Scene Of The Crime: Who Killed Shelly Sinclair?. Carla Cassidy

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СКАЧАТЬ did you use the name Lily?” he asked.

      “My mother called me Lily from the time I was a little girl. Mom’s name is Rose and she always told my father he had two beautiful flowers in the family. But it didn’t take me long working in law enforcement to realize that people took me far more seriously as Olivia, which is my legal name. So I stopped being Lily and became Olivia and I named my daughter Lily.”

      “I have to admit I thought about you over the years. I wondered what had happened to you, if your career had taken off and if you’d found love.”

      Her eyes radiated surprise that was quickly masked. “It was only a month after that conference that I married and then got pregnant immediately. Phil was a great husband and father.”

      “Tell me more about him.” Daniel said, wanting to know what kind of a man had captured her heart.

      She leaned back in her chair and her features softened. An irrational stab of jealousy raced through Daniel. “Phil owned a small but successful restaurant. He had a huge heart and he loved me beyond reason. Even after my daughter, Lily, was born, he encouraged me to pursue my career. Along with my mother’s help, we made a good team, me working law enforcement and him running his restaurant, and then he had a heart attack and died.”

      “Are you hoping to marry again?”

      “I’m open to the possibility. I had a great husband and I know how good marriage can be, but if it doesn’t happen I’m good alone with my mother helping me raise Lily and my career that consumes me.”

      “How old is your daughter?”

      “She just turned four.”

      “I’m still attracted to you.” The words fell from his mouth before his brain had fully formed them.

      She cast her gaze away from him and out the nearby window where darkness had fallen. “I’m only here temporarily and I’m your boss. Any kind of a personal relationship between us would be completely out of line.”

      She looked at her wristwatch and then grabbed her purse. “Speaking of my mother and my daughter, I need to get home.” She stood and looked toward the garage door. Daniel had a feeling she was escaping from the conversation rather than simply deciding it was time to go home.

      Daniel got up to walk her to the door. “If it’s any comfort, nobody knows about that night. I never mentioned it to anyone and have no intention of ever talking about it.” He opened the door and punched the button inside to raise the garage door on the side where she had parked.

      “I appreciate that. I’m here to do my job, Daniel, and nothing more.” She stepped down the stairs to the garage floor and hurried to her car.

      When she’d driven out and away, Daniel closed the door and returned to his chair at the table to finish his coffee. At least they’d talked about it, he thought.

      However, she’d said nothing to tamp down a simmering desire that had grown inside him from the moment he’d seen her again.

      More importantly, she’d told him all the reasons why they couldn’t and shouldn’t get involved again, but she hadn’t said the one thing that would have shut him down permanently.

      She hadn’t said she wasn’t attracted to him and in the omission of those words, he held on to just a little bit of hope that he would have her in his bed once again.

      * * *

      OLIVIA HAD A restless night. Both Lily and her mother had been asleep when she’d finally gotten in. She’d gone into Lily’s room and kissed her sweet, sleeping daughter on the cheek and then had zapped a plate of leftover meat loaf that her mother had made for dinner.

      By ten thirty she was on the futon, but sleep remained elusive as she played and replayed her conversation with Daniel in her head.

      She hadn’t wanted to talk about that night. She hadn’t even wanted to think about it. She had spent far too many nights while married to Phil thinking about that single night of madness with Daniel.

      Phil had been in love with her and she had loved Phil, but she hadn’t been in love with him. He was a good, solid man and she’d been the best wife she could possibly be to him during their marriage. But it had been the one-night stand with Daniel that had haunted her dreams.

      She was awakened the next morning to kisses being rained on her face and the scent of bacon filling the air. “Mommy, you didn’t kiss me good-night last night and so you have to kiss me a zillion times this morning,” Lily said. She was a vision of little-girl innocence in her pink cotton nightgown and with her dark hair sleep tousled around her head.

      “I think I can manage that,” Olivia replied. She grabbed Lily and pulled her onto the futon with her and then proceeded to deliver kisses all over her daughter’s face and neck.

      Lily’s giggles rang out, sweet music to Olivia’s ears.

      “Okay you two...breakfast in fifteen minutes,” Rose said. “Lily, you can help me set the table while your mother gets ready for work.”

      Olivia took a fast shower, dressed in a pair of tailored black slacks and a white blouse and then joined her mother and daughter at the table for bacon and pancakes.

      Breakfast was always a joy when the three of them shared it together. Rose had been a loving, nurturing mother to Olivia and once Lily was born, she’d become beloved Nanny and had watched Lily whenever Olivia and Phil were at work.

      Rose was a wonderful mix of common sense and naïveté. She had a good sense of humor and a fierce love of her little family. She believed the world was a good and happy place, and Olivia never brought the evil she worked with home to share with her mother.

      Many times over the years Olivia had downplayed the danger she’d faced at work in an effort to protect her mother from worry.

      “As usual, a great breakfast, Mom,” Olivia said.

      “It’s always good if it’s got syrup,” Lily quipped and used her tongue to capture an errant dollop of the sweet goo that had escaped onto her lower lip.

      “Are you going to be late tonight?” Rose asked.

      “You’d better be here to kiss me good-night,” Lily exclaimed.

      “I kissed you while you were sleeping last night. Besides, you know how it works. If I’m not here to kiss you good-night, then Nanny gives you double kisses,” Olivia replied.

      “And I think I gave her triple kisses last night,” Rose exclaimed.

      Minutes later Olivia left the house and headed for the station. She hoped the issue of her and Daniel’s previous encounter had been laid to rest, for she was depending on him to accompany her as she interviewed some of the key players in the two-year-old murder case of Shelly Sinclair.

      So he’d thought about her over the years. His words had surprised her. She’d always figured she’d been nothing more than a slight blip on his radar. A sexy guy like him had to have had plenty of hookups before and after that night they’d shared.

      Of course it didn’t matter if he’d thought about her or her about him. It didn’t matter if he was СКАЧАТЬ