“Melissa left the property to me. At first I thought I couldn’t live in the house where she died. Then I started remembering all the good times we had there, and I was thinking maybe it would help her spirit to rest if I went back for a while. Maybe it would help my spirit, as well, to be with her.” He shrugged. “I can’t think of anyplace else to go right now.”
“Are you taking a leave, then?”
“I talked to John yesterday, he told me to go. He’ll take care of the paperwork for me, send me what I need to sign. Told me just to keep in touch, let him know when I want to come back.”
“I hope you do, Grady,” Annie told him sincerely. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” He gave her a quick hug, then offered his hand to Evan. “Take care of her, Crosby.”
Evan merely nodded.
Grady took a few steps backward, then let himself out of the gate. He walked to the end of the drive, then turned once to wave before disappearing behind the corner house.
“He looks terrible,” Annie said.
“He’s lost the woman he loved. I’d look terrible, too, if anything happened to you. It just reminds me to cherish each day, to never take it for granted.” He paused, then said, “If I take the job John offered, the main reason would be so that we could be together every night, instead of this crazy commuting back and forth.”
“You’re not going to think about it until we come back from Santa Estela, remember?” Annie reminded him. “I think you should stick to that. Besides, there are other things we need to talk about, as far as the trip is concerned.”
“Like how to tell the parents what happened to their daughters.” Evan grew sober again. “How to tell them why they had to die.”
“Maybe it will give them some solace to know that they never accepted the horrible things that had been done to them, that they’d been unwilling participants. And that they died because they would not stop fighting, they would not cooperate, isn’t that what Joe Sullivan told the D.A.? That these girls were killed as an example to the others?”
“Bastard. I still can’t get over him getting involved in something like this. I can’t reconcile the Joe Sullivan I knew all these years with the man who participated in any way in prostituting young girls…” Evan shook his head. “And for the worst of reasons.”
“It’s not the first time a man sold his soul for money, and it won’t be the last.” She put her arms around him. “Just be grateful you were able to put a stop to it.”
“This was just the tip of the iceberg, Annie. You know that.”
“But at least that tip was cut off,” she told him.
He appeared to be about to say something when his phone rang.
“Crosby,” he answered, listened for a few minutes, then said, “Give me fifteen minutes.”
He snapped the phone shut and turned to Annie. “That was Malone. They found two bodies in a boarded-up house down on Longwood. A couple of transients, it looks like, and I-”
“Go. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Annie, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Go.”
“I guess I should run upstairs and get cleaned up, get out of these dusty clothes.” He looked around the yard, at the half-dug bed and the plants sitting here and there. “I hate to leave you with this mess.”
“Don’t give it another thought. I’ll finish up out here.”
“Are you sure? I’ll probably be gone for at least the rest of the afternoon.”
“It’s okay. Go on and do what you do.” She kissed him and turned him in the direction of the house. “I’ll be here when you get home…”
She watched him take the steps two at a time, knowing that his mind was already on the crime scene and what he would find there. It was what he did, and who he was.
Annie wouldn’t have had him any other way.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARIAH STEWART is the bestselling author of numerous novels and several novellas. She is a RITA finalist for romantic suspense and is the recipient of the Award of Excellence for contemporary romance, a RIO (Reviewers International Organization) Award honoring excellence in women’s fiction, and a Reviewers’ Choice Award from
