Page 54 of Skeletons in the Closet

Tallus, astute as always, shifted to face me. “D, it’s fine.” His voice was soft and soothing, and I didn’t deserve it.

I stared at the motel room door, wishing I had a smoke or the stupid fidget toy because I needed something to do with my hands. I was constantly leaving the ridiculous contraption behind and regretting it. I should buy a second one to leave in the Jeep. That was what I would do. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I would…

“I shouldn’t have touched you like that,” Tallus said. “It was my fault.”

“It wasn’t.” I gritted my teeth. It wasmyfault.Myugly genes were responsible. No amount of therapy had helped. This proved it. I was my father to the core. I would always be my father. Angry and reactive. Prone to violence. They should lock me up and throw away the key before I hurt someone.

Tallus shifted and sighed. We didn’t talk for a long time. The rain fell, washing out the night and my mood.

“Do you think Sean suspects Beth is cheating?” Tallus asked later on.

“Maybe.”

“Do you think Noah felt threatened by Sean?”

“Possibly.”

“He’s clearly aggressive. If he discovered something untoward about his wife, he could have approached Noah. Maybe Sean threatened to kill him. Hence the artillery Faye discovered.”

I grunted. It was a good theory. I’d grown an instant dislike for Beth’s husband.

“Maybe Olivia knows her friend’s husband is abusive, and that’s why she has a bodyguard now. Maybe Sean made threats against her too. Maybe Olivia facilitated the cheating.”

I grunted again.

Tallus sighed. “It’s going to be a long night if you don’t open your mouth and talk every once in a while. We should break this down together. I need your thoughts. You’re the professional. How is this guy involved?” Tallus gestured to the motel room.

It took a second to find my voice. “I don’t know.”

“We should take down license plate numbers for the cars in the lot. One of them must belong to him.”

“We’ll wait and follow him when he leaves. Figure out who he is and where he lives. Maybe then we can connect him to Noah.”

“Okay.”

Hours passed.

The rain picked up around eleven, pinging noisily against the roof and streaming down the windshield. We didn’t speak. I expected Tallus to get bored or irritated with my incessant silence, but he didn’t seem to. He played around on his phone, messaging people and checking social media. He hummed songs to himself and cleaned his glasses a few times, but mostly, hesat beside me and watched the door to the room where Beth had disappeared.

I calmed down over time. The intensity of the incident at Beth’s faded. I counseled myself with my doctor’s words, wishing I could explain the root of it all to Tallus but not knowing how without opening the door to my past.

“I’m not a nice man,” I blurted sometime after midnight when the silence was so thick I was chewing on it.

“What do you mean?”

“I have problems.”

Tallus huffed. “Sweetheart, we all have problems. Have you met my family? Believe me, you aren’t special.”

I growled under my breath. He didn’t get it. He didn’t understand that I was a good-for-nothing asshole. Useless in society. Undeserving of patience or friendship. Undeserving of him.

“I don’t believe you would ever hurt me, Diem, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Then you don’t know me very well.”

13

Tallus

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