A Widow's Guilty Secret. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ looked up at him, appearing somewhat dazed.

      “Welcome back,” he said, then placed his hands on her shoulders in gentle restraint as Suzy tried to sit up. “I’d hold off on that for a couple of minutes or so if I were you,” he counseled, then added with a marginally amused smile, “Remember what happened the last time you ignored my advice.”

      Suzy sighed and remained where she was, even though it made her tense to lie down in a stranger’s presence. For a second, she closed her eyes again, trying to regain her bearings.

      “This isn’t some cruel joke, is it?”

      He heard the hopeful note in her voice and caught himself feeling sorry for her. The next moment, he banked down that emotion. He knew from experience that that was only asking for trouble.

      “I’m afraid not.”

      She opened her eyes to look up at the man who had unwittingly thrown her world into such turmoil. “Peter’s really dead?”

      “He’s really dead,” Nick confirmed. “His body was found in a shallow grave by a group of geology grad students.” After that, all hell had broken loose. It was going to be hard keeping a lid on the investigation, what with the news media already poking around.

      Suzy was having trouble thinking, trouble processing this. She’d been so focused on telling Peter she wanted a divorce that this had completely thrown her for a loop.

      And unleashed a great deal of guilt.

      “How did he die? Was it a car accident?” she asked hoarsely.

      “No.” His voice was emotionless, giving nothing away. “The sheriff appeared to have been choked to death.”

      Her eyes widened in astonishment. “Someone killed him?”

      Nick nodded, thinking that, all things considered, she was handling this rather well. “It certainly looks that way.”

      “Who?” she whispered, hardly able to force the word out.

      “That’s what we’re currently trying to find out,” Nick told her honestly.

      Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other detective approaching. Contrary to instructions, Juarez had brought back a dripping towel. He held it out to Nick like a peace offering.

      Nick made no attempt to take it from him. “Mrs. Burris is conscious again, Juarez. We won’t be needing that now.” Then, because the detective appeared to be at loose ends as to what to do with the now unnecessary towel, Nick ordered, “Take the towel back to the kitchen, Juarez.”

      Happy to be given instructions to follow, the younger man quickly retraced his steps and eagerly did as he was told.

      “You’re very patient with him,” Suzy observed.

      It struck her as odd, even as she said the words, that she would notice something so insignificant, given what she’d just been told. Was she going crazy? Or was she just being insensitive to Peter’s fate? Neither answer seemed like the right one.

      Nick shrugged off the comment and the implied compliment behind it. “He reminds me of my kid brother,” he told her. He hadn’t realized that until just now, he thought, but now that he’d said it out loud, he realized that Juarez and Eddie had the same lost puppy appeal, the same eagerness to please.

      It took him a second to realize that the sheriff’s widow was asking him something.

      “Excuse me?”

      “I said, can I sit up now?” she repeated. She didn’t feel up to being restrained again. She wasn’t even certain just how she’d react to that.

      Right now, all sorts of emotions collided within her as disbelief, anger, guilt and a sliver of relief all vied for practically the same space.

      The last reaction made her ashamed. Peter had been, after all, her husband and the father of her child, relief over his death, even the barest hint of it, shouldn’t be entering into the equation, she upbraided herself.

      Even worse was what was missing.

      What she realized was conspicuously missing was grief. Where is the grief? she silently demanded. Shouldn’t she be feeling that predominately instead of all these other emotions that were racing through her?

      What was wrong with her?

      “Slowly,” the detective was saying to her.

      She blinked, confused. Had she missed something? “What?”

      “You can sit up,” Nick repeated. “But do it slowly,” he cautioned. “You really don’t want to get dizzy and pass out again.”

      She didn’t like the frailty his warning implied. It wasn’t as if she was made out of spun glass. If she had been, she would have shattered long before now.

      “That was the first time I ever passed out,” Suzy informed him with a touch of annoyance in her voice.

      “First time you had a husband who was murdered, I suspect,” Nick speculated.

      Suzy flushed. She could feel the color rising to her cheeks, making them hot.

      “Yes,” she answered hoarsely, waiting to see where he was going with this.

      “Drastic news brings out drastic results,” he told her matter-of-factly. “Want some water?” Without waiting for an answer, he glanced at Juarez. His partner was just coming back into the room. “Juarez, get Mrs. Burris a glass of water.”

      Without a word, the other detective turned on his heel and went back to the kitchen.

      “Makes him feel useful,” Nick said in response to the protest he saw hovering on the widow’s perfectly formed lips.

      “You always anticipate everything?” she couldn’t help asking.

      He flashed her another amused smile. Amid the vulnerability, he detected a feisty streak. He found it rather appealing.

      “Saves time,” he told her. “But no, I don’t always anticipate everything, just the obvious things.”

      “Like my fainting,” she assumed.

      “Being told that a spouse was murdered usually comes as a shock to the person doing the listening,” he said, never taking his eyes off hers.

      Suzy heard the detective’s emphasis on the telltale word: usually. Did that mean he thought that she was innocent, or did he actually think she had something to do with Peter’s murder? If the latter, she knew she should be outraged at the very idea, but she still felt too drained, too devastated by the news, to summon that sort of a response.

      “It did,” she told him as firmly as she could, the look in her eyes challenging him to say something different.

      Juarez had returned with a tall glass filled to the very brim with water. Nick put his hand out for it, then offered it to the widow.

      Suzy СКАЧАТЬ