Daddy With A Badge. Paula Detmer Riggs

“But…but you, personally, think he…Folsom did it.” It wasn’t a question. Even though he hadn’t moved, he suddenly felt his back smash up against a solid wall.

      The truth or a lie? Though it gave him no real pride to admit it, he had the knack of telling either with equal credibility. Because lying grated against every principle of decent behavior his parents had instilled in him, however, he preferred to stick as closely to the truth as the circumstances of the interview permitted. More importantly, the quick intuitive tug in his gut told him she would resent a lie if it was ever revealed. Which, in his experience, had a way of happening at the worst possible moment.

      He sat back and kept his gaze steady on hers. “Yes, I think that one way or another he was responsible. The evidence was too sketchy to make a case, however, and the charges against him were dropped. We kept him under surveillance, of course, but he managed to slip out of town undetected during a bad snowstorm.”

      It jolted her, he saw, but she pulled herself together enough to ask calmly, “When…when did this happen?”

      “December 2nd last year.”

      “I met Jonathan on December 27th.”

      “Where exactly was that, Doctor?” Seth asked.

      “On board the SS Holiday Pleasure. My father and my brother had arranged for the cruise as a surprise.”

      “You went alone?”

      “Yes.” She took a breath, then looked down at her hands. Her nails were filed short with clear polish. She wore no rings. A platinum-and-emerald wedding set had been included on the list of stolen property. Hers from her marriage to Fabrizio, he assumed.

      “My daughter Lyssa was severely injured in the accident that killed her father. She was in ICU for weeks with major internal injuries and then in and out of the hospital for months after that.” She drew a breath. “The paramedics said that it had been a miracle Lyssa had survived. As it was her legs had been broken and one side of her face had been badly cut.”

      “No airbags?” Gresham asked quietly.

      She shook her head. “My husband had just finished restoring an old Jag XK-150 and he’d driven it that weekend because he wanted to show his father. The state trooper who investigated said he probably would have survived if he’d been driving my Lexus or his Cherokee, both of which have airbags.”

      “You weren’t with them, then?” Rafe asked, although he was pretty sure she hadn’t been.

      “No, Mark and Lys had gone down to the vineyard for the weekend, but I’d stayed home to catch up on case notes.”

      “Vineyard?” Gresham asked.

      “Mark’s family owns Fabrizio and Sons Wine. My father and brothers run Mancini Vineyard. The two properties adjoin one another in the foothills west of Ashland which is close to the California border.”

      Gresham’s eyes lit up and he broke into a grin. “Great wines! I especially like Mancini’s Pinot Noir.”

      Rafe shot him a look and he lost the grin.

      “Thank you,” she said with a brief smile.

      “How is your daughter now?” Rafe asked before lifting the mug to his mouth for a sip.

      “Bouncing back, finally, but it was a long haul.”

      “How about you? Are you bouncing back, too?”

      Following his example she took a sip and tried to decide how much of herself to reveal. “It’s funny,” she said finally. “I ran a workshop in grief management when I first started practicing. I had all the tools, but somehow I was so busy taking care of Lys and trying to keep my practice going I guess I forgot to use them.” She lifted an impatient hand and skimmed back the thick hair that still shimmered like a raven’s wing in the sun when she turned her head. Her face had grown pale, highlighting the freckles splashed over the bridge of her nose. He’d counted them once between teasing kisses. Now he no longer remembered—or cared—how many there had been.

      “I had sort of a meltdown on what would have been our twelfth anniversary. My family was already worried about me, and after that my father decided I needed to get away and relax. He arranged everything, even had my secretary reschedule my patients for the ten days I’d be away. I flew from Portland to L.A. the day after Christmas and boarded the boat the next day. I met Jonathan when he sat next to me at dinner the first night out.” Her face tightened. “If he’d come on to me, I might have been suspicious, but he was a perfect gentleman.”

      She rubbed her palm up and down her arm as though trying to warm herself. “It seems even more horrible when I think about him touching me with the same hands he might have used to…to kill someone.”

      Suddenly, her cheeks turned the color of putty, and sweat broke out on her forehead. With a garbled moan, she set her mug on the glass-topped coffee table, then struggled to push herself out of the deep cushions.

      Rafe put his own mug on the table with a sharp crack and got to his feet. Gresham did the same. Rafe reached her first.

      “Danni—”

      “Don’t, please,” she cried before clamping her hand over her mouth. Before he could stop her, she pushed him away and spun around to race toward the back of the house and the bathroom he remembered seeing there.