I'll Never Let You Go (Morgans of Nashville 3)

“Not exactly. I think Deidre kind of felt sorry for her. Leah is an odd duck. Keeps to herself. Beyond me why Deidre kept trying to take Leah under her wing. And it figures she’d check on Deidre. She’s a worrier.”

“Why’s that unusual?”

“Deidre doesn’t have . . . didn’t have a lot of patience for weakness. It’s why she left her husband. His drinking got to be too much. It’s why she’d have dumped me sooner than later. Leah had that wounded-bird kind of vibe. She told me Leah’s neighbors called the cops right after she moved in. Seems Leah was screaming. Told cops it was a nightmare.”

Nightmares. Defensive stab wounds. “She say anything else about Leah?”

“I asked her once what gives with Leah, but she said something about the sins of the past.”

“Sins of the past?”

“I know, it makes no sense. They only just met. But that’s what she said.”

“You didn’t press.”

“No. She had a way of distracting my thoughts.” He grinned.

Alex’s face turned to stone. “She strike you as the type that would bend the law?”

“Deidre? I don’t think she’d like it, but if push came to shove, sure, I think she’d do it.”

“She ever talk about doing anything shady?”

His spine stiffened, raising him up an inch or two. “No. She never talked to me about work or anything illegal. Shit, the last thing I need is to be an accessory after the fact.”

“All right.” Made sense that Deidre wouldn’t tell David about her work, or any off-the-books work. Made sense he wouldn’t push, unless he thought the information would be of use.

Alex handed David his card. “Let me know if you think of anything.”

“Sure.”

Outside, Alex pulled Ray-Ban sunglasses from his breast pocket and put them on. Deidre had alluded to sins of the past when Leah’s name was mentioned. What the hell did that mean?

Chapter Twelve

Wednesday, January 18, 4 P.M.

There had been no surgeries today and no afternoon appointments so Dr. Nelson told Leah to go home early. “No sense in both of us sitting around here,” he’d said.

She’d volunteered to stay, but he’d insisted she leave, promising her there’d be times in the future when she’d wish for the time off.

And so she gathered her purse and slid on her coat. Keys in hand, she headed toward her car. She’d just reached the car door when she heard the crunch of footsteps. Leah reached in her pocket for the Mace she always kept close as she whirled around. Alex Morgan didn’t flinch, but his gaze dropped to her hand, as if assessing the threat. She eased her thumb away from the Mace’s trigger.

“So how’re you holding up?” He waited for her gaze to meet his.

“Alex. What’re you doing here? You know Rick picked up Tracker today.”

Alex was silent for a moment. “I know. He texted. You always this jumpy?”

She scrambled through her basket of ready lies. “I’m the nervous sort.”

He moved slowly toward her, as if approaching a skittish animal. “You’re relaxed around the animals.”

“I understand them. It’s always black and white with animals.”

“But not with people.”

She arched a brow. “And you think people are black and white?”

He shook his head. “I know they’re not.”

She spoke metaphorically, universally, the way he was talking about her. He saw the grays and shadows that swirled around her like a second skin.

“I get the impression there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye.”

“I can promise you, I’m very boring.”

“You’re not boring.” He moved within inches of her, standing so close she could smell the scent of his aftershave mingling with cold fresh air.

She curled her fingers into fists tight enough to hide her scars. “What’re you doing here?”

A hand slid in his pocket, enough to push his jacket back and reveal the badge and gun behind it. “I did a little digging on you.”

She tightened her hold on her purse strap. “That so?”

“Your neighbors called the cops last month. They said you were screaming.”

She shook her head, remembering the cops pounding on her door. There’d been an officer to the right of the door, a hand on his gun, and two at the bottom of the steps. Another had been in the parking lot. “I have nightmares. They can be pretty bad.”

“Nightmares.”

“Nothing I talk about. I was in my kitchen eating ice cream when the cops arrived. It was embarrassing. I let them search the place because it was clear they were on edge when they arrived.”

“Nightmares.” He spoke the word again, as if he were dropping it into a file cabinet.

“Yeah.”

He waited a beat, but when she didn’t expand on the comment, he asked, “So what brought you back to Nashville? I don’t think we covered that on our . . . date.”

It hadn’t been a real date. She’d been on the verge of a panic attack when the text arrived. “I’m from Nashville. Went to vet school in Knoxville. Moved back for the job.”

“You always wanted to be a vet?”

“Yeah. I like animals. Trust them. Like you said, they relax me.”

“As opposed to people.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He folded his arms as he shook his head. “How’d you get the scars on your palms, Leah? You go out of your way to hide them.”

She resisted the urge to glance at her palms that were now in fists. “I told you. An accident.”

“What kind?”

“You like to push, don’t you?” The crack of temper was a surprise.

A flicker of amusement warmed his eyes for a brief second. “I do. I do indeed.”

Her temper simmered. “Sorry. I’m not worth worrying over.”

“You are. Even if you and Deidre weren’t friends I’d be interested in you.”

“Why?” She’d always wondered what Philip had seen in her. Was it a weakness? A vulnerability? Some men liked that sort of thing.

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“You’ve got grit. You found Deidre’s body, but you held it together. That kind of thing would have forced some people to take a few days off. And yet you’re back at work.”

“What was I supposed to do? Stay at home? I’m better off working.”

A rattle of change in his pocket signaled a shift in mood from somewhat light to dark. His blue gaze catalogued everything about her: breathing, a shift of the shoulders, a moistening of her lips.

“Have you ever met or spoken to Deidre’s husband?”

“No. I know next to nothing about the man. And what I thought I knew, I told you.”

“But she did tell you she was getting a divorce.”

“We talked about it several times. I told you: she said he had a hard time letting go.” This all cut a little too close to home. What had her friends and neighbors said about her after the stabbing? “This feels like a violation of Deidre’s privacy. I know you need answers, but I feel as if I owe her that.”

“Deidre’s privacy is irrelevant. I’m trying to find out who killed her, Leah. Anything you can tell me would be of help.”

Her privacy had been irrelevant after her stabbing. All her mistakes and foolish choices had been laid bare. She didn’t want to do that to Deidre, who had been nothing but kind to her; she didn’t want to repay that by gossiping about her. “Did you talk to David?”

“I did.”

With the car pressed behind her and Alex directly in front of her, she felt boxed in, trapped. “Why did Deidre confide in you when she told no one else other than David?”

“I don’t know. That last day when she spoke about the divorce, I told her I’d been divorced. Maybe she sensed we were kindred souls.”

Divorce. Another word clanged into the file, like an old penny falling into a piggybank. “Nasty divorce?”

Not a path she wished to travel with anyone, especially him. “You could say that.”

“Where’s your ex-husband now?”

“He’s dead. Car accident near Greenville, South Carolina. Four years ago.”

She could tell Alex she’d dropped to her knees and thanked God when she’d learned her ex-husband was dead. But statements like that opened the door to more questions, and she couldn’t bear to have him look at her with piteous, distrustful eyes, as so many had after the stabbing.