Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,67

to do a series of articles about people living on the streets. He wanted one to be about her as a street musician.”

Brianna jotted that information down. “Did she tell you his name?”

Flora shook her head. “No. But Mia was excited because the man promised to pay her half the royalties if he sold the article.”

Brianna doubted that would happen. She had a friend from college who wrote freelance while working on a fiction novel. She said she had to write tons of articles just to make ends meet. “Did he say what magazine he worked for?”

“No. Just that he’d been real nice,” Flora paused. “She got that look in her eye, you know the kind young girls do when they have a crush on someone?”

Brianna turned up the corner of her lips and nodded.

“Well, she had that look, so I think not only was he nice to her, he must’ve been handsome. Anyways, I put some money in her violin case and asked her to come join us at our tailgate, but she said she had to work the crowd before they spent their money inside.” Flora shook her head. “I sent Phil back with a bag of food from the tailgaters. He said she put it in that big shoulder bag she always carried, thanked him, then asked what song he’d like her to play. Said the only one he could remember was Für Elise. He said how she played it was so hauntingly beautiful, a crowd formed” Again, she dabbed away the threatening tears. “She could do that, you know. Take a song and make it so beautiful it’d take your breath away.”

19

Memories of Mia, her music and how her last days were spent haunted Brianna as she climbed into Aaron’s SUV two hours later that day.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

Unable to talk right now, she just shook her head and stared out the window into the gunmetal grey, overcast Cleveland sky. The rainy drizzle that started just after she’d gotten to the shelter fit her mood.

Thankfully, Aaron didn’t ask another question, just turned the heat on and pulled away from the curb. She could’ve driven herself to the shelter, but he’d insisted, saying he’d feel better if she was always with someone until they found this monster. He hadn’t called him a monster. He’d called him a perpetrator. The truth was this killer was a monster. She couldn’t see him in any other way.

Mia had been a beautiful, talented young woman. Yes, she’d had her demons. Didn’t everyone?

“What gives this monster the right to take other people’s lives? What sick game is he playing that makes him feel he can just end someone’s life for his own purpose?” she asked between clenched teeth, her anger shooting out the window like a laser beam meant to destroy the surrounding buildings as they passed them.

A warm hand landed on her left one. She squeezed the fingers curled into her palm tight.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. Telling your friend about Mia. No matter how many times I’ve had to be that person telling a victim’s loved one, it’s never easy, but it had to be harder when you know them both.”

“Dammit,” she said, suddenly realizing she was going to have to tell Paula, too.

“I can be the one to tell Paula, if you want,” he said, reading her mind.

She shook her head. “No, it will be better coming from me. It’s just this will be the second time I have to tell her someone she knows has been murdered. People go through their whole lives and never hear that. Now she’s going to hear it twice in a week.”

“You don’t need to tell her the minute we get there,” he said, still holding her hand. “I asked Kirk F to pick up some pizzas and meet us at the safehouse. Figure everyone is hungry, and it’ll be more comfortable for us to talk with Paula in a casual setting.”

Gratitude for this man’s common sense, practical thinking and compassion hit Brianna hard. She bit her lower lip to keep from giving into tears. She’d never been a big crier, not even after weeks of hospitalization and the number of surgeries she’d needed to repair her face and arm. When things were tough, she’d been tough. If she gave into Aaron’s kindness now, would she be able to get through this?

He released her hand as he pulled into the drive of the safehouse and around back to the