“You’ll be around for dinner, right?” Dante asks as we walk down the hallway to our study. “We missed you the last two nights.”
I answer with a grunt. It’s true that I’ve been avoiding dinner since I snapped at Mia a couple of days ago. But I guess she’s been avoiding me too because I’ve barely seen her. I know she’s been in the library—boxes have been moved and her goddamn scent hasn’t faded. But she must be sticking to times when she doesn’t think I’ll be there.
Dante arches an eyebrow at me. “You been going anywhere in particular?”
My muscles tense. “Working.”
His brow wrinkles with concern. “On anything I should know about?”
My phone rings, saving me from having to answer my brother. I check the screen; it’s Lionel’s number. “I have to take this.”
Dante narrows his eyes and nods. “Go ahead then.”
I glance between him and the phone. We never keep secrets from each other, but for some reason, I don’t tell him who’s calling. Not even when the look he gives me makes me think he believes this is something personal, which it’s definitely not.
The corners of his mouth curl up in amusement. “Dinner? Tonight?”
“I’ll be there,” I snap.
“Good.” With a satisfied grin, he walks off down the hallway, leaving me to answer my call in private.
“Yeah?” I push open the door to the library, both annoyed and relieved to find it empty. It’s been two days since I last spoke to her. Surely she’s not still pissed at me.
“Lorenzo, you there?” Shit. How long has he been talking? I once again allowed myself to become distracted by thoughts of Mia when I should be thinking about anything but her.
“You got something for me?”
“That guy you asked me to look into, you know he had a sister?”
I’m one hundred percent sure Mia never mentioned a sister-in-law. “No.”
“Hmm, thought as much. I don’t got a lot on her. Her records are sealed—”
“Sealed?”
“Yep.”
I attempt to rub away the persistent throb in my temples with my knuckles. “Why would that happen?”
“Any situation where a minor’s the victim of a crime would account for sealed records, but this seems to go deeper than that. I couldn’t access most of it.”
“You can usually get to that shit though, right?” I frown. I’ve never known Lionel to be unable to access information, even high-level stuff. It’s why I use him. “Why can’t you get this?”
“I figure it involves someone important.”
I run a hand through my hair. This is all I need. “So, what exactly do you know about her?”
“Name’s Michaela Mulcahy. She was born in 1989 to Mike and Janice. She has two older brothers, Bradley and Jake. Then there’s nothing of note on the entire family until she turns thirteen. Something happened that caused her to be removed from the home the same year her mom died. Apparent suicide.”
My chest tightens. Did Mia’s ex-husband learn everything he knows about beating women from dear old dad? “Apparent?”
“Yeah. I looked over the police reports and there was some controversy, but ultimately the coroner ruled suicide.”
“How did she die?”
“Hanged.”
“Fuck.”
“But that’s not the most disturbing fact about this case, Lorenzo.” The tone of his voice sends a chill down my spine. He continues. “Michaela’s aren’t the only records that are sealed. There was evidence of recent sexual activity after Janice was found hanging from the back of the bathroom door.”
“That doesn’t seem so unusual, especially if the husband did kill her.”
“It wasn’t the husband’s DNA they found inside her, Lorenzo. It was the son’s.”
Bile burns the back of my throat. “What the fuck? The son? Brad raped his own mother?”
“Well, this is where it gets patchy. These records are sealed tighter than a nun’s cunt,” He gives a dark laugh at his own wit but clears his throat when I remain silent. “Bradley would have been seventeen at the time, and the other son, Jake, he’d have been fifteen. Most of what I got is conjecture and witness testimony, but the official story is mom and Bradley were having sex, and when the father found out, mom killed herself to avoid the scandal and possible prosecution.”
I hiss out a breath. I thought my family was fucked up.
“However,” Lionel goes on, “Janice had a sister, Minerva, who refused to accept the coroner’s verdict. Convinced Janice was a victim and was murdered to cover up the whole disgusting affair. She continued to campaign for her sister’s death to be investigated for another two years, but then she died in a car accident.”
“Suspicious circumstances, right?”
“Yup. Quiet road late at night. The other car was never found.”
Dammit! “And the daughter? Michaela? What happened to her?” The sister could be the key to nailing that sick fuck once and for all.
“No fuckin’ clue. She disappeared without a trace.”
“So find her, Li. If the records are sealed, unseal them.” Rage courses through my veins and turns my voice into a growl.
“Spent the last few days trying, buddy. If I could, I would. This case has me more intrigued than anything I’ve worked on in the past ten years. This involved someone real high up to seal these records the way they did. They’re watertight. Way above my pay grade.”
“What about the father? Mike Mulcahy? Where is he now? Does he have that kind of pull?”
“He died four years back. Massive heart attack. He was a police chief, highly decorated and respected. But still, he definitely didn’t have that kind of sway.”
My hands clench into fists and sink into the huge leather chair behind my desk. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Sorry I ain’t got more for ya, buddy. I’ll keep digging, see if there’s anything else I can come up with.”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. At least I know more now than I did an hour ago. And not that I needed further proof that Brad Mulcahy needs to be wiped from the face of the earth, but I sure have it. Sick, twisted fuck. I can’t even imagine what happened to his kid sister.
“I have to go to Abu Dhabi for a few days,” he says with a dramatic sigh. “That oil guy is making me work for my money. But I’ll get right back on it as soon as I get home.”
I thank him and end the call, my mind racing with more questions than ever. I need a fucking drink. Or maybe I need a completely different kind of distraction.
Mia opens the door, her eyes widening when they land on me. “I’m s-sorry.” Her cheeks flush pink and her voice gets quieter. “I thought you were out. I’ll come back later.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mia,” I snap, harsher than I intended, but Lionel’s revelations have me on edge.
She frowns, rolling her shoulders back before stepping into the room. “You don’t have to be so rude. I was being polite,” she replies, her tone clipped. She walks to the pile of boxes where she’s been working, her movements stiff and her whole demeanor cold and detached. Nothing like the woman who’s spent the last few weeks in this house. The Mia I’ve gotten to know is always full of warmth, rarely seen without a smile on her face.
A wave of guilt rolls through my gut. How many times has she forced herself to be a lesser version of who she is to placate a man?
I push my chair back and wander over to her side of the room. She barely glances at me, focusing instead on the pile of books in front of her. “Have you been avoiding me, Mia?” The flush on her cheeks creeps down her neck.
For a few seconds, I wonder if she’s going to brush me off, but she looks me square in the face, full of confidence and a defiance that makes all the blood in my body head south. “I’ve been giving you space, is all. I assumed you were happier working in here alone.”
My jaw clenches. I should tell her that’s true. It should be true. Except it’s not. “Actually, I kind of missed you.”
Her eyes spark with the kind of unrestrained happiness that should make me turn around and walk out of this room without looking back, but I can’t pull my gaze from hers. There’s something magnetic about those hazel-green eyes. But this is strictly platonic. What’s wrong with enjoying the company of a beautiful woman when nothing will ever happen between us?
“You did?”
“I guess I’ve gotten used to your background noise,” I say with a shrug. “It’s quiet in here without you.”
I watch her throat bob as she swallows. “I know I talk way too much,” she says. “Brad hated it. He was always telling me to shut my yammering. Sometimes I think that made me worse.” Her laugh is full of self-deprecation and humility.
That simmering anger bubbles beneath my skin. I fucking hate that her prick of an ex-husband talked to her that way. I hate that he ever made her feel like she’s anything less than perfect just the way she is. “You talk the exact right amount, Mia.”
She sinks her teeth into her full bottom lip, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Now I know you’re just being nice.” She laughs softly. “I’m aware that I’m a chatterbox, so you can tell me if I’m talking too much. I don’t mind, honestly.”
“Maybe I should be a little less of an ass about it in future,” I suggest.
“I really wasn’t avoiding you, Lorenzo. Not in the way you think, anyway. I just thought you didn’t want me in here and this is your space. I’m a guest. Besides, you haven’t been at dinner the past few nights. Were you avoiding me?”
I don’t particularly want to tell her that I’ve been feeling guilty about the way I spoke to her, so I lie. “I’ve been busy.”
“Well, I kinda missed you at dinner,” she says softly, that flush on her cheeks deepening further.
My heart rate kicks up a notch. I clear my throat and change the subject. “Do you know anything about Brad having a sister?”
Her brows pinch together. “No. He doesn’t have a sister.”
“It seems he does. She was a few years younger than him. Looks like she was removed from the home when she was thirteen, but I can’t find the reason.”
Her frown deepens. “Brad never mentioned a sister to me. Neither did his brother or his dad. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. So there was never any mention of her anywhere? Any old pictures with a girl you didn’t recognize maybe?”
She shakes her head. “No. But they didn’t have any family photos. Brad told me his dad burned them all after their mom killed herself.”
“She hanged herself, right?”
“Yeah. So sad,” she says softly. “Poor Brad and Jake never really got over it.”
I tilt my head, cracking my neck. Maybe I should tell her about poor Brad and what he did to his own mother, but it would bring her no peace, so I keep quiet.
Mia stares at me intently, her lips pressed together like she’s deep in thought. “You have any idea where this sister of theirs is?”
I shake my head. “No. Nothing.”
“How strange.”
“Yeah, well families are strange, right?”
She smiles up at me. “Your family is wonderful though.”
“That’s because you’ve only met the nice ones,” I assure her.
That makes her laugh. “I like talking to you, Lorenzo. Or at you.” She grins at her own joke. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a friend.” Tears prick at her eyes, and she gives her head a brief shake.
A friend. The tension in my shoulders loosens a little. That’s all we are and there’s no need for me to fear being alone in her company. I hold out my hand. “Friends?”
“Friends.” She curls her delicate fingers around mine, and I try to ignore the warmth that spreads through my forearm at her touch, curling itself like a snake through my veins.
