He held the phone to his ear. “Mrs. Williams, this is Brodey Hayward. Thank you for taking my call.”
There was a short pause and Brodey checked the screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. Nope. Still there. “Hello?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m here. I needed to step into the other room. My youngest is playing and I didn’t want her to hear.”
The youngest, according to Jenna, had been three when her father died. So, she’d be five now and Brodey tried to imagine that, tried to imagine growing up without his own father, without the memories of ball games and amusement parks and beach visits. All of it a dead loss. Poor kids. A squeeze in his chest ambushed him and he held his breath a second, waited for the pressure to ease before exhaling and clearing his throat.
Stay focused. Forget the kids. That was what he needed to do. “No problem. Are you able to answer some questions for me? I could drop by.”
Because really, what he wanted to see was her. Study her body language and responses. Call him cynical, even as a rookie detective, but the spouse—particularly an estranged one—always got a solid look.
“Now?”
“Yes, ma’am. If it’s convenient.”
“I need to pick up my son from school and then take him to basketball practice at four-thirty. Lexi is coming by at four with samples. I can’t imagine that will take long. I could meet with you then, also. Would that work?”
He wasn’t sure how Lexi would feel about that, but in his mind, murder trumped decorating, so he’d make an executive decision. “I’ll make it work, ma’am. Thank you.”
Brodey disconnected and handed Lexi the phone. “We’re riding shotgun on your four o’clock.”
“Say again?”
“She said you were meeting with her at four and we could meet with her then, too. She’s busy running kids around. We need to maximize our time.”
“She only gave me thirty minutes.”
“She’s now splitting that thirty minutes between us. You’ll need to shorten your list.”
* * *
SHORTEN HER LIST? Brodey Hayward had a serious superiority complex if he thought she’d let him dictate how to do her job. First he horned in on her meeting and now he was trying to take over?
“Uh, Brodey?” Jenna said from her spot against the wall. “I can’t meet with her at four. I have another meeting.”
Thank you. At least now Lexi would still get her measly thirty minutes for what could evolve into a two-hour discussion.
Brodey turned to his sister, his posture stiff and unyielding. He held his uninjured arm out. “What do you want to do, then?”
“Hey,” Jenna shot, “don’t get snippy with me. You’re the one who booked a meeting without checking my schedule. If you want to meet with her on your own, go to it. All I’m saying is I can’t be there.”
“I’m not getting snippy.”
“Yes, you are.”
And now the two of them were going to argue. Terrific. Lexi held her hand up. “Can you two fight about this later?”
“We’re not fighting,” Brodey said.
Patience. Lexi squeezed her eyes shut, begging her beloved and departed grandmother to channel some of her legendary patience. Just a bit. Lexi had inherited her gram’s artistic ability, as evidenced by the stack of patchwork quilts she kept in her closet, but she’d be selfish now and ask for patience, too. Just a little. She breathed in and opened her eyes.
“For the record,” Brodey said, “if we were fighting, there’d be yelling.”
Jenna nodded. “And I might throw something.”
“That’s true. She gave me a black eye with a hockey puck once. And somehow, I got in trouble. Figure that one out.” He stepped over to her, lifted his arm, the one in the sling, and winced. “Ow. Forgot about the bum arm.”
“Ha!” Jenna said. “That’s what you get for thinking you’d give me a noogie.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Liar. I know you. And now that you’re injured, you’re a lame duck. Lame, I tell you.”
He and Jenna both laughed. And just that fast—boom—the tension flew from the room.
Being the only child of an artist and a musician, both of whom enjoyed their alone time, Lexi hadn’t experienced sibling rivalry. She wasn’t sure she wanted to, but this? This was different. This was about love and family and history. As much as she wanted to be irritated with these two, watching them snark at each other and then laugh about it tickled something down deep.
But she wouldn’t show them that. Instead, she rolled her eyes. “Okay, you’re not fighting. Glad we cleared that up. What are we doing about this meeting at four?”
“I’ll do it alone.” Brodey turned back to Jenna. “You sure you’re okay with that? It’s your case.”
“It’s fine. Just make sure she knows you’re only helping. I don’t want her upset when you disappear.”
“I will.” He faced Lexi and pulled a pocket notepad from his jacket. “I guess it’s you and me. Where am I meeting you?”
Brenda Williams’s two-story house butted up against the neighboring homes and looked like any other on the block. Weathered brick, a few steps leading to the small porch that barely spanned the front door, a single large window facing the street on the first floor, all of it as ordinary and indistinguishable as every other structure on the block.
Without a doubt, a long way from the pristine five-thousand-square-foot, multimillion-dollar greystone she’d shared with her husband. That house screamed vintage details on the outside but modern upgrades on the inside. To say the least, Brenda Williams had downsized. Apparently not by choice.
A wicked January wind whipped under Brodey’s open jacket to the blasted sling. Leave it to him to screw up his arm in the dead of winter. Despite the doc’s cautions, Brodey had been ditching the sling for an hour or two each day to give himself some freedom. That hour happened earlier when his shoulder cramped up. Now he was stuck in the sling for the remainder of the day. Unless he wanted his doctor to rail on him. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
He stepped to the side of the concrete walkway leading to the porch and waved Lexi forward. “Do the honors.”
She climbed the stairs, her long coat covering her amazing rear, and on any day he’d call that one of the great tragedies of his lifetime. And that was saying something for a Chicago PD homicide detective.
Twisted perhaps, but hey, the little things kept a guy like him sane.
Lexi rapped on the door, then turned back. “Did you say something?”
Could be. While working a case he talked to himself. A lot. “Probably.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry?”
“I talk to myself. I work crime scenes by talking my way through them, trying to figure out what happened. Half the time I don’t know I’m doing it.” Like now. “What did I say?”
Because given his lack of focus on anything but her delectable rear, he could easily be accused of lascivious