“Friends are concerned about your husband.”
Nice of them to worry about Quint now. Never mind the man was twice my size. Did they ever consider what Quint had done to me? To Rob? Already high, my blood pressure cranked up a notch.
“I’ll talk to you, but it’s none of their business,” I told the detective.
“What happened to your face, Candy?” the lieutenant asked.
“The name is Candace, Lieutenant.” My hand flew to my cheek again. “I told you. I was in an accident. The police have the report already. What business is it of yours anyway?”
“Call me Cay,” he said, not fazed one bit by my growling.
Ben gave him an annoyed glance, but spoke to me. “Where’s Quint? He tore out of here like the hounds of hell were after him six months ago and he never came back.” The detective held up a hand, but Ben ignored him. “After all the yelling we heard, I can only assume he finally got fed up with your bullshit. What’d you do? Poison him? Dump him in the woods?”
As thin as my nerves were, I lost it, shouldered the detective aside and got up in Ben’s face. Well, considering he was a good ten inches taller than me, I did my best. I ripped off my sunglasses and pointed to my eye. “Yeah, he outweighs me by more than a hundred pounds and packs a punch that would knock you out, and did worse than this to me, but I’m still standing, dammit. If he’s running, he’d better keep running because if he ever dares to show his face back here I’ll have his forty-four loaded and aimed his way.” Trembling with fury, I poked his chest with my finger. “The bastard will never touch me again. By the way, thanks for coming to help when you heard the screams. Six months have passed and you just now think to ask? Nice to know you think I can kick his ass. Which means you better keep away from me, because I might kick yours.”
Ben backed up enough he nearly fell down the three steps down to the walkway hugging the side of the house.
Detective Burrows wrapped an arm around my waist to pull me back and I yelped.
“God dammit! Get your hands off me! Those ribs hurt, bubba!”
The man released me. I hugged myself, doing my best to breathe.
Fly-boy grabbed my shoulders, holding me upright. “He broke your ribs?” He vibrated with fury, but his hold was gentle. I was too dizzy to notice much more.
“All but. They were cracked but good. After I hit the ground, he kicked me. That was right before he left, and they’d pretty much healed. They were bruised again last Saturday when some drunk decided to play chicken.” I gasped for air. He carefully leaned me against the side of the house. “Shit.” The secrets I’d meant to keep had pretty much leaped from my mouth. My damn propensity for venting out loud. I fought to keep from lapsing into what I knew would be a painful coughing fit.
“Nice neighborhood here, when men sworn to protect citizens let a bully beat up on a woman.” The words were growled at Ben, who’d been stunned into immobility.
The detective pulled out his notebook. “You’re the vic in the accident on Tudor Saturday afternoon?”
Nodding, I continued to focus on breathing. “It was on the news and in the paper. The police have full documentation on my injuries from the accident and from the night Quint left. Feel free to look it up. Two separate events.” It was more than I’d planned on saying. More than my bruised body was able to handle. “Detective, get these two out of here,” I gasped. “One has never lifted a finger to help, the other…wasn’t in town at the time. They’re not…part of this.”
“Mom!” Rob’s feet hit the entryway floor and he pushed the detective aside, also forcing the lieutenant to release me. “Are you okay?” His worry erased my anger.
“I’m okay, sweetie. These men were just leaving.” I glanced at the detective, but spoke to Rob. “They want to know where your dad is. The detective can look up our case and figure out everything from the file.” Thankfully my breath was coming back by then.
Burrows wasn’t letting me go so easily. “I need your phone number, ma’am.”
I gave him the numbers and noted the lieutenant apparently concentrated on memorizing them. I’d never given Ben our new numbers for the HOA roster. Let him figure it out.
The detective made a note as Rob took control. “She needs to rest.”
Lord love him, Rob grew an inch taller in that minute. He carefully wrapped his arms around me while glaring at the men, and helped me into the house. He locked the door and stayed beside me step by step up to the main floor.
Through the open windows, I heard men growling. Ten minutes later, a lawn mower and weed whacker simultaneously circled my house. The sound of raking was soon followed by sweeping coming from the drive. Then the outdoor faucets came on. Rob didn’t leave my side that night. We fell asleep to the sound of sprinklers.
Chapter 4
“Mom, there’s a message on the phone.”
Robbie had his head in the fridge, as usual. We had twenty minutes before we had to leave for TKD. Of course he was hungry. I’d often pondered why I took the trouble to put the food away when it was just going to be inhaled in the next twenty-four hours. The kid was gearing up for another growth spurt, I could just feel it.
“I’ll check it when we get home.” I had no desire whatsoever to deal with whomever. Despite changing, and unlisting, all the phone numbers, as well as removing Quint from the cellphone plan, I still had to deal with the callers. How they’d accessed my numbers, I didn’t know, but somehow, they’d ferreted out the information.
Since February, about a week after Quint had gone missing, I’d been doing my best to avoid his boss, buddies, jibes from the neighbors and occasional probing by the police. Unbelievably, someone had called him in as a missing person. Hadn’t been me, Ben swore it wasn’t him, and the caller had done his best to make me look guilty as hell. I suspected Quint’s boss, since it was clear the man hated me, based solely on whatever stories Quint had told at work. So far, the cops hadn’t found anything they could arrest me on. Considering I was innocent, I regarded this as a good thing.
I had to recreate the chain of events for the police numerous times, going over each detail I’d wanted to gloss over.
On Super Bowl Sunday, Quint had spent the day with the neighbors, watching the game at Jack’s. Mainly hanging with Jack, and Ben, incidentally Jack’s CO.
Quint and the guys had been drinking beer, swapping stories and yelling at the game. After spending the day doing the usual laundry, I’d also cleared my room of old clothes. We had a new, fancy, choose-your-number air mattress Quint had ordered at end of year clearance pricing. Rob and I spent a few hours assembling it, and hoping to rest a little, I’d hunkered down with my computer, trying to do a little writing.
The weather plays a big part in whatever happens in Alaska. For instance, Alaskan homes rarely have central air conditioning. Which, in the case of our home, was too bad. With large windows fully facing west, in the summer my second floor great room could grow stifling in a hurry. I opened all the screened windows on the second floor sometime in mid-May and didn’t shut them until September. I also kept the ceiling fan running day and night year round and used box fans as needed. The house could easily reach eighty degrees, or more, by mid-afternoon.
The open windows were half the reason the neighbors considered me the bitch of our marriage. With them open four months straight, everyone on the street could pretty much hear everything when our voices were raised. I tried to remain conscious of this, but Quint knew exactly how much they could hear and used his knowledge to push my buttons when he wanted a little sympathy from the guys. I wasn’t a screaming shrew. I bit back a lot of poison, mostly because when I did explode, I paid. In many ways. I’d say, generally, once a year he pushed me far enough to create a genuine, hair-raising hissy fit. So when I hit