all seem to be intact. They wouldn’t have been if she was fighting for her life.”
“There wouldn’t be any struggle if the victim was drugged,” Sean told his son, his voice as mild as if he were discussing the garden section of the Sunday paper. Turning, Sean pointed to the wine goblet he had already photographed and that now stood, bagged, on the bathroom floor exactly where he had found it. “A simple analysis can tell us about that.”
Logan still didn’t see that as proof. “A lot of suicides build up their courage with a drink first. Maybe the victim wanted to make sure that she wouldn’t experience a last-minute surge of regret that might cause her to stop what she was doing.” He looked at his father. “Despondence can do that to you.”
“Maybe to you,” Destiny fired back. “But not to Paula. She did not kill herself. I’d stake my badge on it,” she insisted.
“Besides,” Sean interjected, “there are the cuts to her wrists. Our killer obviously slipped up there.” Returning the items he’d taken out previously, as well as packing up the samples he’d taken into his case, Sean glanced at Destiny. “Are you absolutely sure your sister never mentioned this man’s name? Dropped a hint, used initials? Something like that?”
To each suggestion, Destiny could only shake her head no. Each time she did so, she felt her frustration growing larger and larger.
“No.”
The truth of it was that despite her initial concerns, she’d been really hopeful that Paula was finally looking to settle into a lasting relationship. And due to that, she hadn’t wanted to cause any waves by hounding her sister for details.
“And you didn’t press her?” Logan asked incredulously. What kind of a woman didn’t ask for details? he couldn’t help wondering. Was it because she was too wrapped up in her own love life? Was there some guy she was going to go running home to, to cry on his shoulder?
From out of nowhere, Logan felt just the slightest prick of jealousy. He shrugged it off, thinking he was just frustrated because he’d had to break his date with Stacy.
Destiny could only shrug impotently. “I figured she’d tell me when she was ready.”
He couldn’t help staring at her. Was she for real? If this had been one of his sisters, the other two would have been all over her until she finally broke. The life expectancy of a secret in the household where he’d grown up had been about a day and a half—if the one with the secret was in a coma.
“Wow, a woman with no curiosity,” he marveled, only half in jest. “I thought that was like, you know, an urban myth or something. Kind of like a unicorn,” he tagged on.
If nothing else, the man was mixing his metaphors. He was also being colossally annoying.
“Unicorns don’t wander around urban areas,” she pointed out, irritated at the detective’s flippant manner and not bothering to hide the fact, even if he was Sean’s son. Maybe he was adopted, she thought. Her eyes narrowed as she pinned him with a glare. “Are you going to take this seriously or not?” she asked.
“I’m officially ruling this a murder,” Sean announced, interrupting what appeared to be an argument in the making—he knew for a fact that Logan didn’t like being challenged. “Don’t worry. He’ll take it seriously now,” he assured his assistant with a note of finality in his voice.
She was overreacting. Her sister’s murder—just finding Paula this way—was making her lose her perspective. If she continued down this road, then she really would wind up being thrown off the case.
And soon.
At the very least, she wasn’t any good to anyone if she unraveled this way.
Destiny took in a deep, shaky breath, getting herself back under control. Her spine snapped into place, ramrod straight.
“Sorry,” she said to Sean.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Sean told her warmly. Placing a fatherly arm around her shoulders, he gently escorted Destiny from the room.
The sound of fresh activity was heard coming from the living room. The M.E.’s team had just arrived, pushing a gurney between them.
Nodding at the duo, Sean said, “The victim’s in the bathtub. She’s had a preliminary workup and is ready to go.”
“It’s a suicide, right?” one of the men asked, looking at the sheet attached to his clipboard. The latter was lying on top of the gurney.
“No, it’s a homicide,” Logan corrected, answering for his father.
He wasn’t oblivious to the relieved smile that Destiny shot him. Though it lasted only half a second, he’d been right. Her smile did have the makings to light up a room.
Hearing what Logan said, one of the two men sighed and shook his head. “It’s going to be another long night,” he anticipated, addressing his words to no one in particular.
“C’mon, don’t just stand there and make it any longer,” the other man prodded.
Pushing the gurney before them, they entered the next room.
Once they were gone, Sean turned to Destiny. “I should be the one who’s saying he’s sorry,” he said to her, continuing what he was saying before the two assistants from the M.E.’s office had entered the apartment. “And I am. I am deeply sorry for your loss,” he emphasized. “And we will find the person responsible for this, Destiny,” he said. “I give you my word.”
Destiny blinked back her tears. It felt as if she’d been fighting them all along. Her supervisor wasn’t making things any easier for her.
“I believe you,” she murmured, her voice hardly above a whisper. Any louder and she knew she would risk breaking down entirely.
Again.
To the best of Logan’s knowledge, it was the first time he’d ever heard his father make a promise that he wasn’t a hundred percent certain ahead of time that he could back up.
This assistant had to mean a lot to him, he concluded, then couldn’t help wondering why.
Chapter 3
“Were you two on the outs?” Logan asked Destiny as his father continued processing the rest of the small apartment.
Why did he keep coming back to that?
“No. She was my only family. We were close—as close as two people who lived two different, busy lives could be,” she qualified, emphasizing the word busy. “We didn’t get together as much as I would have liked, but that couldn’t have been helped.” Her eyes narrowed slightly as she regarded Logan, looking for some kind of an indication as to what was really on his mind. She began to suspect that he wasn’t the typical vapid, shallow pretty boy. There was substance, a trait she’d always found far sexier than looks.
But right now, she was in a place where things like that didn’t matter.
“Why are you asking?” she asked.
He
