Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,43

house this morning,” I said to Deacon.

“It was,” he agreed.

“You wouldn’t have anything to do with that?” I only came to that conclusion because unless Saint walked to town to get my car, and then walked back to his place, this was a two-person job. And although Saint looked like a man capable of that much physical exercise, he didn’t seem like a man that would waste that much time on me.

“Might’ve,” Deacon hedged.

I raised my brow. “So, you were skulking around my place in the darkness?”

Something moved in his eyes. Something different than what I was teasing out of him. “Somethin’ like that,” he muttered.

Interesting.

“Did you know her?” I asked.

By the way his face changed, he knew exactly who I was talking about.

He became suddenly distracted, less comfortable with himself. His skin. He started polishing clean glasses. “Of course. I grew up here. So did Emily.”

He had forced his voice to be casual. Sad, but not emotional. Blasé, almost.

“Were you friends?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

I shrugged. “I live in her house. I’m curious about her. She seems to have a reputation around here. A good one. I don’t trust that. No one can be all good.”

Deacon smiled tightly, with hostility. “No, no one can be all good. Emily was pretty fucking close. She loved her parents. Respected them. But still snuck out. Was popular at school, but didn’t bully anyone. Smart, but not a genius. Pretty in a way you knew she’d grow into it. She liked to gossip, but not in a cruel way, just liked to share things about people. Good things, not their secrets. Good listener. Maybe talked too much, but only because she was excited about life.”

“You loved her,” I said, realizing it immediately.

He jerked as if I’d struck him and his face turned red. He was angry with the question. With me for asking it. Or maybe with himself not being able to hide the answer.

“Where you together?” No way was I pausing now, not this close to the edge. I wanted to push him over. Learn more about this ghost in my house and everyone connected to her.

Plus, my neck was itching.

“No,” he said. The single word was violent. Full. Of regrets. Of loss. Of rejection.

She hadn’t wanted him. For whatever reason. I didn’t think she would be a woman to get hung up on the fact he served addicts daily. And he was her type. He was everyone’s type. So, either she was a lesbian, or there had been someone else.

I was tempted to ask both of those questions, but I was mindful of pushing the bartender so far he refused to serve me.

“You don’t like me asking about her,” I observed.

His face darkened, morphing into something much uglier. I liked it a lot more than his friendly bartender mask. “No, Magnolia, I do not like you talking about the dead love of my life who was fucking another man before she died.”

There was anger there. Bitterness. Much beyond normal. Then again, was there a normal kind of bitterness about this subject?

There wasn’t a normal about anything, of course.

But there was something that made me uneasy. The slipping of the mask showed me something, scared me just a little. There was violence inside of Deacon so cleverly veiled that even I didn’t see it.

And I was pretty darn good at seeing that stuff.

He stalked off before I could ask more. Because I was definitely going to ask more. Like, who was she fucking before she died?

That was a pretty important question, considering sex and murder went together like red wine and a bloody steak.

Deacon had not returned from wherever he stalked off to. Not in the time it took me to take my drink and pour another.

I’d thrown some bills on the bar, nodded to the other patrons who didn’t acknowledge my existence—just the way I liked it—and went home.

Combed through every corner of the house, looking for something. Maybe photos her family had forgotten. A diary. Something.

But although all furnishings had been left, nothing personal.

So, I resorted to something I’d been so sure I wasn’t going to do. I searched her on the internet. Something I might’ve done before now, something I should’ve done. But I didn’t want to ruin it. The image I had of her. From her books. Her house. The crime scene photos. They’d been so grisly I hadn’t been able to tell much apart from that she was so blonde her blood stained almost her entire