Man With The Muscle. Julie Miller
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suit, inhaling his familiar scents of tobacco and aftershave, sharing the loss with him. Their whole group of friends through high school had been tight, and though their lives and jobs had taken them in different directions after graduation, they’d found a way to keep in touch, trading calls and notes, coming together in times of tragedy like tonight.
“I used to think you were the one.” Harper sighed, recalling the brief time they’d dated in high school. “But when I got back from law school, something about Gretch had changed. She was still as beautiful and fun and goofy as ever, but …”
“She grew up.” She’d seen the new maturity in the once-capricious Gretchen, too.
“I asked her to marry me. We were going to announce it tonight.”
That she didn’t know. Tears welled up in Audrey’s eyes, and she pulled back to touch his face. “Oh, Harper.”
“I saw her tonight. In her bed. Before the cops chased us out.” His red-rimmed eyes were dry now, and a brave smile creased his face. “You know she never gets anywhere on time—she changes her mind about what she’s wearing or can’t find the right jewelry to match. But after the guests had been here for almost an hour, I got worried. I went upstairs to …” His smile faltered and Audrey’s stomach clenched to receive the blow. “She looked so perfect lying there, like she was sleeping. But she … That bastard hurt her. Tortured her. There were marks around her wrists and neck. Her face was … I touched her and she … she was so cold.”
Audrey looped her arms around his neck and hugged him again, hiding her own face against the starch of his collar. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s just like Val all over again.” They’d consoled each other the night Valeska Gordeeva Gallagher had been murdered, too. “Only, I never saw Val’s body until the visitation at the funeral home. I saw Gretch—”
“Shh, Harp. Don’t think of that. Let’s remember how beautiful Gretchen and Val were.”
“You’re right. You’re always right. I can count on you to say the right thing, can’t I?” Someone jostled them in the crowd and Harper pulled away, straightening his tie, breathing deeply, tightening his jaw to keep the tears from falling again. “She’s not coming back. I’ll never see her smile or hear her laugh again.”
With that grim pronouncement, the first tears spilled over onto Audrey’s cheeks. She quickly swiped them away. “Harper—”
“I’d better get back to her parents. The press want them to say something. I’ve been running interference.” He bent down to press a chaste kiss to her forehead. “They’ll be glad to know you’re here.”
Another tear burned in the corner of her eye. She sniffed as her sinuses began to congest. Harper might have sucked it up, but she needed a minute to compose herself. “I’ll be over to talk to them soon.”
“Gotta go.”
He walked away, leaving her shaking. She’d listened and offered comfort without realizing how much she needed it herself. They might not have been the closest of friends anymore, or else she would have known about the engagement—Gretchen had chosen a social path while Audrey had focused on her career—but she had been her oldest friend. And now there was a spot inside her, splitting open, emptying out, leaving grief and regret and helplessness in its place.
Audrey pressed a fist to her trembling lips and surveyed the crowd. She wasn’t going to lose it here. The size of the gathering had nearly doubled with press and police, people who knew the Cosgroves and curious strangers. She couldn’t expect to hold on to her anonymity much longer, yet she couldn’t afford to be spotted as a bawling wreck—not if she wanted to impress her father and his old-school cronies, not if she intended to win the case she’d been assigned this afternoon and solidify her position in the D.A.’s office.
But the tears were burning for release. Hugging her arms in front of her, Audrey ducked her head and shuffled through the crowd, trying to draw as little attention as possible as she desperately sought out a private refuge. Her exposed skin would flush with every emotion she was feeling—a telltale, redheaded curse she’d endured her whole life—and there’d be no hiding the ache blooming inside her.
She shifted directions, deciding she should just get inside her car and drive away. But she stopped when she reached the curb. A camera crew was setting up a remote broadcast post on the opposite side of the street, and they’d recognize her as soon as she walked by.
Her throat raw from the constriction of emotions she held in check, Audrey turned and followed the sidewalk around the fringe of the gathering and just kept walking. Once she realized the voices from the crowd were fading, she stopped and raised her head, pulling her hair back from her face and tucking it behind her ears. She’d nearly reached the neighbor’s house an eighth of a mile away.
There was her sanctuary. Not the house, but the red-leafed hedgerows and iron fencing that ran between the two properties. With the press and police focused at the front of the estate, the side yards were empty, shadowed and blessedly quiet. Audrey glanced behind her to Gretchen’s house. They’d played hide-and-seek together on the massive grounds when they were children, and the memories of Gretchen’s easy laugh and adventurous imagination reignited the grief that was set to consume her.
She needed to get out of here. Now.
She darted around the brick pillar at the corner of the Cosgroves’ fence. Oh, Lord.
The security lights in the neighbor’s front yard flashed on, reflecting off the white gold of her watch band. Reacting like the trespasser she was, Audrey tugged the sleeve of her jacket over her wrist and crouched down between the fence and hedge. The night was conspiring against her efforts to find a private moment to acknowledge her grief and center herself. Maybe she should just curl up in a ball here and let the tears flow.
But that would only add fuel to the paparazzi’s rumor mill if they discovered an assistant district attorney huddled in the mud behind a burning bush shrub outside a crime scene.
“Why didn’t I just stay home?” she muttered. Yet, as her jeans soaked up the chilly dampness from the ground beneath her knee, Audrey saw that she hadn’t triggered the security lights, after all.
Instead, she got a clear look at the culprit. An armed
SWAT cop, wearing a flak vest over his black uniform, was lugging a large metal box to the back of the SWAT van parked in the driveway. Where had he come from? He was grinching to himself, maybe complaining about setting off the lights with his approach.
He set the box on the van’s bumper with a heavy thunk, and the entire vehicle rocked, giving an indication as to the considerable weight he’d carried. The man unsnapped the strap beneath his chin and pulled off his helmet, dropping it to the concrete at his feet before scrubbing his black-gloved fingers over the top of his hair.
For a moment, Audrey forgot about the reporters and the mud and her grief. As he opened the back doors and hefted the box inside, his movements caught the lights in his short dark hair, revealing blue-black glints in the rumpled waves. Was he packing up? Did that mean the house had been cleared? The bomb discovered and dismantled?
He had the doors closed before she could think to move, and now she was forced to kneel there until the motion-detector lights went back off or the officer climbed inside the van. But he didn’t appear to be in any hurry. With his rifle looped casually through the crook of his arm, he slowly turned, taking note of the vehicles in the street, the neighbors scurrying along the sidewalk to get a closer look at all the activity. Apparently oblivious to the approach of winter in the air, he unbuttoned the cuffs of his black shirt and rolled up the sleeves over a pair of muscular forearms. With a simple tilt of his head, he spoke into the microphone strapped to his Kevlar vest.
He was on guard, looking for something or someone, scanning his surroundings, his dark gaze skimming past her hiding spot. Audrey hugged her arms closer to her body and made herself even smaller. Had he seen her? Sensed her presence? She could hide from friends and avoid the