TO DIE FOR (Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Book 8) - Willow Rose Page 0,9
bastard, but people change, Eva Rae. Yes, of course, I asked. She didn’t want to tell me. She had moved far away from them because she didn’t want to see them. She came down here from Ohio and wanted to start over.”
“Was she generally very secretive about her past? Like did she have friends from before she moved down here? Did anyone visit with you?”
He shook his head. “None. She never spoke of anyone from her past.”
I paused, then thought of my baby upstairs. “I don’t know, Scott…”
His eyes were begging. He put a hand on top of mine, and I froze. His touch brought me back to years ago. My heart was pounding at the memory.
Careful, Eva Rae.
“Please. Eva Rae. I have nowhere else to turn.”
I exhaled. “I just had a baby, Scott. Things are kind of tight and messy around here right now. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. For all I know, Sarah just left you, and maybe she went back to some guy she hadn’t told you about. Besides, if the police can’t prove you hurt her, then they can’t charge you with anything. I suggest you get a good lawyer instead. I can help you with that.”
“I don’t think that is what happened,” Scott said. “She didn’t just leave. Or I wouldn’t be here.”
I rubbed my eyes. Exhaustion was beginning to set in. This was so not what I needed right now.
“I’m sorry, Scott… I can’t…”
He grabbed my arm and forced me to look at him. The deep desperation in his eyes got to me.
“I’m telling you—something happened to her. I know it did.”
“And how do you know?”
He sighed. “Because she told me two months ago that if she ever went missing, I should look for her.”
Chapter 9
THEN:
“How have you been? You seem a little…quiet today?”
Lynn sent Jeffrey a compassionate smile. He looked great, as usual, impeccably dressed in his pinstriped suit and white shirt underneath. His expensive watch dangled from his wrist, but there was something different about him—a sadness she hadn’t seen in him before. He had arrived a few minutes late for their appointment and had barely looked at her.
“Is something wrong?” she added after a few seconds of silence.
She couldn’t help smiling when she looked at him. She couldn’t tell him, but she had been looking forward to their session all weekend. She had thought about him a lot, maybe even more than she should have. She couldn’t help it. There was something about him that made her care for him. She had wondered if it was a maternal instinct that had awoken in her. Did she care for him the way a mother would a child?
“Jeffrey?”
He looked up. Were those tears in his eyes?
“It’s just… well, I miss her so much.”
Lynn exhaled. “You mean Joanna?”
He nodded. “She was the one for me, you know?”
“Okay. Let’s talk about that.”
Lynn straightened in her chair.
“I don’t know,” he said. “What’s there to talk about?”
“I have a feeling there’s more than you think. Have you seen her recently?”
“I see her…from time to time.”
Lynn looked at him from above her reading glasses. “You see her? Where?”
He shrugged and looked away. His eyes hit the bookshelves to his right. There was something he wasn’t telling her.
“Just…around.”
Lynn tilted her head slightly. “Okay, just so I understand better, you see her around, you say, but could you tell me where you see her? At the supermarket?”
“Among other places…yes.”
“At her house?”
“Maybe.”
Lynn swallowed, then took off her glasses and looked at him. “Have you been following her?”
His eyes hit the floor. He shrugged. “Maybe…a little.”
She sighed and closed her eyes briefly. She wasn’t supposed to pass judgment, so she’d have to be careful how she said the next thing.
“Does that sound like a good idea?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. It’s not something I plan to do. It just happens. I drive past her house and see her come out the door, and then I follow her. I just feel…it’s hard to live without her. You must know this. You know with your sister and all.”
Lynn swallowed again, then wrinkled her forehead.
“My sister?”
“Yes, how she fell in love with a guy and then killed herself because he dumped her.”
Lynn’s heart stopped. “That’s not exactly what happened, but that’s not important. How do you know this?”
He lifted his gaze, and his eyes met hers. “From Facebook. You wrote a post about it on the fifth anniversary of it happening. It was really sad to read.”