“You’ll never prove my wife killed that man,” he said in a cocky way so different from the way he’d spoken to us the last time we were there.
Alex casually pushed me behind him and took a step toward them. “I don’t intend on trying to prove she killed Canton Walters. You killed him.”
I watched as Delilah’s face fell at Alex’s accusation, and she turned to look at her husband with an expression of shock. “Alan, tell them it’s all a mistake. Tell them you wouldn’t do that to anyone.”
Cradling her face, he quietly said to her, “Oh, Delilah, did you think I’d let you get away with it forever? How long did you think I should allow you to play me the fool before I did something about it?”
“What are you saying?” she asked with pure fear in her voice. “Tell them you wouldn’t do that!”
In one swift movement, he went from cradling her face to holding her to him, his forearm pressing on her neck. Alex pulled his gun from his right hip, but it was too late. Alan Roberts already had a gun pointed at his wife’s head.
“I can’t tell them that, Delilah. I can’t tell them I wouldn’t kill a man for sleeping with my wife. I told you when I married you I didn’t abide by that kind of behavior from any wife of mine.”
“You don’t have to do this, Dr. Roberts. Put the gun down and let your wife go,” Alex said calmly, but I had the sense that the time for calm had ended for Alan Roberts long ago.
“I do have to do this. She was sleeping with that man. She has a husband who’s a doctor and she wants some damn gigolo dancer.”
As he spoke, his voice grew louder and louder, echoing off the walls of the beautifully decorated living room. It didn’t seem to matter to him that two officers had their guns pointed at him and would shoot if he made a move to hurt Delilah. He seemed unreachable, lost to his misery.
“Just put the gun down, Alan,” Alex repeated to no avail.
Delilah sobbed, but her husband’s face turned icy, as if all emotion had left him. “Everyone thinks I’m just some bore married to a beautiful woman. Her friends come over and laugh about those damn toys she sells and make her feel like she didn’t get a good husband. They told her lies about her life, and she believed them. My own sister-in-law even helped. They took her out and she met men. She met him.”
“No, I didn’t do anything,” Delilah cried. “It was all harmless fun. I swear.”
Pulling her tighter to him, he silenced her and looked at Alex. “That bag with the earring there contains the proof I needed to know she was sleeping with him. There he was at Diamanti’s bragging that night about the hot piece who’d lost her earring as he was…”
He stopped talking and cleared his throat. “I bought her those earrings. Diamond earrings she picked out herself and said she had to have them. See how she cared for them? I couldn’t let him treat them like that. Treat us like that.”
“I get it, Dr. Roberts. I wouldn’t be able to deal with my wife running around on me. I get it,” Alex said in that same calm voice that hadn’t worked before.
Now, though, it seemed to make Alan Roberts want to get what he’d done off his chest. He sighed loudly and said, “I listened to him brag about what he’d done and heard he was staying at the Hotel Piermont. Just the thought of my wife being at that place made my stomach turn. I struck up a conversation with him and told him I was staying at the same hotel. I listened to him talk about how he had hooked up with some woman in the next town for months but wanted some new blood.”
Alan cringed and stopped talking for a moment before he said, “That’s what he called the woman I loved. New blood. For hours I listened to his stories until I offered him a ride back to the hotel and when he took it, I knew what I had to do. He was sober, so I knew I’d have only one chance. I walked him up to his room and told him goodnight. Then I waited. I gave him long enough to get changed out of his suit and then returned to his room. He was surprised to see me, but he let me in. Why not, right? It’s not like he couldn’t take me, if he had to.”
“And then you stabbed him in the exact place where you knew he’d bleed to death.”
Dr. Roberts nodded, affirming what Alex had said, and added, “He never saw it coming. He was just standing there in the middle of the room watching something on the TV and still talking about the woman he’d had the night before, so I grabbed a knife that was sitting on the dresser and plunged it into him as hard as I could. He fell back against me, so I put him down on the desk chair and left him there to rot like the scum he was.”
The whole room fell deathly silent as the reality of what Dr. Roberts had just confessed to settled into all our brains. Now that he’d explained how and why he did it, the bigger problem was his belief his wife had slept with the victim and his desire to kill her for it. I didn’t know how Alex planned to get the gun away from him, but I worried if he didn’t do it quickly, Delilah wouldn’t be long for this world.
“I’m sure the DA will take into consideration all the extenuating circumstances,” Alex said. “I just need you to let your wife go. You love her, so no matter what happened, you couldn’t live with yourself if you killed her. Put the gun down and let her go.”
Alan Roberts listened to what Alex said and tears filled his eyes. “I wish I didn’t love her, but I do. Still.”
He looked down at his wife as she cried and then pushed her toward the couch before turning the gun on himself. In a second, my fear for her evaporated as I watch him pull the trigger and collapse on the floor.
“Poppy, get her! Craig, get an ambulance here now!” Alex barked as he ran over to where Dr. Roberts lay on the rug surrounded by a pool of blood from his wound.
I raced to help Delilah onto the couch and held her close as she cried out for Alex to tell her if the man she loved was dead. We sat there waiting for him to answer for so long I was sure Alan was dead, but Alex turned to look at me and nodded.
“He shot himself in the shoulder. I don’t think it’ll be fatal.”
As he attended to his murderer and I rocked Delilah back and forth while she cried about how all she wanted to do was have a little fun and never meant to hurt anyone, the ambulance siren wailed outside announcing its arrival. My heart went out to her. I didn’t think she ever wanted to do anything more than just have some fun and laughs with friends. Her husband’s jealousy had made it out to be something more, something sinister. Jealousy did that once it wormed its way into the brain.
Chapter Twenty
Alex’s text had told me to meet him at my father’s bar, but the crowd at McGuire’s made finding anyone difficult. It looked like everyone in Sunset Ridge had piled into the main room to watch the All-Star game. I stood on my toes to try to see over the crowd, but all I saw were men’s necks.
A male voice called out, “Poppy, we’re back here!” and I followed the sound to the very back table where I’d sat with Delilah just days earlier to find Alex, Derek, and Craig sitting there.
“Is this a boy’s club thing or can a girl join in?” I joked as I dragged a chair over to make a fourth.
“Alex here tells me you were key to solving this murder case,” Derek said in his most serious way. “I’m thinking I might have to deputize you, Poppy.”
Excited by the idea, I asked, “Can you?”
Derek shook his head and chuckled. “I was just kidding, but he did say you were invaluable.”
I couldn’t help but feel crestfallen and sighed. “Well, I guess there’s that.”
Alex lifted his glass to make a toast and we all followed his lead, lifting our glasses above the center of the table. “To Poppy, the only person out of all of us who can get anyone in this town to spill their secrets.”
“To Poppy!” Derek and Craig cheered as we clanked our glasses together.
“That’s why you keep me around. I know how it is,” I said, half-joking but wishing I wasn’t.
Derek stood from his chair and patted me on the shoulder. “My bad judgment that I didn’t figure that out earli
er. Duty calls, so I’ll leave you guys to celebrate.”
I knew by the look in his eyes he thought there was something going on between Alex and me. If I thought it would make a difference, I’d have told him how wrong he was. But it didn’t matter. I knew that.
“I have to go too, but thanks for bringing some excitement into my day,” Craig said as he downed the last of his beer.
“Are you drinking before going back to work?” I asked in surprise, sure he wouldn’t do something like that being the straight arrow he was.
Grinning, he shook his head. “You know me, Poppy. No, I have a date tonight. This pretty girl who works at the Hotel Piermont heard me talking last night at Diamanti’s about how we got the murderer and came right up to me to ask me out. So I’ll see you two later.”
Craig left for his date, and turning to look at Alex, I wondered aloud, “I hope he’s ready for her. I think Elizabeth Freely has some tricks up her sleeve he might not be old enough for.”
“Naughty and Spice tricks?” Alex said with that sexy smile I both hated and adored.
“Yeah. I’m not sure he’s up for them.”
“I wouldn’t worry. He’s young. He’ll recover, and at least he’ll have a good memory for his trouble.”
The crowd cheered a homerun, drowning out any conversation between us for a few minutes. When they calmed down, Alex had finished his drink and stood from the table to get another.
“Want one? My treat,” he offered.
I drank my beer quickly, giving me a head rush, and handed him the glass. “Your treat? What’s the occasion, Officer Montero?”
“The best reason to celebrate. Another case solved with my partner.”
I liked how that sounded. Loving the idea of celebrating with him, I stared up into his relaxed face and said, “Well, since it’s a big day, I’ll have what you’re having.”
Surprised at my choice of drink, he winked at me. “Two scotches it is. I’ll be right back.”
Knowing I had a few minutes at least for my beer rush to dissipate, I sat back and watched him disappear into the crowd. We did have reason to celebrate. We’d solved another murder case, and even though things had been rocky between us for a while there, we came through it as partners in the end.
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
I turned to see my father sitting down where Derek had sat. He wore an expression that told me he wanted to say more, so I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I thought you were up behind the bar tonight, Dad. Is something up that you’re back here with me?”
“Nope. I have a bartender tonight, so I thought I’d come back and steal some time with my daughter before her partner comes back.”
The bar wasn’t that dark that I couldn’t see his eyes, and in them I knew I saw concern. “What’s wrong, Dad? You look worried.”
He hesitated for a moment and then nodded, as if he’d resigned himself to say what was on his mind, regardless of how much he wished he didn’t have to. “I was just wondering how you’re going to be if your friend stops in tonight to join you and Alex.”
Leave it to my father to know that it would bother me if Bethany stopped in during our celebration. While that was true, I was seeing things differently after the past few days.
“I’ll be fine. No need to worry about me camping out in the stockroom tonight.”
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure. I don’t like seeing you like that, Poppy.”
“Like what?” I asked, trying to brush off how upset I was that night, even though I knew he knew full well how much it bothered me to see Alex and Bethany together.
“Jealous.”
I’d seen more jealousy than I liked in this case, so there was no way I wanted to have it in my own life too. But his mention of it did remind me to ask about his story, which had been on my mind since he’d told me about his friend and Cherie.
“I can’t stop thinking about what you told me, Dad. I wonder whatever happened to your friend. I hope it ended up better than it did for Delilah and Dr. Roberts.”
He gave me one of his broad Irish smiles and took my hand in his to give it a gentle squeeze. “It did. He ended up marrying the most wonderful woman in the world and having a beautiful baby girl. The only thing that worries him is his daughter is a little too much like him when it comes to being jealous.”
My father’s words confused me for a moment, and then it all dawned on me. “You’re the friend? You told me that story because you were worried that I was going to do something out of jealousy. I knew it!”
“I worry about you, Poppy, and I know you care for Alex more than you admit.”
“Oh, Dad, you don’t have to worry about me with that. He’s in love with a ghost, and no Bethany or Poppy is going to change that any time soon. Save your worrying for my investigating crimes.”
Alex returned with our drinks and sat down in his chair. Handing me my scotch, he said, “Should I leave? You two look like you’re having a private conversation.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. I was just telling my father if he’s going to worry about me, he should save his concern for my solving cases with you. I really worried Alan Roberts was going to shoot the place up at some point. He definitely didn’t seem like he was thinking straight.”
My father’s expression turned to one of horror. “I don’t want to hear that, Poppy. You know I worry about that too.”
Alex jumped in immediately to calm him. “You don’t have to worry, Joe. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt Poppy. I made sure to shield her as soon as he pulled the gun. Her safety means the world to me.”
I saw my father relax and he thanked Alex for keeping me safe and sound. As he stood from the table to leave, he kissed my cheek and whispered, “I think those ghosts are on their way out, honey.”
Whatever my father thought he was seeing, it wasn’t there. I didn’t know what Alex planned to do about Bethany, but I had promised her I’d speak to him. Now seemed like as good a time as any, so I took a big gulp of my drink and as it warmed my insides on its way down to my stomach, I tried to find the words to begin, even if I didn’t want to hear the answer.
“I know it’s none of my business and I don’t mean to pry into your personal life again like I did when we were in the car waiting for the judge, but I was wondering what’s happening with Bethany.”
The words tumbled out of my mouth like when I didn’t like the taste of something I’d eaten and I spit it out. I’d hoped to be smoother than that, but maybe my father was right.
For his part, Alex looked like he’d almost expected me to ask about her. There was no surprise in his eyes. If anything, they looked sad.
“You’re not prying, Poppy. It’s just that I wish I had a good answer for you.”
He took a sip of his drink and carefully placed his glass down on the table before he continued. “I thought I was ready to get into a relationship again, but I was wrong. I’m not.”
Once again, that part of me that was nothing less than pure evil rejoiced at hearing him say he wasn’t ready to be serious with Bethany. It was wrong and I knew it, but it didn’t change how I felt deep inside where that jealous demon lived in me.
“Oh. Okay. It’s okay if you don’t want to say anything more about it.”
He took another sip and sighed. “It’s been a long time since Helena died. Everyone said I’d be able to move on, but when I didn’t, they didn’t understand. So I left Baltimore and came here. I’ve spent years living alone and thought I’d be content with that. Then you came along and all that got upended.”
I couldn’t help but smile every time he described that night he founded me skulking around his house like some cat burglar in a way that made it seem like I’d gone there specifically to change his life. “That’s my thing. Upending lives one at a time.”
“It’s what you did, Poppy. You walked into my life and I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said after you left.”
I chuckled at his delicate de
scription of that night. “You mean after you ran me off with a gun.”
He missed my attempt at a joke and remained serious. “I don’t think I realized how much I’d closed myself off from the rest of the world until you showed up. I owe you more than you can ever know for that.”
“I didn’t do anything, Alex. That was all you. I just trespassed on a guy’s property because I wanted his help to solve a murder. You did everything else with you.”
Alex shook his head. “Not true. I’m not sure anyone else in the world could have roused me from that life of living but not living. You gave me purpose for my life again, something I hadn’t had in a long time, and it’s because of you that I don’t spend every hour of my day alone in that house.”
His words made my heart clench. I had no idea when I met him that he’d been through such sadness and loss. If I had, I might have stayed away because I knew what it was like to suffer through losing someone like that.
“I’m just happy you didn’t shoot me and you wanted to work with me. Don’t forget that I’m not a cop like you.”
He raised his nearly empty glass for another toast. “To my partner, who helped bring me back to the job I love.”
I touched my glass to his and gave my own toast in honor of him. “To my partner, the best in the world.”
We drank our scotch and stayed silent as the bar erupted into cheers at another homerun. When it returned to a noise level that didn’t require us to scream over their voices, he placed his empty glass on the table and answered my original question.
“I don’t know if it’s fair to her, but I’m going to keep seeing her even though I’m not ready for what she wants. I’ve told her I don’t want anything serious, though.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. I understood not wanting to be alone. I did. I just wished he didn’t want to be alone with me instead of her.
“I’m sure she’ll understand,” I said quietly, grasping for anything to say so he wouldn’t think I was bothered by what he’d just told me.
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