I know this isn’t a good time,” Jack said, “but I want you to rethink the divorce.”
“Rethink,” Cissy repeated. Like she hadn’t thought and thought and thought about it already.
“We need to give it another shot, Ciss. Hell, we’ve hardly been married long enough to have a rough patch, much less survive one.”
She studied this man she’d married. Was he a raving lunatic? “You had an affair, Jack. With Larissa. End of story.”
“I did not—”
“Sure you did,” she cut him off. “We’ve been through this before, so let’s not do it again. You brought me home, and now you can go. You don’t live here anymore.”
“Not my choice, Ciss.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s best.”
“I miss you.”
“Should have thought of that when you were sleeping around.”
“For the millionth time, I wasn’t. You know it too. You’re just looking for an excuse.”
“Fortunately for me, you gave me a damned good one.” She stood, unstrapped B.J., and plucked him out of the high chair. Wiping a spot of milk from his cheek, she balanced him on her hip, then set him on the floor. As he loped to his toy box in the living room, Cissy squared off with her husband. “I caught you coming out of Larissa’s house, Jack. Please don’t insult me with the old ‘but nothing happened’ story. Just leave, Jack. This is pointless.” Beej wandered back into the room, a beat-up stuffed frog hanging from one hand, and Cissy said, “Say good-bye to Daddy, honey.”
“You just won’t listen. You’re as pigheaded as ever.”
“Pig-headed,” Beej repeated on a giggle as Jack lifted him. He patted his father hard on the shoulder and chortled, “Dad-dee! Dad-dee!” so many times that Cissy thought she might puke. Pigheaded? She would have liked to argue the point, but Jack and Beej were doing their male-bonding thing, laughing and playing with each other, so she decided to keep out of it for the moment. As lousy a husband as Jack had become, she couldn’t take away the fact that he loved his child. By no means was he a great father, and considering his upbringing that could be explained, but he did love Beej. He did try.
She grudgingly gave Jack points for that, especially when she thought about her own childhood. For Beej’s sake she would try to pull herself out of the anger and pain caused by his betrayal and do the best she could to ensure that father and son had a decent relationship. It wasn’t B.J.’s fault that she and Jack couldn’t get along.
He hadn’t chosen his father.
She had.
“Look who I found.” Janet Quinn, who had been searching the library on the second floor, walked down the stairs carrying a shivering little white dog. Paterno looked up from the floor, where he’d been studying the tiles where the body had hit. There was still blood everywhere, but the shell of what had been Eugenia Cahill had finally been hauled away.
“Where was it?”
“Cowering in a cupboard beneath a shelf containing first editions of Sherlock Holmes.”
“In good company,” Paterno observed.
“And scared to death. Literally shaking. I wonder who put her there. Eugenia? Or the killer? We are thinking homicide, aren’t we?”
“Looks that way. Jefferson’s pretty certain.”
“Who would want to kill a little old lady?”
Paterno flashed on Marla Cahill. “Maybe her daughter-in-law?”
“Pretty bold to come here right after an escape.”
“Have you forgotten Marla Cahill? Brazen doesn’t begin to cover it.” He’d seen a lot of conniving, cold-hearted people in his time, but, as far as women went, Eugenia’s daughter-in-law took the prize.
“She’s not stupid.”
“Not at all.”
“And she would have had to have known that we were watching the place.”
“Well, someone called 9-1-1 before the granddaughter showed up here. I’m willing to bet whoever put in the call that pulled our guys off was involved. If we find out who that is, we might start making some headway.”
Quinn nodded. “The caller was a male. I checked.”
“Paid to do it. From a pay phone.” Paterno already had that much figured out from talking to the emergency dispatch operator. Squatting next to the bloodstains, he twisted his neck to view the landing as he had half a dozen times, replaying what he imagined had happened. It wouldn’t have taken Atlas to toss the little woman over the railing, but then again, Eugenia would have fought back. Unless she’d been drugged or had a stroke or heart attack. He’d know more once all the tox screens and blood work came back from the
