Til Death Undo Us. Morgan Q O'Reilly
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Название: Til Death Undo Us
Автор: Morgan Q O'Reilly
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Open Window
isbn: 9781616502928
isbn:
“I’m in the middle of a project with a deadline, if you could give me a hint of what this is about?”
“I need to ask you a few questions about your husband.”
“All right.” I folded my arms and waited.
His gaze flicked from Brandy to Jacob and back to me. “Really, if we can do this in private it would be best.”
“Who are you?”
“Niall Malone.” He extracted a business card from his breast pocket and handed it across the reception desk to me.
Raghnall (Niall) Malone, it said in plain black letters. I recognized the logo of the lab where Ryan had worked, and noted the word security.
On the heels of Shaughnessy, and his mention of defense secrets, I wanted to throw up.
“Cassie?” Jacob took my arm and glared at Malone. “She’s been under an incredible amount of stress. I can’t imagine what you have to say will make it better.”
“Nevertheless, it’s important. Mrs. Malone, we can do this the easy way, here and now, or the hard way.”
I didn’t need him to spell that out. I’d watched too many crime dramas. “Give me the first question and I’ll decide if it’s good enough to drop what I’m doing. Otherwise we’ll have to schedule something for later.”
That didn’t go over well. A muscle in the side of his cheek twitched and his lips tightened for a moment. “All right. Just tell me how to get in touch with your husband.”
Ever had one of those moments when it seems the world stops moving? The blood stops, then draws inward, leaving the sensation of limbs filled with ice water, heavy and cold. The roaring in my ears might very well have been the rush of blood leaving my head. This was far worse than when I’d had this same conversation not two hours ago.
Jacob plucked the card from my numb fingers and studied it as Brandy gasped.
“That’s not funny,” I managed to whisper from a throat so dry I could barely swallow.
“I’m not joking.”
“You want to know where my husband is?” I could feel my voice rising, sense it reaching to the very back of the office. Silence settled down around me and Jacob’s hand cupped my shoulder.
“Yes. Please.”
“All right.” If this were some sick joke, I’d play along for a minute. Maybe Shaughnessy had been setting me up after all. I didn’t think so, but the same conversation, twice in one day, less than two hours apart, who knew? “You know this town?”
He nodded.
“Well enough to recognize an address?”
He nodded again.
I gave him the same street and number as I’d given Shaughnessy. Included one more. I drove past it every single day. Sometimes stopped and sat on the grass to pull the weeds and tend to the Forget-Me-Nots I’d planted there.
I watched as he drew the map in his head. A crease formed between his heavy black eye brows. It took a minute, but he had it.
“That’s the Oak Knoll Cemetery.”
“Precisely.”
“Why that address?”
“Look, Mr. Malone, agent whomever, hear me clearly. I won’t say it again, because if this is a joke it’s in poor taste.” I’d begun to tremble and Jacob’s hand tightened as I wrapped my arms across my stomach. “Twenty-two months ago he moved into that cemetery and is saving me a spot next to him. My husband, Mr. Malone, is a permanent resident at Oak Knoll. Six feet under.”
I hadn’t cried in months–okay days–but I felt the tears burning at the back of my throat.
“He’s deceased?”
“My, they must hire only the quickest wits at the department of…”
“Security Division at the Lab,” Jacob supplied.
Niall Malone flushed, from anger or embarrassment, I couldn’t tell. “That’s just not possible. Your husband is not dead.”
“I don’t know who is pulling your leg, but if you’re trying to pull mine, I don’t find it funny and I don’t appreciate it. But I do assure you, Mr. Malone, my husband is very much deceased. I held his hand as he died, and I held it for a solid hour afterward. Unless vampires really do walk this earth, there is no way he’s risen from the dead. Only one man was good enough to pull that off, and while Ryan was a good man, he wasn’t that good.”
Malone reached into the breast pocket of his coat and extracted a photo, which he held out to me. “Then explain how a security camera picked him up on the premises of the lab two weeks ago.”
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