Butterface

“If it is your grandpa, he’s been missing for twenty years,” he said. “If this was due to natural causes, he could have been in the attic, taken a wrong step on the joists since there isn’t a floor up there, and slipped into the small space between the walls. At that point, as no one else lived in the home and your grandpa had questionable ties, shall we say, everyone assumed he’d either skipped town of his own accord or was taken care of in other ways. So, the house stays empty for a number of years. How many was it again?”

“Ten,” Gina said. “My mom really held out hope that he’d come back.”

Ford gave her a small smile, then turned his attention to Rocco. “So, by then the natural decomposition—or at least the bulk of it—would have been completed. It usually takes six to twelve years. After that, no decomposition, no smell. Of course, we won’t know any of that until the medical examiner finishes her report and until then, this is considered suspicious and will be treated as such.”

“You’d say all of this in front of our sister, your girlfriend, without even a twitch of revulsion?” Paul asked, shoving his fingers through his hair again. “She’s fucking delicate.”

Gina couldn’t decide whether to strangle her brother or hug him.

“I’m not delicate,” she said, ignoring the other part of what he’d said. “I’m a grown woman.”

“And we’re here to protect you,” Rocco said. “Because you can’t trust the cops.”

Ford’s jaw clenched.

“I can trust him.” The words came out before she could consider the truth of them, but as they hung in the air, she realized it was true. There was just something about him that settled the frazzled worry that always seemed to be buzzing in the background of her head.

Rocco let out a humorless chuckle and strode to the table, planted his hands on the back of one chair, and leaned forward. “Yeah, we’ll see. He’s sure not acting like a boyfriend.”

This time, it was Ford’s turn to shrug. “She didn’t tell you I was moving in?”

“What?” she said at the same time as her brothers, no doubt all with different reasons for the look of horror on their faces.

Ford crossed over to her and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her in close. “It seemed prudent. If your grandfather was murdered, then whoever did it might come back to make sure there wasn’t any evidence, since there isn’t a statute of limitations on murder.”

The scent of his cologne teased her senses while the touch of his fingertips on her hip, over the yoga pants and under the hem of her hideous T-shirt, made her lungs tighten. Ford? Here? No. It wasn’t true. She repeated it in her head. He was just trying to be nice. A pity kindness to get her brothers to chill the fuck out. He didn’t mean it.

Rocco looked from her to Ford and back again. “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, concentrating on the words instead of the butterflies doing the Cha-Cha Slide in her stomach—because Ford being this close and touching her was doing a helluva number on her ability to remember to breathe. “But as you can see, everything is being handled. Why don’t you guys go home? I’ll let you know any updates as soon as I get them.”

Her brothers looked at each other and had one of those silent conversations they’d had her entire life, where things got decided without a single syllable being uttered. Finally, Paul turned to her.

“Okay,” he said. “But call us as soon as you know anything.”

A few minutes of hugs for her and dirty looks for Ford, and her brothers were gone, leaving her alone in the kitchen with Ford while a small army of cops clomped up the stairs to the attic to do all of that crime scene stuff that turned her stomach whenever she accidentally stopped on one of the true-crime shows on TV. Needing something to keep her hands busy, she turned on the burner under the kettle and grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and set them down on the counter. Just because she was about to kick Ford out of her house didn’t mean she was going to be rude.

“You are not staying here.” There. Firm and assertive, but not rude because she said it while handing him a tea caddy with seventeen varieties of green tea. As her mom always said, the little things mattered.