Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead(Finlay Donovan #2)(3)

I turned the key in the ignition, wincing when the engine protested with a sputter before groaning to life.

Vero made a disgusted sound. “We’re going car shopping on Monday.”

“The van’s fine. Your cousin just fixed it.”

“No. Ramón put a Band-Aid on it. Face it, the van is toast.”

I threw my aging Dodge Caravan in gear, praying nothing shook loose and fell off—at least nothing important—as it rattled down the driveway. “I can’t afford to buy a new car right now. Not with Steven and his attorney scrutinizing all my expenses.”

“You could if you took that job on the forum. One hundred Gs would buy a pretty sweet car.”

“We are not killing my ex-husband for money,” I whispered, glancing back at my sleeping children.

“How much do you think we could get for his lawyer?” Vero suggested. I threw her a withering look. “Calm down. I’m kidding. But that transmission isn’t going to last much longer. You’d better get busy writing that book Sylvia thinks you’ve been working on.”

“I know. And I will.” My literary agent, Sylvia Barr, had been hounding me for sample pages of a novel I had supposedly started a month ago and my editor was expecting before the end of the year. “I’ll work on it this weekend. I’ll be at the library anyway.” Vero and I had been taking turns rotating among nearly a dozen branches of our local county library system, careful to delete our search history each time we used their computers to check that no one had accepted the job offer on the forum. A month had gone by without a bite, but that didn’t change the fact that someone wanted to murder my children’s father, and now that Steven had a place of his own, I had no reasonable excuse to keep the kids from him. I’d spend the entire weekend at the library if I had to. I’d scour that women’s forum until I figured out who posted the ad—probably one of countless women Steven had either scorned or managed to piss off. Then I’d make an anonymous call, report the woman’s intentions to the police, and hope like hell this was the end of it.

“I’ll come help you,” Vero offered as we merged onto the parkway.

“Silly for both of us to waste the weekend. Don’t you have any hot dates?”

“Please. You’re getting enough action for the both of us.”

My eyes strayed from the parkway to look at her. Vero had always been the one to lecture me about getting dressed in real clothes and going out. But she’d been staying in more and more lately. With the exception of her classes at the local community college, she’d been content to spend her nights off with me and the kids, watching movies in our pajamas. “Maybe you’d get more action if you left the house once in a while.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What about that guy, Todd, from macroeconomics?”

“Microeconomics,” she said, with an emphasis on micro. “If you’re trying to get rid of me so you can get naked with your boyfriend, I’d rather spend the weekend watching football with my cousin.”

The van swayed a little as I studied her between glances at the road, making the guy in the next lane lean on his horn. “I thought you said your family wasn’t spending Thanksgiving together this year because your aunt is sick.”

“She is. My mom’s taking care of her.” I knew Vero and her cousin were close—she’d been living on his couch before she’d moved in with us—but when it came to everything else about her family, Vero was unusually quiet. In the month she’d lived with us, her family had never called the house, and even though her mother and aunt both lived just over the bridge in Maryland, as far as I knew, Vero hadn’t once gone to visit them.

“If Ramón is home, why aren’t you having dinner with him?”

Vero’s answering laugh was dry. “Ramón’s idea of a home-cooked meal is mac and cheese out of the box. Besides, I’d rather spend the holiday with you.” She turned toward the window. I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me, but as we turned in to my parents’ neighborhood, I opted to let it go. She would confide in me when she was ready. Families were weird sometimes. I should know.

My mom and dad still lived in the same house Georgia and I grew up in, a brick-faced two-story colonial in what had once been a quieter suburb in Burke. My mother swung open the front door as I pulled into their driveway. Her GRANDMAS FIX EVERYTHING apron was speckled with oil and dusted with flour. The mouthwatering smell of roast turkey and stuffing wafted from the house as I roused the children and ushered them inside. Five days each year, I was glad to live so close to my parents. The other three hundred and sixty? Maybe not so much.

My mother frowned at Delia’s hair as she corralled her in the foyer for a hug. The short blond spikes had grown at least an inch since an incident involving duct tape and a pair of scissors, and Vero had combed them to the side before we left, pinning them in place with pink barrettes. “Look how much you’ve grown! It feels like I haven’t seen you in months!”

“You saw the kids last week, Ma.” Diaper bag over one arm and a pumpkin pie in the other, I plunked Zach into my mother’s waiting hands. She wiped a smear of chocolate from his cheek, frowning at me as she kissed it. Nose wrinkling, she reached for the diaper bag.

“Sorry. I changed him just before we left, but we got stuck in traffic.”