A Widow's Guilty Secret by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page A

me, told me what was going on.”
    “Maybe he just didn’t want to burden you—or get you involved,” Nick told her.
    But she was already involved. She was his wife and this was where the words for better or for worse came into play.
    Had she failed Peter?
    She couldn’t think about that now. If she let herself get mired in guilt, she wouldn’t be of any use to Andy and right now, he was her top priority.
    Replaying the detective’s words in her head, Suzy suddenly realized something. With a now fresher-smelling Andy in her arms, she turned to look at the man who’d forced her into all this introspection.
    “I take it that by saying that, you no longer find me to be a—how do they put it?” she asked, searching for the right terms. “A person of interest?” she recalled.
    He wouldn’t exactly say that, Nick thought. Not by a long shot. But since he didn’t mean the phrase the same way she meant it, he refrained from making a direct comment on her question.
    Even if he did find her person to be of interest.

Chapter 4
    A fter a beat, Nick realized that the sheriff’s widow was still waiting for an answer. “For now,” he told her, “we’re moving on.”
    “For now,” she repeated.
    Did that mean that he really did suspect her? The idea was utterly insane to her, but obviously not to him. The last thing she needed or wanted was to have that hanging over her head like some sword of Damocles. If nothing else, she wanted this absurd notion to be cleared up and gotten out of the way.
    Now.
    “Does that mean you’re planning on revisiting your assumption that I had something to do with my husband’s—” She couldn’t even bring herself to say the word murder, much less contemplate the horrid act. How in heaven’s name could this solemn detective possibly think she caused Peter’s death? “Just for the record, Detective Jeffries, I draw the line at killing anything larger than a swarm of ants.”
    “Ants,” he echoed, nodding. The barest hint of a smile threatened to curve his lips. “Can’t stand them myself,” he told her by way of agreement.
    For a moment Nick watched her as she stood holding her baby, swaying to and fro ever so slightly to soothe him and keep him quiet. Unless he missed his guess, those were tears causing her eyes to glisten like that. He had a gut feeling that they were genuine, which in turn made him feel guilty for his questioning.
    “Do you have anyone you’d like me to call?” Nick asked, his voice a great deal less stern than it had just been.
    Her mind in turmoil, Suzy tried to make sense of the question. “You mean so you could question them about my marriage?”
    Maybe he had been a bit too harsh on her. But damn it, it was his job. He had to eliminate potential suspects, take in motives, opportunity and all the rest of it. Spouses killed their other halves more often than not.
    Even so, he could feel guilt weighing heavily on him. And that was new. Cases—and the people involved in them—didn’t, as a rule, get to him.
    This woman was different. He’d sensed that even before he’d carried her into her house.
    “No,” he explained. “As in getting someone to come and stay here with you, maybe help you out with the baby while you try to pull yourself together.”
    She tossed her head, her long blond hair flying over the shoulder that wasn’t currently occupied by her son. “Newsflash, Detective Jeffries, I am together.”
    Detective Jeffries sounded so formal, and although he usually liked maintaining that wall between a potential suspect and himself, he didn’t this time.
    “Call me Nick,” he told her.
    “Doesn’t matter what I call you, ‘Nick,’ my answer’s still going to be the same,” she informed him.
    He knew he should just back off. That any more interaction with this woman would get him in deeper. He didn’t want that. But somehow, he just couldn’t make himself walk away yet, not when she looked as if the whole world had just exploded