She drew another breath. “License number 5GFK82.”
“That’s very helpful.”
“You have to find who did this. She’d have given them anything they wanted. They didn’t have to do this. She works at Let It Bloom Garden Center. Somebody would have brought her home because her car’s in the shop. So somebody knows when she got home. Her mama—”
That broke her, so she dropped down to the floor and let all the tears come.
They wanted to give her a mild sedative, but she wouldn’t take it. Feeling was all she had, and she wouldn’t let go of it. They urged her to stay somewhere else while they did whatever they had to do.
She wouldn’t.
She sat outside, alone. Forced herself to call the bar, which set off more tears, and more offers to stay elsewhere.
Bill showed up—she supposed her night boss called her day boss. He said nothing, just sat beside her, put his arms around her.
“You’re going to come home with me now,” he said after she’d stopped the last bout of weeping.
“I can’t. I can’t. I feel like I’d never be able to come back if I left now. I feel like I couldn’t ever live here if I left tonight. It’s my home. I need my home.”
“I’m going to fix that broken glass and put a dead bolt on the door. I’m not leaving until they say I can do that. And I’m going to have Ava bring over my car. You’re going to borrow my car. I got the truck. I’m not leaving you here without a car. That’s firm.”
“Okay. Thank you. They have to find my car so they can find who did this. Then they have to go to prison forever.”
“You bet your ass, sweetheart. Don’t you come into work tomorrow. Don’t you come in until you feel you can. You understand?”
“I want to—need to—go to Nina’s family tomorrow. I don’t want to intrude tonight. I just feel I shouldn’t be there tonight. And Sam … The police said they’d talk to him, didn’t want me to tell him yet. I’m not stupid, they want to make sure he wasn’t here. He’d never have hurt her, but they need to talk to him. I need to talk to him tomorrow.”
“If you need anything, there are plenty of people who’d jump to help. You matter around here, Morgan.” He gave her a pat on the knee.
“I’m going to see about fixing that door.”
When, long after midnight, she was finally alone—it seemed like days rather than hours—she looked at the card one of the cops had given her. For a crime scene cleanup.
The crime scene they said they’d cleared, like a table of dirty dishes.
The crime scene where Nina had died.
But she wouldn’t call them. It was Nina, and she’d do it herself. The last thing she could really do for someone she’d loved like a sister.
So, late into the night in a house that echoed with silence, she got the bucket, the scrub brush.
They’d taken the laptop—evidence. They’d taken photos and videos and dusted for prints. The detectives had talked to her—questions, questions, over and over. But they’d left the blood behind on the floor, the doorjamb, the wall just inside her office.
It took a long time, longer because she’d gotten sick once, then broken down twice. But she managed. She’d do it all again in the strong daylight if she needed to.
She tossed the takeout, allowed herself a single glass of wine in hopes it would help her sleep.
And in the quiet, in the empty, she lay down in Nina’s bed, hugged the pillow that smelled like Nina’s shampoo.
Though she thought she’d emptied herself of tears, she wept again.
As dawn broke on another April morning, she finally drifted into the peace of sleep.
Chapter Four
Morgan tread water in a well of grief. She couldn’t sink, couldn’t allow herself to just go under. She had to talk to the police again. Answer questions, make formal statements. It kept the grief fresh and the water in the well deep.
Nina’s family had become her family, and she couldn’t help them if she sank. She sat with them, mourned with them, did her best to help with the funeral arrangements.
Both her bosses insisted she take a week off, and coworkers dropped off food. Casseroles, pasta dishes, ham, chicken.
She shared it with Sam. If he wasn’t with Nina’s family, he was with her.
He had his own well.
She sat with him while they both picked at the latest casserole.
“Still no word on your car?”
“No.” Since he’d brought wine as his contribution to the meal neither of them much wanted, she sipped at her glass. “I guess it’s gone. The cops don’t say that right out, but what they do say makes it pretty clear. I filed the insurance claim today.”