Can't Hardly Breathe (The Original Heartbreakers #4)

Maybe...maybe Harlow had returned to her bullying roots?

As soon as the suspicion formed, Dorothea disregarded it. No way. The expectant mother had changed, and she loved her work. She wouldn’t destroy it.

Jessie Kay loved Daniel like a brother and wouldn’t hurt him by hurting Dorothea.

Daniel wasn’t the kind of man who sneaked around.

Carol hated what Dorothea was doing to the inn, but she hated conflict more. Besides, she wouldn’t sabotage her own daughter. Well, not with anything more than gossip. And Holly wouldn’t hurt her this way. Like Daniel, she didn’t operate in the shadows. She took credit for her work. The good and the bad.

Someone must have picked the lock, then. Jazz? Charity? Or maybe someone Daniel had dated, who was ticked at Dorothea for winning him long-term? Or longer term.

But how would that someone have entered the inn and walked the halls without anyone inside the inn noticing? Or the new security system alerting Dorothea’s phone?

Okay. So. She had to rethink her list of suspects.

Jazz and Charity were at the top. Jazz could have trashed the room, returned to his own and waited for Dorothea to discover what he’d done. Then, when she screamed, he could have...what? Comforted her in her time of need?

Charity could have done it out of spite.

Another sob racked her, defeat swamping her. Don’t think I can pick myself up this time.

Just when she’d thought her life was on the right track, happiness finally within her reach, this happened. Something else to knock her down.

This isn’t who you are anymore. You will get up and fight!

Yes, but who or what was she supposed to fight?

Start with the misery. Then—the culprit. Whoever committed the crime must do the time.

She quieted. Her puffy eyes burned, and her nasal passages were so swollen she had to breathe through her mouth, but she stood on shaky legs and marched into the hall.

Daniel rounded the corner and stalked toward her, his expression dark and fierce. He held a laptop so tightly his knuckles were white. Despite the menace surely flowing through his veins, he stopped beside her and gently smoothed the hair from her damp cheek.

“You need to see this, sweetheart.”

The endearment struck her as odd, even though he’d used it and others many times before. But her head hurt, and she couldn’t quite reason out why.

“You know I’ve been working on your security,” he said as he led her back inside the room. He placed the laptop on her desk.

“Yes.”

“I put cameras in every hallway.” He typed as he spoke, and video feed popped up on the screen. “Last night, Holly showed Jazz the theme room. They were inside three minutes, twenty-two seconds. She shut the door when they left.”

“Jazz went back,” Dorothea said on a gasp. The bastard!

“No.” One word, but he’d never sounded more ominous. “But Holly did, soon after Harlow left for lunch.”

No. No! “She wouldn’t.”

Except, on the screen, she watched as Holly entered the theme room alone, a kitchen knife clutched in her hand, her features tight with determination. She stayed inside five minutes and fifty-one seconds. When she left, she was covered in paint splatters.

Dorothea was the next person to enter.

Sickened, she clutched her stomach. “Why would she do such a thing?” She asked the question, but the answer was obvious. Why else? To hurt me.

Maybe Daniel’s rage was contagious. One second Dorothea was miserable, the next she was livid, her blood seeming to boil. How dare her sister strike at her like this! Like a good-for-nothing coward. How dare her sister strike at her at all. She’d been hurt enough.

Once again she marched into the hall. Daniel latched onto her wrist to stop her, but she wrenched free and hurried down the steps. At Holly’s door, she knocked with so much force she thought she might have cracked the bones in her hand.

Daniel remained behind her, silent.

Holly appeared, and it was clear she’d been crying, her face as red and puffy as Dorothea’s. She still wore her paint-splattered clothes.

“You...little...brat.” Dorothea threw the words at her sister as if they were weapons. “You’re selfish, spoiled rotten and malicious.”

Holly didn’t waste time with false denials. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry! Do you know how many times I’ve apologized to you for going to college like a normal teenage girl? For not wanting to call you when all you ever did was curse at me? How about I forgive you the way you forgave me, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” her sister repeated.

“You wanted to hurt me. Well, congratulations. You’ve hurt me.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I j-just wanted J-Jazz to comfort you. I wanted Jazz to help you repair the room so you guys would get b-back together and—”

“Get it through your stubborn head. I will never get back together with Jazz.”

Carol must have heard the commotion, because she rushed out of her room...and froze. “Girls?”

“Shut up, Mother,” Dorothea snapped. “Go back inside. Or do you need more gossip to spread?”

“I...I thought I was helping you. People needed to know what you’d suffered.”

“Shall I tell everyone what you’ve suffered?”

Paling, Carol backed up a step. “You’re upset. We’re all upset. Let’s walk away and calm down. Okay? All right?”

Jazz and Charity raced down the hall.

“Listen to me, Dorothea. Jazz is sorry for what he—” Holly said.

“I don’t care!” Dorothea screamed. “You have no idea... You can’t imagine...” Another sob welled up and tried to clog her throat, but she gulped it back. She’d been a punching bag most of her life, and she was sick of it. “I can’t look at Jazz without remembering everything I’ve lost.”

“Everything you can get back,” Holly said quickly.

“No. No! He can’t give me back my baby. My Rose Holly.” The words slipped out before she could stop them, but she’d been pushed past the point of caring. “She was dead and buried before she ever had a chance to live. And do you know why? Because I caught Jazz having sex with Charity and ran away. I tripped down a flight of stairs and killed my sweet baby girl.”

With a gasp of horror, her sister reeled backward. “You named her after me,” she whispered. “I knew you were pregnant, knew you’d lost the baby, but I didn’t know... I didn’t know!”

“It shouldn’t have mattered!”

Carol reached for Dorothea, but she sidestepped, widening the distance between them. Accepting comfort was beyond her right now.

Jazz hung his head with shame, and Charity openly cried. Only Daniel remained stoic, as if untouched by the proceedings. And yet in his eyes she saw a fury to rival her own.

“I blame Jazz. I blame Charity. Mostly, I blame myself.” Pain ruled Dorothea, and now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop. “Rose would have been a year old now. Or eight months if I’d carried her to term.”