Matt. I actually came to the funeral. You and I spoke briefly afterward.”
She had been mercifully numb by that time. She remembered a succession of police officers, all in uniform, one by one expressing their regrets. Some she knew, many she didn’t. She had been grateful they had come. If they hadn’t, who would have? Her own family was so small. And Matt’s—
Laura shook off that memory.
“Where did you find Jake?”
“The gun show out at the Expo Center.”
“What?” She half stood, then made herself resume her seat. Oh, dear God.
“I didn’t recognize him. I was only concerned because I thought he must have cut school.”
“He did.”
He bent his head in agreement. “He admitted he had. He says he’s eleven? I guessed him to be older than that.”
“He’s tall for his age. And...mature looking.” Jake’s looks had come from his dad. The resemblance was becoming more striking all the time. She tried to hide how that made her feel.
Detective Winter sighed and rolled his shoulders a little. “I’ll be honest. I might not have paid as much attention if he’d been looking at BB guns like you’d expect a kid to do. But he wasn’t. He seemed a little too interested in the kind of handgun I carry. I thought you needed to know that he’d cut school because he wanted real bad to finger some Sig Sauers and Berettas and the like.”
She looked pointedly at the big black gun at his hip.
“I carry a weapon because my job demands it,” he said, more mildly than she probably deserved.
After a moment, she nodded.
“Were you aware of his interest, Ms. Vennetti?”
She started to shake her head, squeezed her eyes shut and finally nodded. When she met his eyes, she knew she wasn’t hiding her desperation. But she hadn’t had anybody to talk to about this. Hadn’t wanted anyone else to know. Certainly not her sister or brother-in-law. What if they decided Jake was a danger to their kids?
“I— He was only five and a half when it happened.”
The kindness and sympathy in this man’s expression made her feel shaky. She didn’t want to be weakened, but...was it so bad, just for a minute, to feel grateful for someone who seemed to understand? “A little boy,” he said. “Too young to know the difference between a real gun and a toy gun.”
Her head bobbed. “Yes. Except... The boy who died was Jake’s first cousin, Marco. They were best friends. It was really gruesome. The bullet hit him in the head.” She hardly knew her hand had lifted and that she was lightly touching her cheek, letting him know where the bullet had entered Marco’s head. “I don’t think Jake will ever forget.”
As if she could.
“No.”
“He didn’t see his father, thank heavens. At least Matt didn’t do that to us,” she said bitterly.
“But you found him.”
She shuddered. “Yes.”
Detective Winter swore, rose to his feet and came to her, sitting on the coffee table close enough for him to take her hands. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to carry something like that with you.”
She had the oddest moment of bemusement. A man was holding her hands in a warm, comforting clasp. He leaned forward in concern, so close to her that she saw his eyes were hazel, mostly green streaked with gold, and that his lashes were short but thick. If she were to lift her hand to his hard jaw, she’d feel the rasp of his late afternoon beard growing in.
A near complete stranger was holding her hands.
She could not afford to think of him as a man. He wasn’t here because he was interested in her. He was here because he’d caught Jake at a gun show.
All her fears rushed back. Even so, she couldn’t make herself retreat from that comforting clasp. She looked down to see the way his thumbs moved gently, almost caressingly, on the backs of her hands.
“I put him in counseling, of course,” she said in a stifled voice. “He...regressed, after Matt killed himself.”
“Of course he would.”
She nodded. “But he’s done really well. He makes friends. He’s close to a straight-A student. I thought...I thought we were through any danger period.”
Detective Winter waited with seemingly limitless patience. Ethan, that was his first name, she thought, finding it fit the man.
“Only, recently I’ve caught him watching TV shows he knows I don’t allow. All he seems to want to watch are police shows. There’s that reality one.” He nodded. “And he’s slipped a few times and said things, so I know he’s seeing some pretty violent stuff at friends’ houses. Movies I’d never let him go to or rent. And when the news is dominated by some awful crime, he’ll stay glued to CNN or whatever channel follows it.”
“He’s a teenage boy. His father was a police officer. His interest might be natural.”
“Why would he admire that, given what happened because his father carried a gun?” she said sharply.
Detective Winter’s eyebrows twitched, but he didn’t say anything. He straightened a little, though, and his clasp on her hands loosened.
“And then I was changing the sheets on Jake’s bed,” she went on, her voice slowing. “I found some gun catalogs under the mattress.” She gave a sad excuse for a laugh. “Playboy magazine wouldn’t have shocked me. These...seemed way more obscene.”
“Understandably.”
“And now this.” She searched his face, as if she’d find any answers.
“Matt must have had friends Jake could talk to about some of this.”
“Friends?” She huffed. “You mean from the department? No, they all did a disappearing act. He was probably their worst nightmare come true. Why hang around to watch the epilogue?”
The detective’s dark eyebrows snapped together. “None of his friends on the job stuck around to be sure you and Jake were all right?”
“No. I quit hearing from the wives right away, too. I definitely embodied their worst nightmares.” She didn’t admit that, as angry as she’d been, Matt’s cop friends and their wives were the last people she’d have wanted to hear from or see. She might have ignored their calls.
Had ignored some.
But there hadn’t been all that many, and they’d tailed off within a couple of weeks. Nobody had been persistent enough to come by when she couldn’t be reached by phone. Out of sight, out of mind.
“You have family?” he asked.
“My sister and her husband and
