Husband by Choice

And then she’d taken their special money and left him the empty tin. The message couldn’t be any clearer.

Funny how, in that worst moment of his life, he didn’t feel like crying at all.

He just felt dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE LEMONADE STAND was abuzz with anticipation for Saturday’s pool party. Some of the craftier residents were making decorations, some for the kids’ gathering and others for the pool’s christening, which was what they’d decided should be the theme for the party. A pool christening.

Jenna had suggested the theme and also put forth the idea that they use the party as a surprise baby shower for Maddie Bishop. They really wanted to surprise the developmentally delayed woman who cared so much about everyone and spread her perennial joy so freely amongst them.

Maddie’s joy was as valuable to the residents as Sara’s counseling and Lynn’s medical skills.

Jenna attended Wednesday night’s crafting and planning meeting, taking place at a building on the outskirts of the property, and threw herself into the preparations as much as the next woman.

Because she didn’t want to think about anything else.

She’d said goodbye that afternoon.

To the only man she was ever going to love. The only child she was ever going to have.

To the only life she’d ever wanted.

And she knew, instinctively, emotionally and logically that she’d done the right thing.

* * *

MAX ATE DINNER. Then he bathed his son, playing boat and fish with him—a game Meri had conjured up with a plastic bathtub toy, soap and Caleb’s fingers and toes. The boat carries the soap that then jumps out of the boat to fish for things to wash. He put Caleb to bed and rubbed his back until Caleb’s breathing grew heavy, indicating that he was asleep.

He took a shower. Changed from his scrubs into sweats and a T-shirt and went back out to do dishes that had already been done.

Chantel had her laptop open on the table.

“What are you working on?” he asked, a glass of freshly poured tea in his hand. He should have offered her some.

“More record searches,” she told him. “There’s got to be some way to figure out who’s living in that house. Electric was turned on in the name of the company, with the residence as the billing address. But that doesn’t mean he has to be there to get the bill. He probably has it sent electronically.”

“Or he could have it turned off for the time he isn’t there.”

“True. For that matter, maybe he has a generator.”

“Maybe it’s not his house.”

“Wayne has a buddy who is helping him check out other possibilities, one by one,” she said. “Since you, as a private citizen, made a complaint he thinks has merit, against someone who’s being investigated for murder in another state, he’s made the investigation into Steve at least pseudo-official. He’s keeping it quiet.”

Max nodded. Whether his marriage was over or not, he wanted the man who’d made his wife’s life hell taken off the streets.

Meri wanted to be free and he wanted that for her.

“Diane called while you were in the shower,” she said, looking over at him. He hadn’t told her what he’d found in his desk drawer.

“She found a bartender who knew Smith and the dead woman. Said that the woman had told him she wanted to break things off with Smith because he was scaring her, but that she was afraid to tell him, afraid of what he’d do, so she was making plans to move out of state.”

“And the bartender didn’t come forward when she was killed?”

“He didn’t know she’d been killed. It was a car accident. Not big news in Las Vegas. He just assumed he never saw her again because she’d moved as she’d said she was going to do.”

“Is it enough to get her body up?” If they could prove definitively that the woman’s body had been beaten to the point of trauma before she’d gotten in her car...