Page 70 of Wife Number One

I gasped. “How could you say that?”

Murder was the greatest sin of them all. Was I that obviously bad? That he would assume I could do something like that? Josiah always preached that our sins were visible.

It was why he’d forced me to wear a veil. So everyone else in the commune wouldn’t see how bad I truly was, inside and out.

Hawk shrugged carelessly. “Family is always the first suspect.”

I stared at him, wondering how he could be so kind in one minute, only to be so cruel in the next.

20

GRAYSON

Isquinted at the couple on the other side of my desk, trying to follow the back-and-forth argument.

The man glared at the woman, not bothering to hide the anger in his tone. “Could you be any more of a nag? All you do is complain and whine about my job.” He frowned at me. “A job that pays for all the ridiculous hobbies Mandy has. Do you know how many there’s been in the last year alone?” He started ticking them off on his fingers. “First there was crocheting. Then there was painting. Tennis. Pickleball. Rug weaving. Oh, and let’s not forget when you made me recreate that scene in Ghost with the damn pottery wheel!”

She huffed out an irritated snort. “We were supposed to be trying to date each other! It was supposed to be romantic, but of course you complained about the feel of it, and how you didn’t like that it was cold and sloppy and staining your perfect fingernails.” She too turned to me. “And frankly, I wouldn’t need all the hobbies if he wasn’t sticking his dick in his receptionist instead of coming home at night.”

“Better he stick his dick in his receptionist than in the pottery wheel, I guess,” I mumbled, pretending to write something down on my notepad.

“What?” the woman snapped.

I made a show of checking my watch. “Sorry, you two. Our time is up for today. But this was good. We’re definitely opening up some old wounds that we can work on next week.”

“Clyde is better at opening up the old, withered legs of his receptionist than wounds if you ask me,” Mandy accused.

“Only because your old, withered legs are permanently closed!”

And that was about all I could stomach of them today. I herded them toward the door, reminding them to make another appointment with reception.

Fuck knows they needed it, though there was no doubt in my mind that no amount of counseling was going to help. They were headed straight for divorce court.

I closed the door to my office and slumped down in my chair. Listening to married people fight over the stupidest shit had not exactly been what I had in mind when I’d specialized in psychology. Though it paid the bills so I knew I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

At least that had been the last appointment of the evening.

I opened the email account I’d been neglecting all day and answered a couple of the most important queries, one from another doctor within the hospital needing to confirm a patient diagnosis. Another from a drug rep who wanted a meeting.

I skimmed over the rest of the emails, my finger hovering over the close box, when my gaze snagged on the name of one sender.

My heart rate picked up as I clicked on it and read the short, one-sentence message.

Another body was found last night.

I breathed out slowly and then deleted the message, checking it was removed from the trash folder too. I shut down the computer and gathered my keys and wallet from my desk drawer and locked the office behind me.

My offices were on the psych floor of the hospital but closest to the elevator, so private patients could attend their appointments without wandering their way through the entire floor full of rooms and beds for those here on longer stays. I said goodbye to my receptionist and then stuck my head down the hallway to call a goodbye to the nurses at their station.

I went through the motions, the same as I always did, but my thoughts were already across town.

In the morgue.

I hurried across the parking lot and into my car. Normally after work I would have hit the gym, or stopped somewhere for some food, or maybe even caught a movie. But tonight I drove straight to the ugly building with the “Saint View Morgue” sign attached to the chain-link fence.

I turned into the driveway and stopped my car alongside Ron’s but eyed the unfamiliar plain white van parked on the other side, along with the two cop cars parked by the door.

“Fuck,” I mumbled. Ron hadn’t said there’d be anyone else here tonight. Let alone that there were cops hanging around.

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