Masked Innocence

Nineteen

The call was from Hugo Clarke. Brad took the call from his partner in the living room, and I ate my cold breakfast while trying to redress. I glanced at my watch. Five till seven. I was good on time, assuming that I left in the next twenty minutes.

Brad appeared in the doorway, and I looked up with a smile. My face froze when I saw the somber fix of his features. “What’s wrong?”

“You should sit down.”

I paused, setting down my fork, my mind trying to figure out what Clarke could possibly have said that would have this effect on Brad. “I’m fine standing. What is it?”

“It’s Broward. He was found in the office this morning, dead.”

It took a moment to register his words, and I ran the phrase through my head a few times, the unfamiliar concept fading in and out of reality until my vision began to spot in front of me. Maybe I should sit down. I gripped the counter, reaching blindly out for a stool. Brad was suddenly there, his hand gripping mine, and he led me to a chair, my legs giving out the moment my ass hit wood. “Bullshit,” I finally whispered, a part of me hoping, wishing, that this was his sick version of a joke.

“No.” The tightness of his face made the situation real, and I physically swooned for a moment, fainting now a real possibility. He sat down across from me and held my face, forcing me to look into his eyes, to focus on him.

“Suicide?” I whispered, Broward’s strained face, his obvious stress, all of the signs, signs I should have seen, flooding my mind. Guilt settled on my shoulders, heavy and judgmental.

“No.” He leaned briefly away from me and rubbed his temples. “Murdered. Shot in his office.”

The guilt, for a brief moment, took a hiatus. It might have skipped Julia-town and landed in Brad-ville; he certainly looked as sick as I felt. His face pale, he stared forward, his body tense. Wherever he was, it was miles from here, miles from me. I reached out, touching his shoulder, and he turned to me, our eyes meeting, a sudden connection forming. I fought to stay still, to not react, but the look in his eyes when they met mine—it scared me. His face was dark and brooding, but his eyes? They were intense, fiery. They screamed pure fury, sparks flying from them, his temple jumping, and I realized, my eyes traveling over his body, that he was a tight coil of barely restrained rage.

Rage? Not the reaction I would expect when someone finds out his business partner is dead.

“Are you okay?” I asked softly.

He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and looked at me. And just like that, it was gone. The madness dissipated and he was calm and in control. The transformation scared me more than the fury had. He reached out, grabbing my hand reassuringly. “I’m fine. Just trying to understand it.” He stood, moving away from me, and yanked open a drawer by the door, grabbing his wallet and keys, his back to me.

My thoughts returned to Broward and the unexplainable situation. Murdered. In his office. My mind grasped at straws, trying desperately to convince itself that this was a random act of violence. “Was it a robbery?”

“They don’t know. I have to get to the office. The police want to talk to me.”

“To you? Why?” I stood up and walked over to my shoes, grabbing them and pulling them on.

Brad ignored my question and came up behind me, his strong arms wrapping around me tightly. “Are you okay?”

I turned to him and sank into his chest, gripping his shirt with my hands. “I don’t know. Yeah. No. I’m just trying to understand it.” I looked up into his worried face, searching it, the lines, his mouth, his eyes. They stared back at me, concern and compassion filling them, no hint of the fury that had monopolized them just moments earlier. I didn’t know what I hated more, when his eyes were unreadable or when I didn’t like what I read in them. I wiped away tears that were swelling and stood on my tiptoes, kissing him gently on the lips. “Let’s go.”

Brad turned to follow, his hand finding the small of my back, the slight support appreciated. He grabbed the door, pulling it closed behind us and locking it. “The police will probably want to talk to you, too.”

“Me?” I stepped off the porch, going carefully down the back steps. Why would they want to talk to me?

“Yeah. If he was shot last night, you may have been the last person to see him alive.” He paused. “Other than, of course, the killer.”