Читать книгу Cavanaugh's Surrender - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 7

“Paula, I’m letting myself in with the key you gave me,” Destiny Richardson called loudly as she stepped over the threshold into her younger sister’s apartment. “It’s Destiny, the sister you’ve been ignoring lately.”

Again, she added silently.

She and Paula, her junior by a little more than three years, had finally gotten to a point in their relationship where they were getting along again. Where everything out of her mouth didn’t get Paula’s back up and mark the beginning of yet another prolonged argument that ended up with Paula not speaking to her for weeks at a time. That, mercifully, was now all behind them.

And then, for the past six weeks, it was as if Paula had stepped into a parallel universe. She was available only for a glimmer of time and then she’d disappear again. In between she’d return phone calls late and break lunch dates at the last minute.

Destiny had ridden it out for a couple of weeks, then finally asked her sister if this change in behavior was because of a man. Reluctantly—although she was glowing at the time—Paula had admitted that there was a new man in her life. But she wouldn’t say any more, not even what his name was.

“Not yet, Des,” she’d confided. “I don’t want to jinx anything.” Her eyes had all but danced as she’d added with a big grin, “He’s just too good to be true.”

Paula believed in the old adage that if something was too good to be true, it usually was too good to be true. But she’d bitten her tongue and said nothing, not wanting to jeopardize this new, improved relationship between her sister and her. It felt good to have Paula as a friend again, so she’d done her best to tread lightly and make no demands even though her gut had warned her that there was a problem.

She hated it when she was right in cases like this.

This morning, she’d gotten a text from Paula. It said simply: He left me. Thinking a few choice names directed at the man she’d never met, she’d called her sister almost immediately—and got no answer.

During the course of the day, she’d tried over and over again to reach Paula, using every single phone number associated with her sister. Home, work, cell, all with the same results. Paula wasn’t picking up.

So, right after work, convinced that Paula was taking this breakup incredibly hard, she’d come to her sister’s apartment and used the key Paula had given her for the very first time. She just wanted to make sure that her sister was all right.

She looked around now. Every single light in the upscale, two-bedroom apartment was on.

“You better be home, kid,” she called out, still addressing her words to the air. “Otherwise you’re making the electric company very rich for no reason.”

This was typical Paula, though. Her sister had a habit of turning on all the lights whenever she was depressed. She claimed it helped chase away the hopelessness she felt.

“Paula, where are you?” Destiny called, growing just a bit worried. Her mysterious “perfect” lover must have done a real number on her if Paula was too depressed even to answer her. “He’s not worth it, you know,” she said, making her way through the apartment. “Not worth being this upset over.” She walked into Paula’s bedroom. “If he could leave you just like that, you’re better off without him. He doesn’t sound very stable to me. He—”

For just half a second, Destiny froze in the doorway between the master bedroom and the lavishly remodeled bathroom.

Her heart stopped.

She’d found Paula.

“Oh, my God, Paula! Paula, what have you done?” she cried, racing into the bathroom.

The water in the bathtub had overflowed and spread out onto the tiled floor. The red tinge discolored everything. Her sister was immersed in the tub, and the water was red with her blood.

Paula’s wrists were slashed.

Destiny Richardson had spent the past six years diligently working in the crime lab, at first part-time while she went to college and earned her degree in criminology, then, after graduation, full-time. From the very beginning, she had constantly gone the extra mile, putting in longer hours whenever she had a case.

In short order, she impressed Sean Cavanaugh, the man in charge of the crime lab’s day shift. He promoted her to his chief assistant.

The first cardinal rule for a crime scene investigator was not to move or touch anything. But she wasn’t a crime scene investigator tonight. She was Paula’s sister, and she desperately wanted to save her.

But even as she grabbed her sister, ready to pull Paula out of the discolored water and perform CPR to try to save her, she knew it was too late. Paula’s skin was abnormally cold and clammy.

And there was no heartbeat. Not even a faint flutter.

Paula was dead and had been for a number of hours.

“Oh, Paula, Paula, what did you do?” Destiny grieved, sinking down to the floor beside the bathtub. Water soaked into her clothing. She didn’t care.

Because there was no one there and she had never felt so very alone in her life, Destiny allowed herself to break down for a moment.

Just for a moment.

She buried her face against the knees she’d brought up to her chest and sobbed as if her heart was breaking. Because it was.