Let it go to voice mail, fear whispered.

Don’t be a baby. Her grip tightening, she counted the rings. One. Two. Three. On the fourth ring, she answered. “Hello.”

Silence answered her. Long tense seconds passed. She gripped the phone harder.

“Hello?”

No answer.

Her heart kicking into high gear and annoyed, she ended the call. Get a grip.

Still gripping the phone tight, she hurried to her car, slid behind the wheel, and locked the doors. The cold leather seat chilled her bones as she studied the still shadows for monsters.

Starting the engine, she glared at the phone. “If that’s meant to be a joke, Karma, it’s really not very funny,” She said out loud. Her heart raced a little faster. “Shit. I don’t need hang-ups on a good day.”

Distracted, she pulled out into traffic as a horn blared behind her coming from her blind spot. She hit the brakes, realizing she’d nearly driven into a tow truck. Damn.

Sweating, white-knuckled the wheel. The phone rang again, and she jumped. Glaring at the display, she watched the same number flash again. This time she let it ring, gritting her teeth until the phone finally went silent. Without checking for a message, she deleted the call from her phone.

Philip is dead. He is dead.

Chapter Ten

Tuesday, January 17, 8 A.M.

Tyler Radcliff dreamed of Deidre. She wasn’t laughing or smiling. She wasn’t wearing that red bikini he’d liked so much when they’d been in Aruba. Instead, she wore that damn black suit that had never been flattering, and her angled face was pale, gaunt, and bloodless. She’d moved toward him, her long arms extended as she reached for him. He’d tried to jerk away, but those ice-cold fingers connected with his brow, sending shivers through his body. She traced the ridge of his brow and with her lips hovering close to his ear said, “I loved you so much once. What went wrong?”

He jerked awake, his hands trembling and his body drenched in sweat. He rolled on his back and stared at the play of shadows across his bedroom as his hand slid to the side of the bed that had been Deidre’s. The sheets were ice cold. He rolled on his side and imagined her lying there, sleeping, a slight smile on her face.

He smoothed his hand over her pillow, hating that the down was plump and missing the subtle imprint of her head. Dee, how did it turn to shit between us?

With a groan, he rolled out of bed and tugged on a pair of jeans. Grabbing a T-shirt from the floor, he pulled it over his head and padded into the living room, where a half-full bottle of bourbon sat on the coffee table. Pushing an old pizza box off the couch and tossing it on the floor, he reached for the bottle as he dug the remote out of the sofa and turned on the television to CNN Sports.

He drank from the bottle as he glanced down at the wedding album sitting on the coffee table next to an empty bag of potato chips. The book was open to the last shot, taken just before they’d taken off for Aruba. Deidre was wearing a slim-fitting green dress she’d slipped on after the reception and he wore khakis, a white shirt, and a red tie. Handfuls of birdseed flew in the air above them and both had huddled close as they waited for the seeds to drop. Tracing Deidre’s smiling face with a callused fingertip, he drank, savoring the burn of the bourbon as it rolled down his throat.

What the hell had gone so wrong between them?

Their wedding day had been simple but beautiful. No fancy churches or reception halls for them. A small, intimate ceremony had suited them just fine.

He flipped several pages back to the picture taken before she’d walked across the grassy field toward him and the preacher. Curls peeked out from under her white veil, and she’d been so damn pretty he’d thought himself the luckiest man in the world. Later, at the reception, his hands had trembled just a little when he’d reached up under her skirt and removed the blue garter, which he’d tossed toward the single guys. In those days, he could barely keep his hands off her.

Hell, he’d never tired of Deidre in bed. She was wild and didn’t mind keeping it fresh and fun. Even right up until last fall, when he’d found the emails to the other guy, he was hot for her.

But the emails had struck him right in the face, like a sucker punch. Initially, he hadn’t been able to breathe, too shocked to think. Then slowly, as he reread the emails through the night, his frozen emotions had warmed to sadness and then heated to anger and rage.

If she’d walked in the door that day, he’d have killed her right then. No questions asked. For hours, he’d clenched and unclenched his fist as he imagined what it would feel like to wrap his hands around her neck.

He hadn’t told her he’d found the emails at first. Instead, he’d become obsessed with finding out the name of her lover. He’d taken to following her until the late fall day when he’d seen her dart into a trendy café in Franklin and sit down with a cup of coffee. She’d only been at the table a few minutes before a man had entered the shop. She’d risen immediately, and when he approached her, she had hugged him warmly.

Deidre had once hugged Tyler with that kind of passion.

Shit. He reached for the bourbon bottle and drank heavily. He set the bottle down.

The TBI agent had mentioned Leah Carson, Deidre’s new friend. He’d known the two had grown close but now wondered what secrets Deidre had shared with her. He didn’t need her feeding the cops stories about his troubles with Deidre. Still, as a cop he understood it was better to keep his distance from her. Better to let TBI do its thing and let the whole deal play out.

Better.

Smarter.

But the man didn’t want to hear the cop’s advice. If Deidre had been here, she’d have talked him out of what he wanted to do. But Deidre wasn’t here.

He staggered to his feet and made his way across the living room, littered with dirty laundry, and sat down at his computer. He’d bought it a few years back so he could log into the office and work from home if need be. No one would have expected an old rusty guy like him to take to the computer, but he had discovered a natural talent for all things cyber. He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and picked up the phone.

He dialed a familiar number, a contact of his in the Nashville Police Department. The phone rang twice before he heard a gruff, “Officer Gilroy.”

“Gus, this is Tyler Radcliff.”

“Tyler.” His tone carried a heaviness that told Tyler that word of Deidre’s death had made its way through the department. Made sense. Cops talked, and the loss of an officer hit everyone hard. “How the hell are you doing, man?”

“I’m hanging tough. It’s not easy, but I’m keeping it together.”

“That’s about all you can do, I guess.” He and Gus had attended the academy together twenty years ago. They’d had their share of fun, tearing up the bars on Broadway, and chasing their share of skirts. Gus had been one of the groomsmen at his wedding.

“I need a favor.”

“Sure, man. Name it.”

“I’m going to need pallbearers. Could you help me out?”

“Shit. Sure, anything you want. When’s the funeral?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. He was still Deidre’s legal husband, and seeing as her parents were dead and her sister was a real flake, the funeral duty would fall to him. Despite all their problems, Tyler had loved Deidre and would see her properly buried. “Deidre is still with the medical examiner.” The idea of her lying on a cold slab, her naked body exposed for all to see, bothered him. He should have reveled in her postmortem humiliation, but he didn’t. There’d been a time when he’d imagined they’d grow old together, die quietly in their bed.

He’d never imagined her cut up like a cheap piece of deli meat.