Her Detective's Secret Intent

Glancing at Miranda, he was struck by the lack of emotion on her face. It was as though she wasn’t there with them.

And then he saw the whiteness of her knuckles against the seat of her chair.

“She accused me that night of abusing her,” the man said. He had Tad’s attention. “Said I’d been getting away with it for years, but that it was going to end right then. That her son wouldn’t grow up as she had.”

“Had you been abusing her, sir?” Chantel’s question was nonjudgmental in tone. They were having a conversation. Tad’s interrogation skills tended to go in another direction.

“Of course not.”

He turned to Miranda. “Did I ever, ever raise a hand to your mother?”

“No.”

“And did I ever, ever even look like I might raise a hand to you or speak to you in anger while she was alive?”

“No.”

He looked back at Chantel. “I’m telling you, these delusions started after my wife died.”

White knuckles against dark wood. They stayed in Tad’s peripheral vision.

“When she first went missing and I was out of my mind with worry for her, I called her psychiatrist. Told him what she’d said. He suggested to me that since there’d been no abuse in our home, chances were good she’d suffered it elsewhere. Said it didn’t sound like something she’d just made up. We came to the obvious conclusion that i

t was her ex she’d been afraid of. That she was, in her own confused way, trying to tell me something. That she’d said the guy was dead because she’d wished him to be.”

One hundred percent focused, Tad was aware of every crack on the wall, the floor, the scars on the table. Every line on the chief’s face.

And those knuckles. Still white.

“You told Tad when you hired him that you’d had recent word that her ex was dead,” Chantel said as Tad was reaching a point of no longer being able to hold his silence.

His time would come. When he knew it all.

O’Connor bowed his head, then met Tad’s gaze. “I lied to you about that,” he said. “I didn’t know. I wasn’t even sure who he was. I suspected it was that kid she’d hung out with, talked about a time or two, but I never met him. Or knew his name. But I knew about you. Your reputation. And when events happened in such a way that you were out of work, I looked into your record more completely. I knew that if anyone could find my kids, you could.”

“You were willing to put them at risk of an abuser possibly finding them through my search? Of me leading him to them?”

“I knew that wouldn’t happen. You’d be there every minute, until I could ascertain enough about her mental state to come myself. You’d keep them safe. You always do. Keep those you’re protecting safe. You’d give your life if you had to. Because of your sister. Because of Steffie.”

He sucked in air at the mention of his sister’s name. The man was right. He’d have given his life to protect Miranda and Ethan.

“At the same time, I was doing everything I could to locate Jeffrey’s father. You telling me that she’d named the boy after his father—that was my big break. Once I had a name, I could go to Asheville and learn about any Jeff who might have spent time with my daughter.”

“That’s how you got the coroner’s report,” Tad said.

Opening his folder, O’Connor pulled out the original. Along with a death certificate. Cause of death, overdose. Not car accident.

Tad glanced at Miranda. Like a recalcitrant child, she sat quietly, allowing the three of them to talk around her.

“You told me he died because of a car accident,” he said, expecting her to ignore him.

Instead, with eyes that had little life in them, she addressed him. “It was an intramural football injury, actually. And an overdose. He’d been told he only had a couple of months to live. He knew it wasn’t going to be long enough to see his baby born. So he mixed his pain medication with alcohol and some over-the-counter sleep aid, leaving a note so that I’d understand he wasn’t running out on me, but was preventing me from having to care for him at the end. He’d said he was also providing for us financially, in that he wouldn’t be eating up what money he had left on his medications and medical care. He left it for me, instead.”

Tad wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Had no basis with which to make that decision. Just as Miranda no longer had reason to lie.

Chantel was allowing him the floor, so he turned back to O’Connor. “Why now?” Tad asked, wishing to God he could know what Miranda was thinking.

“Because I was diagnosed with mesothelioma. Time was up. I couldn’t go without knowing they were okay. Without seeing them. Without letting her know they were set for life, financially. Without having a chance to teach my grandson some things about being a man.