What I've Done (Morgan Dane #4)(66)

After the final notes faded away, Sharp rattled the ice in his glass. “Haley’s first birthday was a hard day for Eliza. Ted should have been there. He’d been gone about nine months by then. Eliza didn’t have any family in Scarlet Falls, but she threw a party anyway. Some of the SFPD came. I was there early, did the things Ted would have done. Went out for ice and beer. Put burgers on the grill. Eliza did her best to celebrate an important milestone. After everyone left, she put Haley to bed. I cleaned up for her. Then we sat out in the backyard with a couple of beers, not talking, just being sad and missing Ted.”

Sharp drained his glass and stared at the ice. “I don’t know how it happened, but before I could think, I was kissing her, my best—dead—friend’s wife. And I was married then. I felt like a total shit. I didn’t even apologize. I just left.” Sharp shook his head, disappointed. “I felt so damned guilty. It wasn’t even sexual. Not really. Eliza and I didn’t have a romantic relationship. What we shared was pain. There wasn’t anything healthy about starting something between us, and we both knew it.”

Lance picked up his glass and swallowed some whiskey.

Tension radiated from Sharp as he drew in a deep breath. It hissed out between his teeth. “A week later, she called me to tell me she was moving. She needed a fresh start. But I also think she wanted to put some distance between us. It was almost like neither one of us could heal. Whenever we were together, our grief amplified. It’s supposed to be the opposite, right? Friends help each other cope. But not us. We were trapped in some mutually destructive pattern, and she was the one who was brave enough to break it.”

“That was a long time ago.” Lance sipped his whiskey.

“My wife left not too long after that. My marriage was in trouble before Ted died. Afterward, I spent more time helping Eliza and Haley than making any attempt to save my own relationship. But the divorce followed right on top of Ted’s death and Eliza leaving town. There were no shining moments in my life at that time.”

Lance counted the years. Soon after all this had gone down, Lance’s father had disappeared, and SFPD detective Sharp had been assigned the case.

“I assume you lived up to the cop cliché and threw yourself into your work?”

Sharp’s grin was ironic. “You know it.”

Was the fact that his personal life had been in shambles part of the reason Sharp had immersed himself so deeply in Lance’s father’s case and taken a paternal interest in Lance?

Lance didn’t want to think of how his life would have turned out if he and his mentally ill mother had been on their own. Sharp had made all the difference. Once he’d figured out that anxiety crippled Jenny Kruger, Sharp was the one who made sure Lance had a ride to hockey practice. He gave a scared, lonely boy a safe place to stay when his mother had especially bad times. He’d gotten Jenny help too.

He and Sharp had been brought together by multiple tragedies. But as a young boy, Lance had been oblivious to anyone’s pain but his own. Now it seemed that he’d given something back to Sharp.

Sharp sighed. “I promised Ted I would look after his family, but I let them walk away. I never called her. I didn’t check up on them.”

“Eliza was the one who left, Sharp. You couldn’t make her stay.”

“Maybe.” Sharp let out another long breath. He walked into the kitchen and put his glass in the sink. “But I was the one who drove her away. All these years later. I barely know the family I’d promised to protect.”

“Eliza came to you for help. She knew you’d support her.”

The overhead kitchen light created shadows on Sharp’s thin face. For the first time ever, he actually looked his age. “But how am I going to keep Haley out of prison?”

Lance tossed back the last swallow of his drink and got up from the piano. He walked past Sharp on the way into the kitchen.

Slapping him on the shoulder, Lance said, “You’re not alone in this. Morgan and I will do everything we can.”

“I appreciate everything you’ve already done. I hated asking Morgan. She shouldn’t be working.”

“She wouldn’t have it any other way.” Even if Lance didn’t like her working with a concussion either.

“I’m going to head home.” Sharp turned away.

“I’ll be in early tomorrow.”

Sharp nodded. “Me too.”

Lance let him out and locked the door. With an early morning ahead, he took a hot shower and went to bed, tossing and turning for an hour, Sharp’s words on his mind.

How were they going to keep Haley out of prison? And what would it do to Sharp if they couldn’t? Even worse, what if the girl was a killer?





Chapter Twenty-Nine

The sound of glass breaking woke Lance from a dead sleep. He sat up, adrenaline streaking through his veins. Cold air blew into the room, and a sharp scent hit his nose. Gasoline! In two heartbeats, he took in the smashed window, the broken bottle on the floor, the cloth and small flame, the liquid spreading across the hardwood and area rug.

Shit.

Fire erupted with a whoosh. Heat rushed over him as the blaze surged toward the bed. The fire alarm blared, lights flashing from the overhead units.

He swung his legs over the side, grabbed his gun from the nightstand, and rushed toward the door. Leaving the bedroom, he ran down the short hall toward the front door, passing the guest room and a bathroom.