“Good.” Melody chewed on her lower lip, one of many bad habits that resurfaced when she was anxious. She heard Nolan’s shoes click on the sidewalk. “I have to go. The cops are at my place. Somebody broke in today and knocked Teddy out.”
Sam braced an arm on the doorframe, once again glad it was there to hold him up. “Jesus. Is he okay?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Come back here when you’re finished. Stay here tonight.”
“I will … or maybe we should stay someplace else. Something bad is happening, Sam. I don’t know what, but I feel like we should be hiding. Is that stupid? Paranoid?”
“I’m the wrong person to ask about paranoia. You and Nolan came together?”
“Yeah.”
“How is it possible you got a homicide detective with two hot cases to be your chauffeur in your own car?”
“I told you, it’s a long story.”
“She can be persuasive,” Nolan said, mounting the porch steps. “How are you, Mr. Easton?”
“Pretty terrible. Did you speak with Dawson Lightner?”
“We did.”
“And?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Easton, but I’m not at liberty to say anything more.”
“I can read between the lines.”
“This is just the beginning of our investigation.” She looked at Melody. “The police are waiting, Ms. Traeger.”
Melody nodded, then searched Sam’s face. He looked tired, stressed, and the scarred side of his face was blanched. Okay, but not, and her heart ached in empathy. She didn’t know who Dawson Lightner was, but Sam obviously thought he had something to do with Yuki’s murder and Nolan hadn’t shared any good news on that front. “I’ll see you later, Sam.”
“Thanks for coming, Mel. Thanks for giving her a ride, Detective. I still don’t know how you ended up driving her here in her own car, but I suppose I’ll find out eventually.” He broke eye contact for a moment and stared out at the street. “Did you speak with the medical examiner?”
She nodded. “He’ll be performing the autopsy tonight. You can see her anytime tomorrow.”
Melody was horrified, and from Sam’s expression she knew it showed on her face. An autopsy. The thought of someone cutting up your dead loved one. Of course, they’d autopsied Ryan, she just hadn’t thought of it. She reached out and touched his arm. “I’ll come as soon as I can.”
Nolan gave him a nod. “You take care, Mr. Easton.”
Chapter Fifty
“THANK YOU FOR BRINGING ME HERE,” Melody said as Nolan pulled away from the curb.
“No thanks required. You were concerned about your friend—that’s plenty of reason to do a welfare check. That’s a part of every cop’s job, detective or not.”
Melody gazed down at her hands. She’d picked or gnawed away almost all of her pink nail polish during the past twenty-four hours. It was a gaudy color, made more so by the remaining neon fragments stubbornly affixed to her fingernails. She would never ask for Cotton Candy Land again. “You see people’s lives change forever, for the worse, every day, don’t you?”
“That’s part of the job. Helping them is another part of the job. The good part, the best part.”
“Finding the bad guys.”
“Finding justice. We owe it to the living and the dead.”
“Justice doesn’t bring the dead back. But you’re doing the right thing for the right reason. I admire that.”
Nolan looked at her curiously, then returned her attention to the road. “It’s not everything, but it’s something.”
“Do you have any suspects in Ryan’s or Yuki’s murder yet?”
“You know I can’t comment on that.”
“Because we’re persons of interest? Or is that people of interest?”
Nolan remained silent.
“Sam didn’t kill anybody, certainly not his wife. Don’t tell me you think he did.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Traeger, but I can’t discuss active investigations.”
Melody sighed impatiently. “Sam is kind and compassionate and strong even though he’s been through hell and back. And things keep getting worse for him. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Life rarely is, but that doesn’t stop most people from fighting their way through it. It didn’t stop you, and I doubt it will stop Mr. Easton.”
“Do you believe in bad luck? Or good luck?”
“No. Luck is about choices and their consequences.”
Melody gazed down at her shamrock tattoo. “I used to think that, too. But Ryan’s and Yuki’s murders had nothing to do with any choices Sam or I made. It had to do with somebody else’s choices. So I’d say we’re having some bad luck.”
“Fair enough.”
“Somebody asked me today if I liked my job. I said I liked it fine. I do, but it was a choice of necessity. I’m not going to be a bartender forever, it’s just a means to an end.”
“What is your end?”
“I finish college next year, and then I’ll decide. Do you like your job, Detective?”
“I love my job.”
“That’s good. I want to be able to say that one day. What’s going to happen? About the break-in, I mean.”
“The police will investigate, take statements, and you’ll have an active complaint on file.”
“That’s all?”
“It depends on what they find at your apartment. For instance, if there is a threatening note or something to that effect, the police would proceed differently.”
“You mean they’d take it more seriously.” Melody watched Nolan bristle. She always talked too much when she was anxious, didn’t always think about what she was saying, and she’d offended her. But it was true, and the truth hurt sometimes. Most of the time.
“LAPD takes every case seriously,” she finally said crisply, but Melody knew that was just a company line. There was triage in police work just like there was in the emergency room. There had to be; there weren’t enough cops to cover every single person and complaint.
She sagged in her seat, deflated by reality. What was a break-in in LA? Nothing. And if there hadn’t been a burglary, or a threat, it was double-nothing. Just another day in a big city. She would be a name in a forgotten file somewhere and that would be the end—unless her stalker ended up killing her, and then they’d have something to work with.
Chapter Fifty-one
TEDDY WAS SITTING ON THE BACK gate of an ambulance, holding a cold pack to his head. A medical tech was checking his eyes with a tiny flashlight while another one took his blood pressure. There were two squad cars parked on the curb, and beyond, uniforms were having a discussion with Detective Crawford in the courtyard.
Melody jumped out of the car while Nolan joined her brethren in blue. “How are you, Teddy?”
He gave her a pained smile. “I have a thick skull, good thing, too, the son of a bitch hit me hard. No concussion, right, ma’am?” he asked the pretty, pert brunette who’d been plumbing the depths of his bloodshot eyes.