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Keith caught a hint of sarcasm in her response—as if he was being too high-handed—but he ignored it. He wouldn’t let anyone stand in the way of the answers he sought. Including her. “I’d also be grateful if you’d call over to the morgue and make arrangements for us to see her today.”
Underwood’s mouth tightened, suggesting this put her off even more. “The morgue isn’t designed for public viewings. You’ll be able to see her after they release her body. Once she’s at a funeral home, you can go ahead and have a viewing or bury her or whatever you’d like.”
“That’ll be after the autopsy, which will take another day or two. Maybe more. Chances are she’ll no longer resemble the woman I remember, and you know it.”
“That’s not necessarily true. People have open caskets after autopsies all the time—”
“I haven’t seen her in five years, Chief Underwood. Could you show me a little compassion and make it possible to spend ten minutes with my dead mother today?”
“I’d like to see her, too,” Maisey piped up. “I don’t think any of this will feel real until I do.”
Chief Underwood closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if she was digging deep for patience. Keith could tell she thought she was already bending over backward by agreeing to give him a copy of the file. Ultimately, however, she gave in. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said with a sigh. “I shouldn’t. Just keep in mind that they’re busy over there and probably won’t welcome you. This will force someone to take time out of his or her schedule, so I’d appreciate it if you’d be as brief as possible.”
“You have my word,” Keith said and waited while she made the call.
“You can head there now if you like,” Underwood told him when she hung up and wrote down the address. “The supervising technician, a man by the name of Dean Gillespie, will meet you when you arrive and take you back.”
“Thank you.” Keith shook her hand before leading Maisey out into the cool, damp weather of another rainy day.
“The morgue?” Maisey said as they climbed into his rental car. The keys of his mother’s Mercedes were where she’d always kept them, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to drive her car quite yet. “We’re going to the morgue?”
“Would you rather not?” he asked.
She seemed a little shell-shocked. “I’d like to see Mom, as I said. I’m just not sure what else you’re hoping to accomplish.”
“I want to see the condition of her body.”
“You’re afraid there might be injuries they’re not telling us about?”
“I’d rather not take someone else’s word for it. Doesn’t hurt to stay involved, right?” He started the car but didn’t shift into Drive. “So...are you in? Or should I drop you off at home?”
Although she frowned, she didn’t take long to decide. “I’m in. But then what?”
“Then we choose a pathologist we feel we can trust from the list they gave you. Whoever it is will probably need to have her transferred to the hospital where he or she works.”
“And after that?”
“I’d like to talk to Hugh.”
She buckled her seat belt. “Why? So you can ask him if Mom knew he was married? You’ll have no way of knowing whether he’s telling the truth.”
“I can ask him that and other things. Compare what he tells me with what he told the police. Look for inconsistencies. I can also research his background, find out what’s going on in his life and what he might’ve been after by dating Mom in the first place. That might be more useful.”
Maisey rolled her eyes. “Why? Isn’t it obvious? Men adored Mom. I’ve never seen a woman attract so much attention—except maybe Marilyn Monroe.”
That the starlet had also died naked with an empty bottle of pills nearby made the comparison a bit chilling. Was that where their mother’s killer had gotten the idea? “So why wasn’t he willing to leave his wife for her?”
“Maybe he loves his wife. Or he wasn’t willing to break up his family. Chief Underwood mentioned two sons and a youngish daughter.”
“His wife has to be easier to live with than Mom would’ve been.”
“He wouldn’t have realized that yet. No one can resist Mom when she’s pouring on the charm.”
“Still, I can’t buy that she’d ever take her own life.”
“Even after what we just heard?”
“Did it change your mind?” he asked.
She looked dejected as she stared at the wet, shiny pavement ahead of them. “Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“No,” she said.
“There you go.”
He’d finally shifted and pulled away from the curb when he saw a woman carrying a fluffy Chow Chow—a dog too big for that sort of thing—down the sidewalk ahead of them. “That’s Nancy, isn’t it? And her dog, Simba?”
Maisey took so long to answer he thought she was going to ignore the question.
“Isn’t it?” he prompted, throwing her a sharp glance.
She squinted through the windshield as if she wasn’t quite sure. “Maybe,” she said.
He knew it was Nancy. He’d recognize her anywhere.
Pulling alongside her, he lowered the passenger window. “Hey, climb in,” he called out. “We’ll give you a ride.”
She started at the sound of his voice. She’d obviously been so intent on not dropping her heavy bundle that she hadn’t been paying attention to what was going on around her. She was probably also a little surprised to see him. The only interaction they’d had in the five years he’d been gone was a handful of calls, all instigated by him and all of which she’d ignored, and the car he’d tried to give her a few years ago, which she’d forced the driver to return.
“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s not much farther.”
If she was still in the same house, and he guessed she was, she lived just down the street in a small cottage she’d inherited from her late aunt. She was right—it wasn’t far. But she was already struggling to hang on to her dog. “Simba’s got to be getting heavy,” he said. “And he doesn’t look comfortable. Let us give you a ride,” he said again.
“We’re wet,” she responded.
“Avis will clean the car when I return it,” he told her.
“Come on!” Maisey chimed in and, rather than say no to both of them, Nancy slowed to a stop.
7 (#u8ed10f00-acea-5fdf-aa03-d128a18c557a)
NANCY COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. Maisey had stopped by just this morning to warn her that she might run into Keith and here he was—at the worst possible moment. Her hair was plastered to her head. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. She had on a jogging outfit that probably showed every extra pound. And she was breathing heavily from exertion.
She told herself not to even think like that. She didn’t care if he admired her. She’d been crazy to believe he could ever give her what she needed. Maybe she wasn’t a svelte 120 pounds, like his mother, but she was done hanging on to his every word and feeling grateful for any scrap of attention. She was done starving herself in order to be something she wasn’t. She’d find the right companion eventually—or she’d continue to build a fulfilling life alone.
“What happened?” Maisey asked as Nancy situated her dog beside her. “Why were you carrying Simba?”
She held Simba back so he couldn’t stick his muzzle between the front seats. “He stepped on a piece of glass while we were on our walk, so I took him to the vet.” And here she’d thought she’d been fortunate that the incident had occurred only two doors down from the animal clinic. If she’d taken him home and looked after him herself, she wouldn’t have been on the side of the road at that particular moment, and then she might’ve been able to put off encountering Keith until the funeral. She told herself she didn’t care what he thought of her looking so bad, but being around him wasn’t exactly comfortable...
“Poor baby. Will he be okay?”
This came from Maisey again. Keith hadn’t said anything since she’d climbed in, but she could see his stunning blue-green eyes in the rearview mirror as he eased into traffic. She still dreamed about those eyes...
Only because she hadn’t found the guy she was going to fall in love with, she quickly told herself. She was working on that; it was just a matter of time. At least ten new prospects from her online dating site had left her a message over the weekend. And more were coming in every day... “Should be. He cut his front paw, but the vet cleaned and dressed the wound.”
Maisey held her seat belt away from her body so she could turn around and pet him. “You were trying not to set him down until you got home?”
“I didn’t see any reason to let his bandage get dirty.”
“He’s too big to carry,” Maisey said with a chuckle.
Nancy refused to let her gaze shift back to that rearview mirror and what it revealed of Keith. She could smell his cologne, which was bad enough. “I do it all the time—pick him up and carry him over to the couch so he’ll sit with me, or to the tub out back for his bath. He’d never voluntarily get in the tub. But I’ve never tried to haul him several blocks. The distance makes a difference.”
“I’ll bet,” she agreed. “I’m glad we saw you.”
“So am I,” Nancy lied and turned her face toward the window so Keith wouldn’t be able to get a good look at her even if he tried.
“How’s business at the flower shop?” he asked.
She cleared her throat. “Better than ever.”
“Who’s working today?”
“Marlene Fillmore, a new girl. You wouldn’t know her. She moved to the island about a year ago. From Charleston.”
“Did you train her?”
“Didn’t need to—not really. She worked out of her house doing flowers for weddings, so she’s had plenty of experience.”
“That’s good.”
Why would he care? He’d left all of this behind...
“I’m sorry about your mother,” she said to finally get that out of the way. “I...” She wasn’t sure what else to add. She knew how he’d felt about Josephine. She also knew that some of his problems revolved around the fact that he couldn’t completely hate her, couldn’t completely turn away from the woman who’d raised him.
Or had he come to terms with cutting her off? Maybe that was why he was doing so well. “I was shocked and saddened,” she finished.
“Thank you.”
His response was polite, nothing that offered any clue as to how deeply he was hurting. But they’d arrived at her house. There was no need to make more conversation.
As soon as he came to a full stop, she reached for her dog, but he spoke before she could take Simba in her arms.
“Did my mom ever say anything to you that sounded like she might be contemplating suicide?”
“No. I got no indication whatsoever.”
“Would you say she was acting the same?”
Mrs. Lazarow had been as irritable and caustic as ever. But Nancy couldn’t say that. Keith and Maisey had to be mourning, no matter how they’d felt about their mother. “I got the impression she was in good spirits. So I’m as stunned as everyone else.”
Simba’s collar jingled as she lifted him into her lap.
“Nancy?”
Keith again. She waited while he turned to look directly at her.
So much for avoiding his gaze...
“Have you ever met Hugh Pointer?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Who?”
“Hugh Pointer. My mother was dating him. Did she ever bring him into the flower shop? Mention him to you?”
“She told me she was going to Australia to see someone she was dating. Maybe that was Hugh. She asked me to complete the work schedule at the shop for the next few weeks so she could leave feeling confident that I’d be able to get by without her—having someone to take over on my days off and so on. That’s it.”
She got the feeling that he would’ve liked to ask her more, but she didn’t give him the chance. She climbed out as gracefully as she could while cradling a sixty-five-pound dog.
“Thanks for the ride,” she called and managed to close the door with her hip.
Unfortunately, he got out, too—and hurried around the car. “Here, I’ll take Simba,” he said. “You go unlock the door.”
She wished Simba would growl or refuse to be touched, but he was the friendliest Chow on the planet. Even if he hadn’t remembered Keith, he wouldn’t have balked. He lowered his ears and wagged his tail in greeting while Keith took him from her.
Traitor. Cursing herself for ever going out of the house this morning, Nancy hurried up the walkway ahead of them—and nearly dropped her keys, she was in such a hurry to open the door.
Several seconds later, she managed to get the key in the lock. “Go ahead and set him inside,” she said as she swung the door wide.
As soon as Keith put Simba down, Simba limped off to curl up in his bed by the couch.
“Thanks again.” She thought that was it, that she’d soon be able to breathe a sigh of relief and congratulate herself on not melting at the sight of her former lover. However, Keith put a hand on the door.
“I can tell you’re not interested in hearing this, but...I’m sorry,” he said. “I never meant to hurt you. I was...I was a wrecking ball back then. I destroyed everything and everyone I came into contact with.”
He’d been trying to destroy himself more than anything, to escape the pain he was in. She understood. But it didn’t make things any easier that she’d wanted so much more from him than he’d ever wanted from her.
She pushed the wet hair out of her face. “You have nothing to worry about,” she said. “That was years ago. I don’t think about it anymore.”
“Really? Because I still owe you money.”
He withdrew his wallet, but she stopped him before he could open it. Maisey had already reimbursed her for what Keith had borrowed. Keith’s sister had made her take the money and asked her not to tell Keith she’d stepped in. They both knew he wouldn’t appreciate her getting involved in his business, especially since her actions revealed doubt that he’d ever take care of the debt himself.
The old Keith wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have been able to...
“Don’t worry about that, either,” she said. “I helped out a friend. No big deal.”
