me, fully clothed and in his bed, covers and all. Though I did remove our shoes. Ryan had come in twice. Once to bring Jonah a full glass of whiskey, setting it on the nightstand. He hadn’t touched it. He popped in again to see if I wanted him to order food. I told him pizza because everyone loves pizza. It was one of those foods that’s practically impossible to hate, unless you were one of those people that freaked out if there was pineapple on your pizza. I’ve found that particular ingredient has caused some serious wars between friends, and on social media. Me, I didn’t care one way or the other. My mom liked broccoli on pizza. That item I could argue was far stranger than pineapple, but what did I know. I liked most things, even broccoli and, yes, pineapple, on my pizza.
I ran my fingers through his hair over and over in the same pattern, hoping to soothe and comfort him.
“He’s not going to get to me,” I murmured at the crown of his head.
Jonah was tucked to my side, my right hand in his hair, the other across his chest. He was tracing the lines of my fingers one at a time then up my forearm and back down again.
“I’m off the case.” He let out a long breath, his body shuddering with the exhalation.
“Probably for the best. You need to grieve.”
“This is personal now. And it gets worse. What he etched across her chest.” He shook his head and sat up abruptly, reached for the whiskey, and downed at least half in one drink. He wiped the wet from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Tell me,” I urged.
He shook his head. “It’s bad, baby. You don’t need that in your head.”
I reached for his hand and squeezed. “You don’t either, but my guy is beyond hurting. I need to know everything in order to help you get through it. We need to get past this together.”
He gritted his teeth and scowled so fiercely I almost didn’t recognize him. “He’s either following us and saw the fight we had outside my parents’ house last night, or he looked me up and found out about my ex-wife and our divorce through the county recorder’s office. Hell, an online search these days can bring up half the details of someone’s life.” He sucked back more whiskey.
“Okay, so what else is there that you aren’t telling me? Did he, um, did he violate her?” My words were spoken so low I could barely process them myself.
“Not as far as we can tell even though her body was naked. We’ll have to see what the autopsy reveals. It was obvious she was strangled.” His head fell forward, his chin to his chest, shoulders drooping. He looked exhausted, as though the last ten years of his life had been lived in a single day.
“What was the message?”
His voice shook when he said, “You’re Welcome.”
I gasped and covered my shock with my hand over my mouth. “No. Jonah do not take this on. You did not ask for this. Just like I did not ask for Katrina to be killed in my apartment or any of those other women.”
“It was a gift.” He said it as though the words seared his very soul. “To me. Killing my bitch of an ex-wife and displaying her in my new girlfriend’s car like a fucking trophy.”
I was so never touching that car again.
I placed both of my hands on his shoulders. “Look at me, Jonah.”
He ignored me.
“Look at me, honey. Please.”
Either the please or the honey got him to look up.
“You had nothing to do with his decision to kill Helen. Did you want her dead?”
His entire face turned an angry red. “Fuck no! I wanted her to hurt like I did when she obliterated our marriage by sleeping with my fucking brother, but I didn’t want her dead.” He stood up, swung his arm back, and threw the whiskey glass against the brick wall opposite his bed. It smashed on impact, glass shards going all over the wood floor, golden-colored liquid dripping down the wall.
“Fuck!” He roared, his hands going into his hair and tugging on the roots. “He killed Helen! He wrapped his hands around her neck and snuffed the life right out of her. The first woman I ever loved. A woman I planned on raising children with, growing old with. And now he wants to do the same