not to stare at the way the powerful muscles in his back flexed under his casual black golf shirt as he hefted a large box from the stacks and lowered it to the floor.
They lapsed into silence as he unfolded the flaps of the box and began sorting through the contents. It was so difficult seeing these things of Tina’s that she had used and loved lying forlorn, jumbled together in boxes.
Neither she nor Luisa had been able to bring themselves to sort through the boxes yet to decide what they would keep and what they would give to Goodwill.
She found it disconcerting—heartbreaking, even—to see these bits and pieces of Tina’s life examined by a stranger, no matter that she had brought him into this, no matter how well meaning his motives.
I’m sorry, she mouthed, with a prayer that Tina could hear her.
“So the victim—Tina—was the daughter of your housekeeper?”
Caught up in her thoughts, it took her a moment to register the sudden question. She blinked. “Yes,” she answered carefully. “I was only a few months old when they moved in. My mother died a short time after I was born and Luisa raised me.”
“Luisa, not your father?”
She thought of her father and the wide, unbreachable chasm between them. “He was…” Distant. Cold. “Busy. He had little time for a young child.” Especially one who tried so hard to please her father that when she finally did start to talk, years past the normal time, her words never came out right when he was around.
Beau Riley raised one of those dark eyebrows as if to encourage her to say more, but she stubbornly resisted, choosing to change the subject instead. “Tina and I were only a year apart so we were constantly together. Really, we were more like…like sisters than anything else.”
“How long did she live here?”
He was subtly interrogating her. She knew it and fought a burble of panic at having to answer a long string of questions. But if it would help him get a better idea for Tina’s life, she would try. “After high school we both moved to L.A. We shared an apartment while I attended college and she tried to find work as a model.”
That was where the wildness in Tina had first emerged, while Elizabeth had been desperately trying to pass her classes. She hadn’t noticed the changes at first, too consumed with her own struggles, trying to focus on her school-work with the awful specter of one more failure looming over her shoulder every second.
As the months passed, they had grown further and further apart until they would go days without their paths crossing even though they shared living space. Elizabeth spent every waking moment at the library and Tina had a jampacked social life and worked two jobs while she waited for the big break that never arrived.
“But you both came back?”
“Yes. My father was ill. I returned to care for him.” Though he didn’t want her here, even at the end.
“And Tina?”
She relaxed, discovering it wasn’t so very difficult to talk with him after all. For all his disconcerting abruptness the other day in his office, Detective Riley obviously must have a great deal of practice listening to people. “Her modeling career wasn’t going well. She came home to find work and it was during that time she became pregnant with Alex. After that, she stayed so Luisa and I could help with him.”
“Is the boy’s father involved in his life?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know who he is. I wish I did, but Tina would never tell us.”
That had stung, she had to admit. But it was just another in the tangled web of secrets her friend had kept from her and Luisa, secrets she had ultimately taken to her death.
“Tina was…troubled, Detective. Angry.”
“Angry at who? The kid’s father?”
She thought about it then shook her head. “I don’t think so. She loved her son very much. ‘He’s a gift,’ she used to say. ‘A sweet and precious gift.”’ To her chagrin, her voice broke on the last word. Sudden tears choked her throat, burned her eyes.
Her heart ached to think what Tina would miss as her son grew up. She wouldn’t see his baby fat melt away or send him off to his first school dance or be able to buy him his first razor. She would miss teaching him to drive and arguing with him about curfews and preparing him for college.
She wouldn’t miss those things, though, Elizabeth vowed fiercely even as she wiped at her tears with a handkerchief she dug out of her pocket. She and Luisa would take care of Alex. They would love him and teach him and never, ever make him feel as if his disability made him any less of a person.
She looked up and found Detective Riley watching her out of those intense dark eyes that seemed to see right past her defenses.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Don’t be,” he answered, his voice gruff, then he turned back to sorting through Tina’s belongings. He might have only been trying to avoid an overemotional woman but she didn’t think so. He was giving her time and space to compose herself. The unexpected kindness warmed her far more than she wanted to acknowledge.
As a hardened detective he must have seen many grieving friends and relatives, she thought. And perhaps some who didn’t grieve. That was probably harder.
Why did he do it? she wondered. Grace Dugan said he was one of the best detectives in Seattle. When he works a case, Beau is relentless, like a junkyard dog with a bone. He’ll gnaw it and gnaw it until he shakes out the truth.
She was suddenly very grateful to have this particular fierce detective on her side, no matter how nervous he made her.
They worked through several boxes with only the occasional comment or question from Beau as to whether she recognized items or noticed anything missing.
After they opened most of the boxes containing the average flotsam and jetsam of a person’s life—a pitifully few knickknacks, some dishes, Tina’s collection of hatpins—he opened one that sent color climbing up Elizabeth’s cheeks.
These were Tina’s work uniforms. Her feathers and leathers, she had called them—the costumes she had worn while working as a stripper, albeit a well-paid one.
Beau cleared his throat and pulled out a minuscule nurse’s uniform that wouldn’t have concealed a single thing on any self-respecting female over the age of six, complete with thigh-high sheer white stockings and a perky little cap.
An odd, glittery heat uncurled inside her at the sight of such a silly, frilly thing in his masculine hands.
“You didn’t tell me your friend was in the medical profession.”
Oh! He had to know perfectly well what Tina did for a living. She couldn’t think how to respond to his tongue-in-cheek observation, even if she could find the right words.
At her silence, he looked over at her and his teasing grin slid away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have joked about it. Given the circumstances, it was in bad taste, and I apologize.”
Finally she managed to smile. Tina would have laughed out loud at his comment. And under other conditions, Elizabeth would have joined in. “No. It’s…it was a joke to her. That’s all it was. She thought it was hilarious that she could make so much money for a few hours’ work.” She paused. “She didn’t like being a stripper, but it was helping her improve her life. She was taking computer classes, going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Looking for a better apartment.”
He watched her out of those probing green eyes for a moment, then finally spoke. “She had heroin in her system the night she died. Did you know that?”
Elizabeth nodded. “The other detectives told us. She must have had a…” She had to scramble for the right word. Difficulty? Backtrack? No. Those words fit but they weren’t what she was looking for. She hit on it after what