A woman was sitting on a stool behind the counter reading a book. She was wearing a white wool sweater. (Olivia wasn’t surprised. The store was cold, even by her standards.) She looked up when the door chimed, nodded, and went back to her reading. A romance novel of some sort, Olivia assumed, judging by what she could see of the cover.
“Aden around?”
“Not tonight.” This time the woman didn’t even look up from her book.
“You know where I could find him?”
She shrugged. “I guess he’s at home. Is there something I can help you with?”
“You weren’t here the night of the robbery, were you?” Olivia didn’t remember seeing anything about a woman in the report. Still, she didn’t want to assume.
“Oh, you’re here about that?” the woman said, closing her book and sitting up a little straighter. “No, I wasn’t. Why? Are you a cop?”
Olivia showed the woman her badge.
“I heard it was quite a thing,” the woman said. “Aden was particularly upset about it.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
“What exactly did he say?”
The woman pursed her lips, looked up at the ceiling for a second, perhaps trying to remember the conversation. “He just said he was upset.”
“That’s it?”
“I mean—basically. He spent most of the night cleaning up and was back at it the next morning by the time I came in for my shift. He looked tired, complained about the cost of the lost product and the damage to the wall.”
The woman’s gaze shifted. Olivia instinctively turned, looked in the same general direction. She saw the bullet hole near the ceiling she had read about in the report.
“He said it was a terrible time for something like this to happen,” she continued.
“What did he mean by that?”
“I don’t know. He just kinda said it and moved on. Why?”
“Never mind. Thanks for your help.” Olivia headed to the exit.
“You want me to tell Aden you stopped by?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not that important. I’ll catch him later.”
Olivia had lied. The more she learned, the more important it seemed she talk to Aden right away. There was something he was hiding.
Aden lived in apartment building two miles down from the liquor store. She decided to try her luck there next. Unit 217. The building was a looming tower of steel and cement that looked like it had seen better days. It was named Wooden Grove, which struck Olivia as ironic since there wasn’t a hint of nature within sight.
The glass doors to the lobby were unlocked. She pressed the button for the elevator and, after waiting for a minute or so, decided to take the stairs. When she exited the stairwell, she looked left, then right, assessing which way she needed to go, and started moving again.
The interior was better cared for than the exterior. That was true of a lot of buildings in this part of town, she thought.
She found the door and was about to knock when she heard shouting coming from inside. Most of it was inaudible, just the blurry noise of angry voices. They belonged to a man and a woman.
Olivia listened, trying to get the gist of the argument. She gathered he had done something that upset her. No, he was going to do something. What on earth could he be about to do that would make the woman this mad?
The way they were fighting reminded Olivia of how she and her ex-husband had fought when she found out he had cheated on her. But you don’t tell your girlfriend before you cheat, do you? So it couldn’t be that.
Then she heard the woman scream and decided there was no more time to wait around. Olivia turned the knob, pushed. The door swung open. She pulled her gun immediately.
Aden was barefoot, naked from the waist up. The sweatpants he was wearing were torn at one knee and looked like they needed a wash. He had his hands balled into fists, but they hung by his sides. The woman—a brunette—was holding a hand to her cheek. She was wearing a blue pantsuit and had backed up to the wall. With Aden dead center between her and the door, there would have been no getting around him.
Olivia announced her name, flashed her badge. “Are you all right?” she said to the woman.
The woman nodded.
“You want to tell me what’s going on in here?”
“Someone call you?” Aden said defiantly.
The woman looked away, shook her head. Olivia had seen this scenario play out before. Maybe it was bad. Maybe it wasn’t. One thing was for sure—she wasn’t going to tell Olivia anything. “You want to leave?”
The woman nodded.
Olivia gestured toward the door. “Go.”
The woman did, grabbing her purse from the glass console table beside the door as she left.
Olivia pushed her glasses back up her nose, then took them off, annoyed they weren’t staying in place. She might not be reading any menus without them on, but she could see Aden well enough.
“You know, I came here to follow up with you about the robbery at your store. But . . .” she trailed off. Olivia thought she saw something on the coffee table—something horrible. “Get on your knees,” she said to Aden. And before he even had time to move, she repeated the command. “Get on your knees now!”
Aden did as he was told.
The glasses went back on.
The thing on the coffee table was exactly what Olivia thought it was.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
Olivia stepped backward so she could close the door without turning around. She didn’t want anybody coming up on her from behind. Then she handcuffed Aden, cleared the apartment, and called in the bomb.
It wasn’t fully assembled yet. But it was close enough.
CHAPTER 15
Under normal circumstances, Connor would say his parents were entitled to their secrets. Everyone had a past. However, the circumstances right now were anything but normal. Connor hadn’t even been looking for secrets when he came across the marriage certificate. What might he find if he did?
The box Connor had taken out
