was Pascal and Stafford’s restaurant! That’s critical to our investigation!”
“What investigation?” Mac finally snapped back. “You don’t give a damn. All you want is a fresh body, not a twenty-year-old corpse.”
“Fuck you.”
“Back atcha.” He slammed into his Jeep and drove away, wishing the pavement was gravel so he could peel out and choke her with the dust. He slipped a pair of nearly forgotten sunglasses onto his nose as shafts of rare winter sunbeams slipped through the clouds and bounced off the wet pavement.
Christ, she was a pain. And he didn’t need the headache. Between his obsession with this case, the other cases he was investigating, and his home life, which was centered around his kid, he didn’t have time for Gretchen Sandler’s histrionics. Not for the first time he wondered who she’d slept with to make detective. Worse yet, she had a way of making him lower himself to her level. The fact that he’d just baldly and gleefully lied to her pleased him in a way that defied explanation. Maturity was highly overrated, he concluded as he turned the Jeep away from the direction of his home and toward the garage where Mitch Bellotti spent his days.
Hudson had checked on Glenn’s address and found the house without difficulty. It was a white-pillared colonial with an excruciatingly steep driveway and little ceramic gnome-like creatures hiding in an expansive yard. There was a brown older model Chevrolet sedan parked precariously on that slope. Hudson parked Becca’s Jetta on the street below and they walked up a set of steps that switchbacked through sliding mud and bark dust, courtesy of the nearly incessant precipitation.
An older woman with coiffed gray-white hair answered their knock and looked at them with suspicion. “Yes?”
“We’re high school friends of Glenn’s,” Becca said. “We wondered if we could see Gia.”
“Well, Gia’s sleeping right now. This isn’t a good time. She’s been medicated.” She was brusque and determined.
“I understand. Would you tell her Becca Sutcliff and Hudson Walker came to see her?” Becca added.
“Oh. I think Glenn mentioned you.” She glanced past them to Becca’s car. “I’m Gia’s mother. I don’t think it’s worth your while to stay. She could be out a while and when she’s awake, oh, dear, the medication makes her a little…unclear.”
Becca half expected Mama Bear to slam the door on them when Gia herself appeared on the stairs beyond. Tousled and red-eyed, clutching a bathrobe closed with one hand, she walked barefoot to the entry. “Who’s here?”
Mama Bear kept trying to close the door but Hudson put a palm on the panels and pushed it back open. He received a glittered glare for his troubles but Gia gazed at him with shadowed eyes, full of misery.
“You were there last night…?” she asked, her voice drifting off.
“I’m Hudson Walker. Glenn and I knew each other in high school.”
“Oh! Yes! Hudson.” Tears filled her eyes and she came flying forward, throwing herself into his arms, bawling like a baby calf. Mama Bear seemed startled by this turn of events, stepped backward, and Becca used the moment to squeeze in behind Hudson. She felt Gia’s pain like a live wire between them, though they weren’t touching. Her grief filled the room and it made Becca feel like a charlatan, given her reasons for being here.
“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Gia was saying over and over as they stood beneath a huge chandelier in the foyer. She was petite and soft, her round body giving her a cherubic look. “We wanted to have a baby. We were planning on it. Now what am I going to do? What am I going to do!” She pulled away from Hudson to the waiting arms of her mother.
Becca heard the word “baby” and her heart lurched. She hadn’t known the circumstances of the Stafford marriage, but this window into their now-unfulfilled hopes and dreams burrowed deeply into her own heartache.
Gia’s mom gave her daughter a hard hug, and Gia’s already red eyes puddled up all over again.
Hudson said gently, “I’m sorry to bother you right now.”
“It’s not a bother. You were friends. Glenn talked about you…all of you.” She swept a hand toward Becca. “I know you were all worried about the dead girl, Jessie.”
“Glenn believed Jessie was dead?” Hudson asked.
“No…I don’t know. I guess I just assumed.” She swallowed once, seemed to think about it some more, then her eyes flooded again. “And now Glenn’s dead, too. Oh, God, oh, God. I’m…sorry…this is all so new…so unexpected. He was my soul mate. We were going to be married forever.” Her voice cracked, but she huddled into the safety of her mother’s arms.
“We hate to bother you, but we wondered if you could answer a question for us.”
“Not now.” Gia’s mother bristled but Gia gazed up at him blankly.
“What?” she asked.
“Did Glenn receive any note recently?”
“What kind of note?” Gia asked emotionlessly.
“A nursery rhyme,” Becca said.
Gia turned to her. “Is that a joke, because it’s not funny.” She slowly released her grip on her mother.
“I think this has gone on long enough,” Mama said.
“I received one,” Hudson said, “so we wondered if Glenn had, too.”
“A nursery rhyme. Let me see it.” Gia stuck out her hand and Hudson, after a brief hesitation, reached into his pocket and handed over the note and the blue envelope.
“It came through the mail.”
Gia shook her head. “Who sent it?”
“We don’t know.”
“You think it was the dead girl,” she said with sudden understanding, and her mother drew in a hiss of breath and looked around as if evil spirits were about to materialize. “Glenn said something about nursery rhymes and that girl. She was a tease.”
“We don’t even know if Glenn’s note exists,” Hudson said. “Another friend, Christopher Delacroix, received one.”
“The Third. I know him. The same as this?” She glanced at the card, her nose wrinkling.
“That’s what I understand. I haven’t seen it yet.”
“And you think Glenn may have got one. Why?”
“It’s a mystery,” Becca said. “We’re trying to figure out who received them, who sent them, and why.”
“Well, if he got one, I never saw it.” After a moment, she said, “Have you told the police? Like maybe that’s why Glenn’s dead…something to do with that Jessie?”
“We haven’t talked to anyone but you,” Hudson said.
“It’s like she killed him,” Gia
