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“Jesus! You scared me! I thought you’d fainted. Are you okay?”
“I’m good,” I croaked. “I just had, you know. A moment. Did you call the?—”
“The police? Yeah. They’re on their way. You were my second call.”
Unreasonable panic ballooned inside me into something monstrous. I saw Lucia’s body on the ground, her wide-open eyes, her livid face. “Don’t go in there!” I told him wildly. “Get away from the place! Right now! What if whoever did it is still inside?”
“I’ll be okay,” he soothed. “I won’t go in. I’ll leave it for the cops. They wouldn’t want me touching things or tracking though the crime scene anyhow.”
“It’s just a house.” The words made no sense, I realized, as they flew out of my mouth—and oh shit, now my face and throat were shaking. “It’s just a goddamn house!”
“Yes, that is absolutely true,” he soothed. “Hey, Nancy? Nancy? Hey! Answer me!”
I tried, but my throat was shaking too hard. I made a wordless sound, just so he’d know I was still conscious.
“Nancy, give me one of your sisters’ phone numbers, okay? You shouldn’t be alone. I’ll call one of them for you. Give me the number.”
Oh, God. He thought I was losing my shit. Embarrassment stiffened my spine.
“No,” I said thinly. “They’re both busy. I’ll be out there as soon as I can.”
“No! You’re upset! You should not drive!”
“I will be fine. I’ll see you in an hour and ten, barring traffic.”
“Hey! Wait! Nancy?—”
I hung up on him and lurched over to the kitchen counter. The little espresso pot had a mouthful of powerful coffee left in the bottom. I poured it into a cup, cold though it was, and dosed it with sugar.
My cell began to tinkle. I checked. It was Liam again. No freaking way was I answering him now. Ten rings. A pause. Ten more. Silence. Take that, buddy.
Then, the chime of a text message. I opened it.
At least get a goddamn rideshare please do not drive yourself
Hah. Like I had hundreds of extra bucks to burn. Dream on, buddy.
I tossed on my jacket, legs wobbling. This news had taken all the starch out of me, but a secret warmth unfurled in my chest at the thought that he’d been worried about me. Awww. I cherished the feeling, silly though it was. Bossy though he’d been.
I spent the drive up to Hempton trying to calm myself down. I tried to remind myself that it was just a deserted house. A break-in was upsetting, yes. Expensive, a huge waste of time, a rotten inconvenience. That was all. Nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Lucia was no longer in that house. The very worst that could possibly happen had already happened. This was nothing. Absolutely nothing at all, in comparison.
So why did I feel so scared?
Chapter Six
Liam
I lurked in my truck, watching cops and forensics techs trooping in and out of the D’Onofrio house. Finding the place tossed had been a shock. Weird as hell for lightning to strike the same place twice, and just a week after Lucia’s death, too. It made me nervous and queasy, like I was missing something important. A vague, discomforting almost-thought that kept flitting out of sight before I could put my finger on it.
Maybe because I was short on sleep. Around two-thirty a.m, I’d given up on sleeping and headed to my furniture workshop. The slow, detailed work of joining without glue or nails was one of my favorite pastimes. It put me in a mellow, focused, zen kind of place. The next best thing to sleep.
Currently, I was working on a dining room table. For my future family. One long enough to feed a dynasty. Sometimes I imagined what it would feel to see it loaded with food, my family gathered around it. Just a vague, hopeful fantasy in my head.
It usually gave me a connected feeling. I’d figured that working on that table would be just the thing to link me with reality, and my true, bedrock values.
But I’d bombed on that. My fantasy future wife was a bland, formless fog of vague possibilities, whereas Nancy D’Onofrio stood out, brilliantly sharp and clear, every vivid, stylish detail of her. Those cool, slender fingers, twisted through mine.
At a certain point, erotic fantasies had overtaken me. They involved Nancy, and the dining room table. Her, perched on the edge, graceful legs spread wide. Me, on my knees, my tongue deep inside her. Her hands wound into my hair. Writhing and whimpering.