Chapter 5

5

Detective Trace and Officer Miller were decent cops, Gene decided. But the man glowering at everyone behind the pretty blonde Miller was a total asshole.

Detective Wright had a real ax to grind.

But was it against the Hillers or the Fieldses? Gene couldn’t tell, but he answered the questions to the best of his ability.

The woman had been killed around thirty hours before she’d been discovered. He’d been at kindergarten roundup, signing his son up for his first year of school to begin in August. That had been confirmed easily enough. All of his brothers had alibis, as did Chad. The girls had all four been together somewhere, including Chantal—with her niece and sister-in-law. Since that sister-in-law had been with TSP until she’d left to stay home with her twins, and Charlie’s daughter was still TSP forensics, the girls had been cleared rather quickly.

That wasn’t good enough for Detective Wright, who just kept pushing. Gene just answered the guy’s questions as honestly as he could, but he didn’t give extra. Not with that guy’s attitude.

Finally, Charlie called enough, after Gene had answered the questions a good fifteen times, at least.

Charlie looked at Gene. “You can go ahead and go, Gene. And take your family home. Lake and I’ll calm George and Giavonna down in a minute. Before they sue Major Crimes for everything we have in the budget.”

Gene stood. “I’ll do that. How is Chantal getting home? Your parents?”

“Rory and Charlotte are going to follow them home. Chantal is driving our parents. They’ll have questions about what will happen next. Call me if you think of anything else.”

He would. But Gene just wanted this taken care of so life could get back to normal. And so whoever had hurt that girl got what they had coming to them.

She hadn’t deserved to be left there like that.

Gene followed the Fieldses to the parking lot. Chantal was talking to her sister-in-law nearby. His eyes were drawn straight toward her. Hard not to be, with the fire that was her hair.

Gene had noticed that before. He’d always known when Chantal was around.

Chantal turned, and the sunlight shot straight through all that red fire. Beautiful.

She smiled—the most perfect smile he had seen in a long time.

His body tightened with masculine interest in a woman for the first time in years. Since his wife had left him, after telling him that the baby he loved so much wasn’t even his, and Gene could just go ahead and keep him so she could be free. That he wasn’t much of a man, after all.

He just stopped and blinked. This was crazy.

This was Chantal.

The woman who had also told him he wasn’t much of a man, in her opinion. Spitting fire right at him, telling him he wasn’t even half the man his brothers all were. Of course, from her... he’d known it was true. That was why it had gotten under his skin so damned quickly.

He wondered if six years had possibly changed her mind.

He was different now. He wasn’t the same asshole he’d been becoming back then. Not at all. He wanted Chantal to see that.

Gene didn’t know why that mattered so much to him now, but it did. Maybe because... the dead woman in his field had reminded him of one thing.

Life was fleeting.

All they really had were the people they cared about, and who cared about them in return. He’d let Mandy drive Chantal away. Now, he regretted that. It was time to fix that regret.

Maybe by fixing this one thing, he could get started on fixing everything else that still hurt so much.