15
Claire
The hardwood feels cool under my feet as I slip my sandals off. “So I didn’t get the formal tour the first time around,” I say.
“Right, because it’s so enormous and well-furnished,” Liam says. “Hard to take it all in, I know.”
I laugh. Whatever buzz I’d gathered at the bar has been replaced with a warm energy in my chest. There’s something about Liam’s presence. He has a charm about him. It’s nothing exuberant or imposing, but tender and sincere. Liam wears sincerity like he can’t speak without it.
He’s a lot like Alison in that way. Except with Liam, it’s candid and unrefined. Alison’s words come out of thought and empathy, Liam’s come from intuition.
He humors me with a tour anyway. We begin in the living room, the first room just inside the front door. It’s the only room I’m familiar with. The entire space is hardly more than a strip of carpet, the couch where I’d sat a few nights ago, a cheap coffee table and a single chair beside it where Liam had sat. The scene resumes as we walk through it, the way the unfamiliar setting had turned into my own cocoon of an escape. The sanity it had given me.
The kitchen is even more vacant. The counters are clean and empty. There’s a cheap microwave, a stove with four burners, a sensible fridge. The place strikes me as a home that’s been rented more than it’s ever been lived in. Liam moves through it with the same indifference.
The walls of the adjoined hallway are painted an opulent green-blue shade. A shade that makes me all the more certain that Liam’s renting a place where he’s made little to no modifications. There isn’t a single picture hanging on any of the walls. His sarcasm wasn’t all that inaccurate—there really isn’t much to see.
And yet, I can’t help but compare each room to Ethan’s place in Cardinal Creek. They could not be more different. Where Ethan fills spaces with lavish, gallery-esque furniture pieces, Liam has clean and modestly empty corners. Where Ethan hangs chandeliers, Liam has open ceilings, space to breathe.
There was one time, in the first few weeks after I’d moved in, when Ethan had scolded me for putting my feet on the couch. I’d laughed. “I put my feet on the other couch,” I’d said teasingly. “I lay down on the other couch.” Still, I had swung my feet back to the ground like a young child.
“Not in this room, Darling,” Ethan had said. “That couch costs more than your dad’s car.”
How had I ever existed like that? As if every item around me had to be handled with the same caution in which I handle criminal evidence at work.
I had pretended, but I was never truly comfortable there. I’d been made to feel like a possession of the house instead of the other way around. And after a while, in a way, I even began to convince myself of it. It was extravagantly furnished but too sterile to ever feel like home.
Liam’s place feels entirely different, as if it doesn’t need to be furnished. He fills it with his presence. Wherever we are, he turns the surroundings from dull shades of gray into warm blushes of reassurance. He makes me feel present, no longer detached.
Without Daddy, the world went dark on me. I was terrified of the day I’d lose him. But I never thought it’d come so fast.
He’s been a part of every future I’ve ever imagined. My career in law enforcement following the path of the honored Detective Bill Brooks as he pridefully watches my every progression, padding my days with advice. The day he’d walk me down the aisle, exchange a smile and that famous Bill-Brooks-wink with his soon to be son-in-law. The day I’d sit my child on his knee, the same spot where I’d once sat, watching the granddad glimmer in his eyes.
Every kid knows their parents will one day pass, but I never imagined a day without him. And when it came, the floor of my world vanished along with him.
It’s not that Liam makes it feel as if it didn’t happen, but he makes it feel like there’s more to the world than loss. Like I’m capable of rebuilding that floor below me. When you live in the world that I do, a world full of death and deceit and cruel, cruel motivations, you need a light. You need a fire to sit by, to warm your hands and allow the darkness to momentarily fade away. These last few days, Liam has been that fire for me.
I’m following him down an empty hall. “Really going for that look of modern-simplicity, huh?” I tease.
He chuckles. “It was always a toss-up between bartending and interior design, some would say I made the wrong choice.”
“Others would probably agree you didn’t,” I say. That draws another laugh.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who’s so charmingly self-deprecating. But that’s the thing about Liam, he has an air of confidence that doesn’t need to prove itself. He’s fully and entirely genuine.
“No, it’s just that your talents happen to lie in the world of music, that’s all,” I say.
Liam looks back at me over his shoulder, a smirk on his lips and a bright blue gleam in his eyes. We’ve reached the end of the hallway.
“Speaking of,” he says, pushing open the cracked door. He steps to the side and ushers me in, flicking on the lamp sitting atop a dresser.
It’s his bedroom, but it’s the only room in the whole house with anything hanging on the wall. There’s a framed Aerosmith poster with several large signatures scrawled across the top, various photos tacked beside it, and most notably a slick, black electric guitar attached by a sing mount to the wall above his bed.
“Oh wow,” I admire. “So you just keep all the decorations to yourself.”
He breathes out a laugh.
I point at the guitar. “What kind is that?”
Liam smiles. “That’s my baby.” Gradually, he steps past me and kneels one leg on the bed as he reaches and unhinges the guitar. He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, motioning for me to sit beside him. As I do, he plucks softly at the strings.
“This is a different one than you were playing at the service,” I say.
He nods. “This is a Les Paul.”
“Sounds fancy.”
His lips curl to one side of his mouth, into his cheek, in a smile. “It’s the last gift my dad ever gave me,” he says wistfully. “Way beyond his budget.” He exhales a humorless laugh while shaking his head. Then, to himself, “But I love it.”
I smile. “Funny how dads do that, isn’t it?”
He matches my smile, meets my eyes while still plucking the strings.
I watch him strum up and down, then look up again. His gaze hasn’t moved. “Will you play me a song?”
“Only if you can guess the chorus.”
“Bring it on.”
Liam looks down, taking a half-second to decide before plucking again. His fingers move like they’re dancing. He watches me as he plays, swaying his head with the rhythm, then stops. He raises his eyebrows.
I furrow my own. “Are you kidding? Walk This Way, Aerosmith,” I say. I gesture at the poster. “You think I wouldn’t get that with Joe Perry staring at me over there.”
His eyebrows rise even further into his forehead. “Bonus points for the name, impressive.”
“Did you think I was born yesterday?”
“I wrote off all expectations after that Guns N’ Roses comment back at the bar,” he says. My firm mask of an expression breaks in laughter.
“All right, give me another one then.”
He eyes me. Challenge accepted.
Without shifting his gaze, he begins strumming again. Immediately, his fingers are moving faster than the last, gliding up and down the neck of the guitar.
I grin out of recognition, watching him continue a few moments more. “Crazy Train, Mr. Ozzy Osbourne.” Liam plays it exactly right. He mirrors my smile, nodding.
“Do you want to hear it with the amp?” he asks.
“Will it be loud?”
He shakes his head. “I can make it quiet.”
He stands up. I didn’t see the little black square of a speaker when we first came in, but Liam goes over, unwinds the cord beside
it and plugs it into the guitar. He flicks his eyebrows at me as he bends down, twisting at what I assume to be the volume. He begins plucking and the sound is even better than I anticipated. It’s alive, the same riff but with an electric flare.
He looks at me, grinning and bobbing his head with the melody.
I can’t help but laugh. He walks toward me without breaking the melody. When he bites his bottom lip, it feels as though he’s punctures a balloon of ecstasy in my chest. He resumes his seat beside me.
“Want to play?” he asks. His fingers fall from the strings and the electric tune cuts at once.
“I don’t know how.”
“So? You know Queen, don’t you?”
I knot my eyebrows and shoot him a look. “Of course I know Queen.”
He starts playing the intro to what I immediately recognize as Another One Bites the Dust. It sounds effortless.
He drops his hands. “Yeah? Ready?” But he’s already shifting the guitar into my lap.
“You know there’s a reason I’m a cop and not a musician.”
“This is called the neck or the fretboard,” he says, guiding my fingers onto a few strings at the top of the guitar. “Hold that for a sec.” He takes my right-hand. “Down here is the body,” he says, placing my thumb on the top string. “Pluck three times with your thumb and release your left hand each time.”
He bobs his head as I do.
“Okay, now repeat that with your thumb, but this time—” He slowly moves my left-hand fingers in rhythm. I can tell right away that it will be unrepeatable, but I give it a try nonetheless.
Liam smiles as I go, breaking into a laugh when I stop and look up at him. “Better than my first try,” he says.
“Oh, yeah right.”
“Here, try again,” he says, repositioning my fingers.
I start again, slowly, and my fat thumb plucks two strings instead of one before I’m even done with the easy part. I only laugh. It’s actually kind of fun, with Liam sitting beside me, watching. He laughs too.
“Come on, Detective,” he chides. “Again.”
“This is worse than the Academy,” I say. I give it another try, and I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I complete the riff—with agonizingly slow speed—without a mistake.
Liam cheers. “There ya go,” he says.
I smile up at him. The warmth rises in my chest until I’m weightless, enveloped in Liam’s gentle gaze. Then I kiss him.
Liam’s fire courses through me. He slowly lifts the guitar from my lap, setting it on the floor without ever pulling his lips from mine. I can feel the rush of excitement between us and my skin becomes flushed with warmth.
I break our kiss and stand up. He stands too.
I’m not sure how I want this to go. Are we moving too fast?
I turn to face him, and my arms rise to his body. My palms rest on his wide chest, but I don’t push him away. He stands in front of me for a moment as our eyes lock. His hand caresses my face. His fingers start from the top and fall slowly down my cheeks, down to my collarbone. I rest my hands on his waist. He follows, his hands settling at the small of my back. He pulls me closer.
My hands rest at the top of his waist and I can feel his bulge. I cup his groin. No, there is no stopping this train.
He brings his lips to the top of my neck and kisses a trail down to my collarbone. He pulls my shirt down to expose me, then his kisses proceed.
My breath is becoming erratic. He drops to his knees, turns his face and rests it at my hips, bringing his hands around my thighs as I run my fingers through his thick hair.
He rises slowly to his feet and unbuckles his pants. I help him, I want him to have no doubt that we’re thinking—feeling—the same thing. And that this is okay. It’s more than okay, it’s what I want.
I fall back into the mattress, bringing him on top of me with the weight of his chest pushing into mine. One of his hands travels up my leg to my chest and back down. My hands push the back of his pants down and over so that he’s completely exposed.
He pushes himself up and I look at his strong, beautiful body. Then he returns, bringing his hands under my shirt and pulling it over my head.
I push myself up and with his help, I become completely bare. I lay back, he leans over me, and I spread my legs. His lips make their way to mine with a gentle yet forceful passion. The motion of our bodies creates a heat that turns into a pleasurable sweat.
And eventually, a flood of euphoria.
16
Claire
I woke up with my head full of him.
I wanted to stay there, in his sheets with warm rays of morning sunlight bathing our nude bodies. But every new tick of the clock flushed my stomach with angst.
Daddy’s killer is still out there, free.
He dedicated his life to justice, and it’s the very thing that’s been stolen from him in death. So by noon I’m back in the house, back in the sharp, penetrating silence.
Alison (again) offered to join me, and I (again) declined. But as a warm breeze wafts through my loose hair as I stand on the balcony, I begin to regret it.
No, she’s not a detective. And God, I wish Sophia Mason was here with me. She’s one of our best, but she’s also got her hands full with a trial to keep her husband out of jail. Noah Mason isn’t going to jail, not after striking a plea deal with the District Attorney, but that’s enough to keep anyone busy.
At least Alison could be another voice of reason. Another pair of eyes, too. But what I can’t risk is her skepticism masking something that ought to be considered objectively. The worst thing you can do is make up your mind before scrutinizing a crime scene. When you bias yourself, even slightly, the color red can look like roses instead of blood.
Although, isn’t that what I’ve done here? I’m looking for blood where everyone else has seen roses. Not that suicide is a rose. There’s nothing beautiful about it, but it happens. I’ve been called to more than one scene where a mother, a wife, a husband was certain that, No, they couldn’t have killed themselves. They would never. It was someone else.
It was never someone else.
I have never once worked a murder case where the death was concealed as a suicide. Yet here I am. I’m investigating the death—the suicide—of my own father. And has that biased me? How could it not.
Maybe Alison is right. Maybe I really am placing blame instead of grieving. Maybe I have no more grief left to offer, only blame—only obsessive determination to change the circumstances.
Once more I imagine Daddy standing on the railing in front of me. The impossible image of the man that carried me on his shoulders standing with nothing but cruel darkness around him, cold and rocky water below him. And I imagine him jumping.
I turn to go back inside.
As if in defense, I picture Liam. I visualize him in front of me, chewing his bottom lip in a smile. Then I’m at my laptop, pulling up Facebook out of temptation to see him in true form, even a mere photo.
I type Liam Carter into the search bar and watch as it sources the invisible cyberspace world of Facebook, conjuring up everyone in the fraternity of a shared name.
But there’s no Liam. At least not my Liam.
I try twice more, altering his name in the only reasonable ways I can of. Nothing.
I retype the original spelling and, again, peruse over each account with no avail. He doesn’t have an account. And that’s a little odd, isn’t it?
I tell myself no, I’m the odd one for thinking that it’s some standard of humanity to create a Facebook account. If Daddy were here, he’d laugh at me.
But to have nothing at all?
After another ten minutes, I’ve exhausted all forms of social media without a single match for Liam Carter. It’s a popular name, apparently, but still—there’s nothing. I’m certain.
No Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter, no LinkedIn—nothing tying Liam to a social media account. Which is fairly unusual, and definitely intentional.
> * * *
By 7:00 PM I’m pulling into Liam’s driveway with two steaming cartons of Golden Wall Chinese food as my passenger. There’s part of me that feels guilty about it, guilty about retreating from the only place that holds the answer to Daddy’s death. Uncovering the truth is the only reason I’m still here in Fort Martin instead of back at work. Although, if I’m being completely honest with myself, that’s not entirely true.
I haven’t been inside for five minutes before Liam’s cheeks are bulging with chow mien.
“So, tell me,” he says, swallowing, “is it really like all the TV shows make it look? You guys just sit around eating take-out until someone is so sleep deprived that they stumble into an epiphany?”
I have to lower my fork to laugh. “It’s all glamour, no hassle. Easiest job in the world.”
He laughs at that. I take a bite.
Golden Wall is the best Chinese Fort Martin has to offer, but more than this Kung Pao Chicken, I could sure use an epiphany right now.
The silence that begins to grow between us feels intentional, like Liam is letting the humor evaporate before shifting subjects. And I’m right.
“How are you doing today?” he asks. “With things?”
I screw my lips to the side and shrug. “I’m not any closer to an answer than the day I got here.”
“Is that really true, though?” he asks.
“I feel like I have all the pieces for the wrong puzzle. They fit but they don’t have a—” I shake my head.
Another balloon of silence inflates between us. “Maybe they’re just not building the image you expected,” he says.
I meet his eyes. He holds me there, in their vibrant blue, his gaze stiff but tender.
“You think he jumped?”
Liam shakes his head. “I can’t pretend like I have any idea.”
I shut my eyes and exhale a long, deep breath. “I’m starting to think I never will either,” I say.
“Claire.” He drops a hand to my knee, pausing until I return his gaze. I open my eyes. “This is not your fault.”
A Family Secret Page 10