Page 73 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

The Lieutenant nodded. “Do you know if the man whom she had an affair with was…” he glanced down at a tiny notepad and then looked back at me, “Jeremiah Thompson?”

“Bridges?” I laughed at the thought. “I really don’t think so, he was with the club up until he died of cancer a while back.”

“Why does that mean it couldn’t be him?”

“Listen, it just couldn’t.”

“Because the club has rules about members who sleep with other members’ old ladies?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s club business. I don’t know anything about that.”

“You’re an old lady though.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are married to Damon Donovan, otherwise known as Merc?”

“I am.”

“I’m confused.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“That you’re confused,” I said deadpan, but both Barry and Officer Cook chuckled noticeably.

Lieutenant Shaffer sighed and gave me a look that said he didn’t think I was that funny. “Your husband is a member of the Aces High MC, that makes you his old lady.”

“No, it doesn’t. It makes him my husband. It does not make me his old lady. That is something different.”

“I see,” he said, though judging by his wrinkled brow, I didn’t think he saw at all.

“I think my client has answered everything she is going to answer without knowing why she’s here,” Barry finally spoke up as if just remembering that he was my lawyer.

“Some remains were found out on the Thompson Farm after it was sold. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but they were identified as your Mary Ashburn during the autopsy that was conducted.”

“How long?”

“It’s only been a few days, but we were waiting on positive identification before we brought you in.”

“No, how long since she died?”

“We think that she died not long after she went missing, maybe a few months later.”

“She’s been dead this whole time?” How had I not known my own mother was dead? It didn’t seem possible.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he added as an afterthought.

“Does my father know? Has he been told?”

“We haven’t been able to reach your father yet.”

“Okay. You said you did an autopsy. Do you know what happened to her?”

“Did your mother have a problem with drugs?”

I sighed, knowing what the cause of death must have been just from that question.

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