Once Upon a Marriage

Liam swore. “My tires are slashed?”

“Only one of them. Probably would have been all four if th

e guard hadn’t heard something.”

“Thank God it was your car and not you.” Sitting directly behind Liam, Gabrielle leaned forward and ran her hand along the side of his neck, a tender move that belied her somewhat harsh tone.

It wasn’t Liam who’d raised Gabi’s ire. Marie knew that much for sure. Pity the guy who was behind these threats against Liam. An attorney who didn’t take no for an answer, Gabi would see the sod prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law once he was caught.

“You think it’s the same guy who spray-painted his car in the park?” Marie was looking at Elliott in the rearview mirror. Could see the serious expression on his face as he focused on the road. Dusk was quickly falling.

“Could be. The police haven’t been able to link either the car or the letters to each other, let alone to an actual person,” he said.

“But then with budget cuts it’s not like they can afford to put this at the top of their lists,” Gabi said. “Not when it’s just car vandals and anonymous notes without a threat to life.”

“Striking a guard will up the offense,” Elliott said, to which Gabi nodded.

“So you think a detective will give this more time now?” Marie asked. She wasn’t sure she liked that idea, either.

It made the whole thing seem so much more ominous.

“I think they’ll be looking harder for a connection between the incidents and, yes, probably assigning more hours to the task.”

“So you think there’s more than one person behind all of it?” she asked. Because chattering was what she always did when she was upset. Or in a good mood. Or bored. Or interested in something. Or...

“I hope to God not,” Liam said. “But you can’t blame people for being angry. George robbed them of their life savings, some of them. And though they’re going to get it back, some of them have already been foreclosed on. We can’t give them back their credit.”

In the olden days, Marie would have touched him, squeezed his hand or patted his shoulder for saying such a thing. Before he was Gabi’s property. Now she just smiled inside, loving that he was one of them.

“I’d like to believe there’s only one guy working alone,” Elliott said as he stopped at a red light. Her gaze met his in the falling darkness as he glanced back in his rearview mirror. “Anonymous notes and car vandalism, he’s showing a pattern of staying in the shadows.” He didn’t sound worried. But he clearly wasn’t happy about the evening’s turn of events.

She nodded. The light changed and he moved on. Gabi squeezed her hand and she held on.

The streets and sidewalks were buzzing. Friday night on the town.

With someone out there wanting to hurt Liam. Possibly watching them.

Shivering again, Marie looked at the immense spread of Elliott’s shoulders. And was glad she was with him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ELLIOTT WASN’T NEARLY as much fun to be with when he was working. Or maybe it was just the night. Marie ordered her favorite—filet mignon. She drank part of a glass of wine. Loved the windowed table in the eighteenth-floor restaurant.

She was with the people she cared most about in the world.

And none of them seemed to be having the time of their lives.

She told Gabi and Liam about Gordon. About Edith and Grace. And Grace telling Edith not to “bother the kids.”

“Sounds to me like there’s something a little more between Edith and Gordon,” Elliott said, cutting his steak, but looking around him as he did so.

“Edith and Gordon?” Marie and Gabi said in unison.

“He’s ninety, she’s seventy,” Liam told the other man.

“And?” Elliott’s attention was on the conversation, and yet it felt as though he wasn’t really with them. He hadn’t made direct eye contact with her once that night. Not even when, at the hotel while they waited together for the elevator to take them to the restaurant and Liam had walked Gabi over to look at the menu, she’d told him that she was really glad that no one had been hurt at the school earlier that day.

The elevator door had opened and it wasn’t until later that she’d realized he’d never responded.