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I come from a long line of law enforcers. My great-grandpa was in the Army Police Corps, my grandpa was a police chief, and my dad served on the local force for over thirty years. It’s embedded into my very nature to both enforce and follow rules.
Which is why what I say next makes no dang sense.
“Pull the car into my garage, Nora,” my voice is wary but firm, “then come in the house. I’ll get you some clothes to change into, then you can tell me the full story, after which, we’ll see what we can do to fix this.” I push off her car and stride toward my garage to open it, reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose against the headache forming there.
It probably goes without saying, but in all of the reunion scenarios I’d imagined with Nora over the years, none of them involved covering up a murder.
Chapter 3
Nora
AFTER I SHOWER and change, Jack makes me tea as I sit at his kitchen table, still so familiar to me after all of these years. He’s a creature of habit, meaning not much has changed in his house since the last time I was here. It also means he doesn’t ask me what I’d like to drink but simply assumes that since three-years-ago me would’ve liked a cup of chamomile tea this late at night, present-day me would like that as well.
It should be sweet that he remembers my preferences, but I’m too flustered by our interaction in the driveway to register the sweetness of the gesture. Instead I hear myself ask, “Do you have coffee?”
Do you have coffee?! What is wrong with me? I don’t drink coffee this late! Plus, the man is doing me a huge favor not abandoning me to deal with Ian’s body all on my own, and yet I have the audacity to ask him to make me coffee when he’s already halfway through tea preparations, two mugs with identical tea bags in them already out on the counter.
“Coffee?” Jack faces me, looking surprised. “You drink coffee now?”
“I do,” I say. “But never mind. Tea is fine.”
Jack gives me a curt nod. Behind me his teapot starts whistling. Silently, he fills our mugs then brings them to the table. Then he retrieves a honey bear, two spoons, and a carton of milk from the fridge and sets those out too.
The tea smells heavenly. Truth be told, the only reason I no longer drink chamomile tea is because it reminds me of nights like this…not the gathering together to cover up a murder thing. That’s a first. No, I mean all of the nights spent with Jack, cozied up in his house, drinking tea together, our feet intertwined.
That was a thing of ours, our feet touching. Wherever we went our feet would find their way to each other. Here at his house on the couch, we’d lift our feet onto the ottoman and layer our ankles one on top of the other. At church we’d sit next to each other and my high-heeled foot would rest atop his wingtip dress shoes. When we rode horses together, he’d urge his horse closer to mine, just so he could brush his foot against mine for the briefest of seconds before we both galloped off.
I shake these memories away. They are neither relevant nor helpful to the current situation we’ve found ourselves in, or rather that I’ve put us in.
Oh my gosh. I’m a murderer.
The truth of that statement hits me like a brick to the head, and a sob rips out of me.
“I’m s-sorry,” I blubber, clutching my stomach like that will help keep the sobs in.
Rather than answering, Jack rises from his chair and disappears from the room. He’s had enough of me. A fresh wave of tears shudders through me, and I place my head in my hands, letting them flow freely.
There’s a sudden weight over my back and the sound of something being set down in front of me. I pull my hands away from my face to see a box of tissues on the table. The weight on my back, I discover, is a blanket. And not just any blanket. It’s one I knit. I gave it to Jack on our first Christmas as a couple.
And he kept it all of these years.
My heart squeezes in my chest. Why did he walk away from me? Why couldn’t he have just kept things as they were between us instead of trying to change everything?
No, I brush this last thought away; it’s selfish of me to even think that. Jack made his intentions and desires clear three years ago.
I was the one who said no.
Although, in the end, he was the one to walk away.
I grab a handful of tissues and stuff them to my face, certain that there’s a sexy combination of snot, mascara, and red blotches on full display there. As if the dead body in his garage isn’t enough to cement this truth, my face is now like a walking billboard that screams: That’s right, Jack. You won our breakup. Woo-hoo. Party hat emoji.
I take a shaky breath, determined to pull myself together. Jack is sitting across from me looking annoyed. His jaw is set, and the hand that rests on the table is clenched so tightly his knuckles are turning white. Clearly he’s regretting his invitation for me to come inside.
“Okay,” I pull the blanket more tightly around myself, then settle my back more firmly against the back of my chair, as if good posture can somehow save me. “What do you want to know?”
He lets out a derisive snort, finally unclenching his hand to splay it flat on the table. “How about who was the guy? Your boyfriend?”
Was it my imagination or did his voice stumble over that word?
