“Insults. Really.” She pressed the elevator button. “Don’t interfere with this. I want to know everything about Lucy Kincaid.”
“Then step back and watch, don’t question. I guarantee you, Max, that if you give her room to work, you’ll see her shine—and figure out why she’s so damn good at her job.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Lucy watched Max and David leave, then answered Dillon’s call. “That was fast.”
“I have Nelia on the line with me,” Dillon said.
Lucy’s heart pounded. “Nelia?”
“Hello, Lucy,” Nelia said.
“Hi.” Lucy sat down heavily at the desk. Dillon wouldn’t blindside her like this, would he?
“Dillon explained to me what you’re doing, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”
“I—” What did she say? That she wasn’t going to stop? That no matter what Nelia said, Lucy wasn’t turning back? Why would Dillon do this to her? Her stomach twisted in knots.
“I remember Danielle Sharpe. Dillon told me you suspect her in Justin’s murder.”
“Yes,” Lucy said quietly. “You actually remember her? How?”
“How is Andrew?”
Non sequitur, but Lucy took the moment to regroup. “He’s the same. At least how I’ve always remembered him.”
“I mean, how is he now that he’s looking into Justin’s murder?”
“Resolved is the best word.”
“That’s Andrew. He always controlled his emotions better than me.”
Lucy didn’t think that was true—she remembered Nelia as being cool and aloof most of her life.
“Justin’s murder hurt Andrew as much as me. Only, he dealt with his pain and I didn’t. I need to explain something, Lucy, I’ve apologized to you and Carina for the way I treated you both after … after Justin’s murder. But I’ve never discussed it with anyone. When I say that Andrew controlled his emotions I meant it—I didn’t. My emotions controlled me. I didn’t show it, but I lived inside my broken soul. That’s how I felt when Justin died—broken. A million pieces that I couldn’t put back together, so I pulled them all together, one big bag of messy pieces, and carried them around hoping they’d find someway to heal. They did, but not in the right way. It took me years—honestly, until Tom came into my life—before I stopped waking up every morning with my first thought being about Justin. Not the good parts, but losing him. It took a long time before I learned to manage my grief.”
“No one blames you for anything, Nelia.”
“I just wanted you to understand. Mom and Dad still see me as broken.”
Lucy could relate to that.
“Dillon told me what happened the other night,” Nelia said. “I’m so sorry. They reacted that way because they thought I would be hurt. I’m calling them tonight. They had no right to treat you so poorly. Just like I had no right to ignore you for all those years. I meant what I said in my letter before you got married. I admire you, and what you’ve done with your life to seek answers for victims … I couldn’t do that. And I realized when Andrew called you, and not me, that he thought I was still too fragile to handle any news related to Justin. But I can. It’s been nineteen and a half years. I will always miss him.”
“Me, too,” Lucy said and blinked back tears.
“You know most everything about what happened then. About Andrew and me, how I got pregnant in law school, how I knew about his affairs. Sheila wasn’t the first. What you don’t know—what no one knows—is how it was just as much my fault. Andrew tried to make it work, but all I saw was my own failures. That I was pregnant and so was my mother. That I had to get married. I was in a daze, I think, because I knew Andrew and I didn’t love each other, but he tried—he tried harder than I did. Andrew put me through law school. Andrew hated corporate law, but he worked there to make the money to put me through law school because I’d lost my scholarship when I left to have Justin. Mom watched him so I could go to school, then she watched him so I could work. I thought that’s what would fulfill me, but slowly I realized that all I really cared about was my son.
“Andrew and I talked about separating. But in the end, he didn’t want to divorce because his parents had a bitter divorce, and I didn’t want to divorce because I thought it would prove that I was a failure. And we had one thing in common. We loved Justin so much. We thought that love would be enough. We never fought. Never argued. Andrew bent over backwards to help around the house, and I knew part of it was because of his guilt for sleeping around. I didn’t care. What does that say about me?”
“It doesn’t say anything, Nelia,” Lucy said. “Except you need to forgive yourself.”
“Dillon told me Justin’s killer targeted him because of Andrew’s affair. And I knew about it.”
“Do you blame Andrew?”
“Of course not. I never did, because I knew where he was and I still choose to work that night. I could have stayed home. I could have worked from home. I should have.”
“Nelia, what have we talked about?” Dillon interjected.
“I know. I’m doing better.” She took a deep breath.
Lucy said, “Nelia, are you really okay with this? With me investigating Justin’s murder?”
“It’s not going to bring him back, it’s not going to take away the pain, but I can handle the truth. Would you do it even if I didn’t want you to?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Lucy didn’t know what to make of that, but she said, “Danielle Sharpe.”
“It’s odd that I remember her, because I don’t remember a lot about those weeks—months—after Justin died. I remember Danielle not because she was at the house, as Dillon told me she was. I honestly don’t remember anyone at the house, though I knew Mom was there, Carina, Andrew … but I remember her because of the funeral.”
“She was at Justin’s funeral?”
“She came to me in the bathroom and I might have recognized her. I didn’t make the connection then and I couldn’t swear to it now. Same old condolences that everyone else gave me, except … she said she’d lost her son. He’d been eight years old, only a year older than Justin, and when she looked at me I knew she felt the same pain I felt. I don’t know why that made me feel better—it didn’t last, but in that moment I realized that there were other people with the same pain I had. She gave me a note with her name and number and said I could call her anytime.”
“Did you?”
“No. Remember, I was broken. I forgot all about the conversation. I went to see a psychiatrist but that didn’t last. I didn’t want to go. I think I wanted the pain because grief is feeling something, and without it, I would have nothing.
“Then,” Nelia continued, “a year or so later—I can’t swear to the time, I was already in Idaho living in my shell—Mom sent me a package. She was always doing that—cookies, jams she recently canned—”