Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
He gave me a sweet smile. “He didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. No one who lives in this home hurt your mother, baby, so there’s no need to be scared. The evil is not in this house. It’s not in your family, so don’t push us away. We’re here for you, and we’re going to discover the truth together. That’s the promise.”
“Then it’s one I’m one hundred percent on board with,” Micah said. It was his turn to hug and kiss me. “Let us take care of you now. You and those sweet lager nipples are in safe hands.”
I rolled my eyes, but he got a little smile out of me anyway. “Thank you, guys. I really needed to hear that.”
“Of course.”
“We mean it.”
“We love you.”
I just smiled, my gaze drifting up. Yes, my lovely, hot borrowed husbands. I really did need to hear that on the night my mother was murdered, Reynard Agassi was not where he was supposed to be.
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning, I caught Reynard coming out of his room. He turned the key in the lock and pocketed it before glancing up and noticing me.
“Oh, Sue. Good morning,” he greeted. “Are you here to see me?”
It was a fair question. The only rooms in this particular hallway of the east wing were Reynard’s room, my mother’s office, and my mother’s bedroom. Since I couldn’t be there to eat breakfast with my mother as had become our little ritual, then I had to be there for him, but—
“No,” I said lightly. “I need to look through Omma’s office. Apparently, three days is long enough for a lawyer to wait before bugging a grieving daughter for the documents he needs to settle my mother’s affairs.”
“I’m sorry.” He squeezed my shoulder. “If you need my help with anything, please let me know. It’s the least I can do as thanks for you and your husbands letting me stay here until my next patient is ready for me.”
“Of course. You were by my mother’s side till the end.” I studied him, and his constant steady smile, through my lashes. “Which is why I think I will take you up on your offer and ask for your help.”
“Absolutely.” He didn’t hesitate. “Whatever you need. It’s yours.”
“Can we talk in her office?”
That was another yes. Reynard trailed behind me, following into the light, airy, never-used room.
My mother had always been a style-over-function person. So while the antique vases on every surface, six-foot-long glass desk, and shelves filled with first-edition classics were all nice to look at, it didn’t make for a space anyone would feel comfortable working. You’d be too afraid to touch, dirty, or break something.
I went straight to the cabinets under the built-in shelves, making a show of rooting around for the papers. “My mother was murdered,” I said without preamble, “and the police arrested the wrong person. I need your help to find the right one, Reynard, because no one spent more time with my mother in her final days than you.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he cried. “They arrested the wrong person? How could you know that?”
“Because I know Courtney, and she’d never kill anyone—let alone my mother.” I pulled out an accordion folder—flipping through, taking papers out, and putting them back without paying attention to a single one.
I learned my lesson with Rhodes. Coming at him head-on would put his back up. I needed him to lower his defenses, then I’d come at him from the side, getting him to tell me what he was doing smoking cigarettes in my garden in the middle of the night when he was supposed to be out with friends he hadn’t seen in months.
“Did she ever say anything to you about someone threatening her?” I asked.
“I would’ve told you if she had. You know I would’ve.”
“Sure, but maybe it wasn’t so direct. Of course you’d tell me if she told you someone threatened to sneak in and stab her. But maybe it was more like, ‘Mrs. Jeong still hasn’t forgiven me for getting drunk and making out with her husband at last year’s Christmas party,’” I said. “Know what I mean? The slightest mention of a grudge or bad blood could point the cops in the right direction.”
He hummed, tipping his gaze to the ceiling. “You’re right. It would’ve had to have been something slipped into conversation like that, because your mother usually kept details about her personal life close to the vest. But even so...” He shook his head. “I’ve been here for six months, but it was in the last two that her pain became so unmanageable, I had to up the doses on several of her meds—leading to confusion, paranoia, and cognitive decline.
“These last few months, she’s been in and out of time,” he confessed. “She did speak of people, friends, and family every now and then, but I could never be sure of what year she was in. I remember once she said, ‘that little slut showed up on my doorstep today, banging and screaming for me to come down. If it happens again, I’ll call the police.’” He shrugged. “Or something like that. But when I asked who she was speaking of, she told me to mind my own business.