Page 74 of Demo

That seemed like so much energy. Did she even have that in her?

Paige didn’t think so. It was too much. It was all too much.

She didn’t remember laying down on her bed. That hadn’t been a conscious decision. At some point, Demo came in with her boys. Their hair was wet but they were clean and dressed. From their milk mustaches, she knew Demo had taken them to the kitchen before joining her in her room. Her boys’ innocent laughter gave her the spark she needed to sit up.

Paige leaned her back against the headboard and pulled her sons onto her lap. Then she spluttered out a laugh when she saw Demo had a matching milk mustache.

He pursed his lips like a duck as if modeling a new fashion trend.

Paige shook her head at his ridiculousness but was also grateful for it. She crooked a finger at him around Mikey’s back to indicate for him to come closer. Demo bent over her. When she tried to kiss him though, he backed away.

“You’ll ruin my mustache!” he exclaimed with feigned protectiveness.

“Where’s my mustache?” she demanded. “I feel like the odd woman out here.”

Demo brought his hand out from behind his back and held out a glass of milk for her. The boyish expression of excitement on his face wasexactlywhat Paige needed to snap the rest of the way out of her funk.

She might be a widow, but she wasn’t alone. That mattered more than she could express.

Cindy and Ronaldsat on the couch next to Jenna, who was present for moral support. Lucky held his pregnant wife on his lap in one of the lounge chairs. Though morning sickness had passed after Harper entered her second trimester, she had woken up feeling extremely nauseous—and that was before she’d gotten the news that there was an update on her brother’s whereabouts. She was currently sucking on a honey lollipop while Lucky rubbed her round belly soothingly.

Demo had brought over two barstools for Paige and him to sit on. Paige had a death grip on his left hand that she held between her two on her lap.

Steel and Carlos stood in the background. Word had been spread for everyone to stay out of the clubhouse for the time being. The last thing Harper and Paige needed was spectators, even if they meant well. Mikey and Nelly Bean were playing with their cousins in the Pentagon backyard. There was a snowman building contest going on that should keep them entertained for a long while. Both were too young to understand what was happening. Though Richard was their father, neither remembered him.

Perhaps that was Paige’s fault. Nelly wouldn’t have remembered Richard regardless, but Mikey might have. While Paige made an effort never to say anything negative about Richard in front of them, she also did not make an effort to speak about Richard to them. She didn’t mention their father at all.

Standing front and center was a police detective from Atlanta, Georgia. Paige hadn’t been paying much attention when she’d introduced herself. She looked vaguely familiar, but Paige couldn’t place why.

“He’s been listed as a John Doe for nearly fourteen months. The city cremated him.” Her southern drawl accentuated her words. She had her dirty blonde hair pulled back in an intricate French braid that started at the front of her hairline and went all the way down to between her shoulder blades. “The City of Atlanta will be shipping the remains up to you as soon as I get some information from all of you. Now that they know who Mr. Hannigan is, they will continue the case.”

The detective turned towards Paige. “I understand you and Mr. Hannigan were married at the time of his disappearance. Were divorce proceedings started?”

Paige shook her head. “He just didn’t come home one day. Things were really crazy around town. I still wasn’t very familiar with everyone and the town itself.”

“Did you report his absence?”

“I called Rona—um, Sheriff Hannigan.” She looked towards her father-in-law.

“You were sheriff here at the time?” the detective inquired of Ronald.

“Interim, but yes.”

Carlos stepped forward. “I brought our file on Mr. Hannigan’s missing person’s case.”

The Atlanta detective took the offered manila file folder. Paige wasn’t sure why it surprised her it was so thin.

“Not much here,” the detective mussed. She looked at Ronald. “Your own son goes missing and this is all you have?”

Ronald shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “The first few days that he was missing, I…I didn’t know what to think. There was also an arson investigation that was happening at that same time. My son… He had his problems, Detective. I’d warned him prior to us moving to Mount Grove that I was no longer going to dig him out of any more financial holes he got himself into.”

“Are you referring to the financial troubles he had with one Mateo Castillo?”

Paige felt Demo stiffen beside her but was concentrating on Ronald’s reaction.

Her father-in-law flinched at the name and then nodded.

“This would be the same Mateo Castillo who attacked you and your wife in your own home the following August?”

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