Killing Me Softly

She probed his eyes, looking for the emotion behind the words. Was it just anger, or was there also hurt, frustration, even worry? Or maybe a combination of all of the above? He must be going out of his mind with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. And yet she resented him snapping at the friend who had come all the way across the country to help him. “You going to be an asshole the whole time I’m here, then?”

“Probably.”

“Well, just so I know up front. Look, I want to take a shower before dinner, so—”

“Right. Go for it. I’m out of here.”

He turned to go, but she went after him, grabbed his shoulder to turn him around, and then jerked her hand away as if the contact burned. Because it had. His shoulder was even more changed than his biceps. Big and hard, and so very different from her memories of him.

“What do you mean, you’re out of here? You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you?”

He met her eyes, and his face, harsh before, softened just a little. She had to wonder if that touch, no matter how brief, had hit him the way it had hit her. Like a fingertip to bathwater that was way too hot, making you pull it back fast and hiss through your teeth. Making your nerves jump from lazy complacence to screaming awareness.

He sighed and said, “Yeah, I’m staying. And I’ll try not to be an asshole the entire time.”

He almost smiled.

She almost returned it.

“That’s good,” she said. “Because I want to know everything, Bryan. Everything that happened, everything you can remember, including the stuff you haven’t told Josh or the police or your best friend.” She tightened her lips, thinking that she used to be his best friend. Wondering who filled that role today. And why the very thought was like a knife in her chest.

He studied her for a long moment, and slowly something changed in his face. It was as if he were thinking of something troubling, something he hadn’t thought of before. He reached out, and to her utter surprise, he ran his fingertips from the crown of her head down over her hair, to where it hit her shoulder. “Dawn, I don’t know how safe it is for you to get too close to this. Or to me. Hell, I don’t know if it’s even safe for you to be here right now.”

She frowned. “Why?”

Beth called his name from downstairs, and he hesitated, then nodded as if making a decision. “There’s a lot to this you don’t know. But I’ll fill you in after dinner, okay?”

“Okay.” She could have sagged in relief just then. Because for that moment he had seemed like the old Bryan. It had felt as if nothing had changed between them. But only for a moment. As soon as she smiled up at him, she saw the door behind his eyes slam closed. The moment was gone, and he was tense and defensive again.

Beth called again, saying, “Nick’s on the phone, Bryan.”

“Coming,” he called. Then he lifted a hand, a half wave that might have started out as something else—a touch, maybe—before morphing into the kind of halfhearted wave strangers offered one another. “See you at dinner, Dawn.”

She nodded and watched him go, then closed her bedroom door, leaned her head briefly against it and wondered why her heart was contracting into a tiny stonelike lump in her chest and her throat had tightened to the point where it was hard even to breathe.

She was feeling too much. Way too much. And way too soon. But at least she’d forgotten to worry about the dead.

Odd that they hadn’t bothered her yet. She wondered why, then decided it was best to just count her blessings, as she headed for the shower.

Bryan really hadn’t intended to be a jerk. But damn, there was something infuriating about being in the same room with Dawn, and he didn’t think it was due to stress over being a murder suspect.

Now she sat across the dining room table from him, nibbling halfheartedly on her pot roast. She seemed to be ignoring the mouthwatering scent wafting from her plate to her nose. She barely touched the gravy-soaked vegetables and potatoes. She looked as if her mind were entirely elsewhere.

For the first time Bryan wondered if she was seeing someone back on the West Coast. God, what if she was so touchy simply because she missed her lover?

Suddenly he couldn’t stand the smell of the food, much less eat it. He started to push himself away from the table.

“It’s just us here now, Bryan,” Josh said, finally breaking the tense silence that filled the dining room as surely as the aroma of Beth’s continuously simmering potpourri. “You can tell us everything. It’s not going any further.”

Bryan felt the bottom fall out of his stomach at his father’s words. “Tell you everything? What, exactly, is it you think I’m not telling you?”

Josh’s eyes widened, and he shook his head hard. “No, no—”

“God, Dad, tell me you don’t think—”

“I don’t think you did it! I know you didn’t do it, son. That’s not even within the realm of possibility. Come on, Bryan. I know you.”

Bryan felt the sudden weight leave his shoulders a little as he let himself believe his father’s passionate declaration.

“I just meant,” Josh went on, “that you can tell us everything that happened. Everything you remember. Things your lawyer wouldn’t let you tell your colleagues.”

Bryan lifted a brow. “Are you wearing a wire or something?”

Dead silence fell on them like a shroud. Around the table, every eye was glued to Bryan, every expression mortified, especially Dawn’s. Then Bryan shook his head, sighed and said, “I was kidding, Dad.”

“Damn, Bry, this is no time for humor.” But Josh sighed his relief all the same.

“Guess not. But you’re all so damn glum.” Bryan looked around the table, including Dawn in the observation. “Look, I haven’t been convicted yet. Hell, I haven’t even been charged. And I’m not going to be. I have faith in the system.”

Josh stabbed a chunk of meat with his fork. “Yeah, well, I’ve spent most of my life in the system, and I’m not so confident in it that I’m willing to trust my son to it.” He set the fork down, meat still attached, and tossed his cloth napkin onto the table in front of him. “Look, Bry, the only way to ensure you don’t end up being arrested and charged is for us to find out who did this ourselves. And to do that, we need a place to start. The more you can remember, the better off we’ll be.”

Bryan nodded slowly. His father knew his shit. He’d spent years as an agent with the DEA. “I know, I know. But that’s just it. I don’t remember a damn thing. There was the party the night before. Things were getting…a little rowdy, I guess. But everyone seemed to be having a good time. I drank. A lot. More than I normally would have, though I didn’t think I was going overboard all that much.”

Josh’s head came up. “Did they ask you for a blood sample when they questioned you?”

“Yeah. Freaking lawyer didn’t want me to agree to it. But I overruled him. Hell, I’d already admitted to being drunk, so it wasn’t going to hurt to have them know the blood alcohol level. And as for DNA, it was my house. My DNA’s all over it. So I gave it.”

“Good,” Josh said with a firm nod. “So there was the party. And you were drinking. And…?”

“And that’s it. I woke up on the bathroom floor. The house was empty, but I didn’t remember when everyone left. I felt like hell, decided to go back to bed to sleep it off, dragged my ass into the bedroom and found Bette lying there, already cold.”

“I’m so sorry, Bryan,” Dawn whispered.

It wasn’t her words that hit home in his brain. It was the way she reached across the table and gripped his forearm. He looked up fast, met her eyes as his skin sizzled beneath her palm.

“I’ve been so focused on the fact that you’re a suspect in this, I haven’t told you how sorry I am that you lost someone you cared about.”

Her eyes backed up every word. She really meant it. He could only nod and grunt his thanks. She took her hand away, and he wanted it back. Touching her—being touched by her—was something he’d missed more than he’d realized until now.

“I mean it,” she said.

“I know you do,” he replied.

“Nick tell you what he told me on the phone?” Josh asked.

“There was whiskey in Bette’s throat, and in her lungs,” Bryan said softly. “Glasgow Gold, he said.”

“Yeah. Maybe you don’t know what that means, but—”