“Your posture said it all.”
She uncrossed her arms. “I only have this robe on.”
Zach stopped on his trek to his ex-wife’s back door. She couldn’t see his expression, but she could imagine.
“Only a robe. What do I say first?” He ran a hand through his hair. “What the hell were you thinking coming out of your apartment? Let alone half-naked. You’d be a prime target for rape.”
She pulled her robe closer around her. “I’m not half-naked.”
“Did you see the way that cop looked at you. He’s got a great story for the guys back at the station.”
Her face flushed. She hadn’t thought about that. “I wasn’t thinking.”
His voice came out in a stern whisper. “No, you weren’t.”
Turning away from her he put the key in the lock. It clicked. “Lors?”
No answer. A chill went up Grace’s spine. Was she too late? Had she gotten the date wrong?
“Stay here,” Zach commanded.
“No.”
The whole neighborhood heard his sigh. “Stay behind me, then.”
She did all the way upstairs to Dolores’s bathroom. That’s when they found her in a pool of blood.
Dolores looked up at them, pale as she could be. “The baby.”
Chapter Eight
Zach paced in the waiting room in the emergency room. No one was telling him anything and he thought he’d jump out of his skin. People hurried by, but not one of them stopped.
Grace had come in the ambulance with Dolores and now returned to him with two cups of coffee. He wasn’t sure the brew would help him, but he took it to have something in his hands. “What have you heard?”
Her long face told him everything.
“She’s alive and doing okay. She lost the baby. I’m sorry Zach.”
He sipped the black liquid his senses numbed except for the coffee searing down his throat. This changed a lot of things between him and Dolores. Guilt traipsed through him as he thought for the better. “What was it?”
“A girl. She was three months along,” Grace said settling into an orange plastic chair.
“Three months? Are you serious?”
She nodded. “Why is that significant?”
Zach shook his head. This was between him and Dolores. She’d lied once again. The baby wasn’t his. Couldn’t have been. They’d been together only a month ago. A month he’d been rethinking his life. All in vain because his suppositions were based on a lie.
The last lie she would ever tell him.
With his coffee drained, he threw his empty cup across the room. Grace stood then approached him with wide eyes. “Zach, she’ll be okay. She can still have more children.”
“Yeah?”
None of them would be his. His streak of bringing no children into the world would be intact.
He shrugged off her hand. “I’m going home. Call me with any updates.”
“You’re leaving?”
Turning he looked into her horrified face. “No reason to stay.”
He left Grace blinking at him.
Grace watched Zach stride out of the waiting room. Her disbelief paralyzed her. Just because Dolores had lost her baby was no reason to abandon her at this point. Anger catapulted her in his direction.
“Zach.”
He turned, his face flushed with rage. A muscle worked in his jaw.
“It isn’t her fault.”
“I didn’t say it was.” He put a hand on her arm. “Look, Grace you’re in the middle of something you don’t understand. Just let me go.”
She touched him back even though she knew it would cost her. “Explain it to me, then. Maybe it will help Dolores.”
Colors swirled and Grace’s hormones went on overdrive. She dropped her hand. The feeling died away.
“You mean that she’ll be out of danger as you seem to think she is in?” he asked.
His frown communicated his doubt.
“She is in trouble. She’s going to be killed.”
His face remained impassive and Grace wasn’t sure if her gamble would pay off. She wanted to shake him and though he’d given her a hard time, she didn’t really think he was this cold. He must care about Dolores some or he wouldn’t have slept with her.
“Killed? By whom? I’ll have him arrested.”
“Zach, I don’t know. Maybe you’re the guy. You seemed pretty pissed at her.” Most of her didn’t believe this.
He stiffened and rose to his full height. She was not going to be intimidated. “I wouldn’t lay a hand on Dolores or any other woman for that matter.”
He stalked away towards his car.
“I heard you have a temper.”
His footsteps paused, then kept going. He unlocked his vehicle.
“Yes, I do. That’s a known fact around here. So what?”
“Maybe she’s pushed you too far this time?” Grace said.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Humor me.”
He rolled his eyes. “I have somewhere to be. In bed. Alone and asleep.”
She grabbed the car door not wanting to touch him anymore. Her casual hand on his arm had drained her. “Just listen. Besides, you need to drive me home.”
He waved his hand at his passenger’s seat. “Get in. But I’ll only listen until we get to your apartment.”
“Fine.”
She scrambled around the car then, when she had her seatbelt hooked, she looked at him. “What if Dolores were killed tomorrow? Bullet through the head. Who would you suspect?”
Zach’s gaze traveled over her as he turned the key. “You probably.”
“But why?”
“Murder seems to follow you.”
She bit her lip. He wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t know about the murders she’d prevented. “What else?”
“That’s it I guess.”
“That wouldn’t hold up in court. I could have a lawyer spring me in an hour. Especially if I had an alibi. What’s my motive?”
“The usual. Money.”
“Does Dolores have some? I don’t even know.”
Stopped at a light he turned a surprised gaze at her. “You don’t know who she is?”
“No, I’m from Pennsy remember?”
“She’s a trust fund lady. Rolling in the dough. Or was.” The last part he said quietly.
The car started moving again. “Okay, scratch that since I didn’t know that.”
“But I didn’t know that you didn’t know,” he said.
“Say you find that out. What else would be my motive?”
“Don’t know after that. Depending on what happened could be a crime of passion.”
