For some reason, this made her laugh. “I doubt it. I think your men are afraid of me. Not that I blame them. I wasn’t exactly nice to them.” She burst out laughing as if it was the most hilarious thing she’d ever said. “I’m sorry. I was mean to them.”
“You were mean to my men?”
“Not on purpose. Well, not entirely on purpose.” She chuckled.
He got her in the car and rounded to the driver’s side. “Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on? Why you would put yourself in danger? Why you … passed out? Tell me.”
She looked past his shoulder and shook her head. “No, please, take me home. It’s not safe here.”
He didn’t question her. There was no point.
Turning over the ignition, he pulled away from the curb and drove all the way home. He tried to make small talk, but Jenny was far too shaken.
When they arrived at their apartment, he noticed the odd way his men behaved as he passed. Almost as if they were recoiling from her, and he couldn’t stand that. There was nothing wrong with Jenny, other than what others thought.
Gritting his teeth, he kept his thoughts to himself and followed her inside the apartment. He tossed his keys onto the counter. There was no way he would be finishing his interrogation tonight. Not after what he’d just witnessed. His wife needed him here, and this was where he was going to stay.
After putting his jacket on the coat hanger, he went to his wife, who was in the process of downing a glass of water. She turned the tap back on and filled it back up.
“You want to tell me what the hell was going on back there?” he asked.
“I will, but first I need to drink. Then shower, and I need to eat.”
Her hand shook.
“Has anything like that ever happened before?”
She paused in her drinking. “No.”
Liam watched her, seeing the edge of fear in her eyes. Something bad had happened. She finished drinking her third glass of water, when finally, she focused all of her attention on him.
“Did you know there was a little girl in that fire?” she asked.
He tensed up.
The fire department had made claims that the remains of a young girl had been found. He thought they had to be lying.
“There couldn’t be,” he said.
She smiled. “She was there tonight. Her mother had gotten out of the fire. Not this little girl. There were six victims, right?”
“Yes.” The press were only reporting five. He had contacts very high up. The fact this even got to the press pissed him off.
“You haven’t come home,” she said, walking toward him.
She surprised him by gliding straight past him.
“Jenny, you know how this is,” he said.
She stopped on the way to their bedroom and turned toward him. “And you know how it is for me as well. I’m here waiting around for you. You think I don’t know what’s going on. You’re off torturing someone who could be completely innocent. That’s how it starts.” She growled. “Why am I even talking to you about this? You clearly don’t care. Your own men are so easy to manipulate.” She went into their bedroom.
He wanted to go out and beat the shit out of the men, but he followed his wife. His father had once told him to always follow the wife. Nothing good ever came from not following the woman.
“Jenny, don’t keep walking away. Do you want to tell me why you left the apartment?”
“If it had occurred to you to even call your wife in the last three days we’d been married, you would have known that I was visited by three of the six people who died in that fire.” She glared at him as she removed her clothes.
“You were?”
“Yes. It would seem the people who died had heard of me.”
“You saw the little girl tonight? Is she the one who made you pass out?”
“No, she didn’t. My grandmother was responsible for that.”
“What? Huh?”
“It’s a little confusing, but it’s not when you actually think about it. I don’t want to talk to you right now. I’m so pissed off.”
“Well, back up. Let me process what you’re pissed at.”
“I’m pissed that rather than come home in the last three days, you’ve spent it hurting people, Liam. You’ve not once come to check on me. It’s like you’ve completely forgotten that you’re married.” She held up her finger that displayed the wedding band. “We are married.”
She turned on the shower and climbed beneath the spray, screaming as the cold hit her.
Liam wasn’t done with this conversation. Stripping out of his clothes, he climbed into the shower too.
Jenny continued to glare at him.
“You can be pissed at me all you want. I don’t give a shit. I’m not leaving this. Not once. I fucked up.”