She Wore Mourning by P.D. Workman (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

“Why?”

Zachary couldn’t bring himself to say, ‘so that she could drown him.’ Not to her husband. Not to Declan’s father. “Maybe he was getting underfoot too much, and she wanted him to be quiet and leave her alone. Maybe she wanted to paint in peace.”

“Isabella wouldn’t do that.”

“I know plenty of women who would. Who have done exactly that.”

“You do not know Isabella!” Spencer snapped. He slammed his palm down on the desk. “Isabella wouldn’t dream of doing that!”

He was breathing hard. He coughed, clutching his side. Pain lightninged across his face. Zachary watched him closely, frowning. Spencer swore and felt his ribcage tenderly. Sweat was gathering around his temples.

“Are you okay?” Zachary asked.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Picked up a bug at the hospital, and all of the coughing and sneezing… you know how sore it can make you.”

Zachary didn’t believe it. “Take a deep breath,” he suggested.

Spencer obeyed, and instead of coughing, winced heavily and protected his side. Zachary got up and went around the desk to him.

“Hold still.” Without asking or giving Spencer a chance to object, he tugged Spencer’s shirt out of his pants and pulled it up. Spencer was too busy guarding his side to stop him.

Spencer’s hand covered much of the area, but Zachary could still see black and blue bruises. He tried to nudge Spencer’s hand away and caught a glimpse of the dark bruises under his hand.

“You’ve got broken ribs.”

Spencer shook his head. “It’s just like I said. From coughing.”

“You don’t get broken ribs from coughing.”

“You can,” Spencer argued. “I’ve done it before.” He stopped talking and just breathed for a few minutes, pain etched on his face. “Isabella got rid of all of the cough medicine in the house after you asked if we gave it to Declan. She will freak out if I bring any more into the house. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to stop coughing? Maybe honey and lemon. Honey and lemon don’t work for a cough so bad it breaks your ribs!” Anger and pain made his voice thin and strained.

“Who’s hitting you? Isabella? Or is it someone else you’ve gotten on the wrong side of.”

“No. No one is hitting me. It’s just the coughing.”

He started coughing as if to demonstrate, and for a few minutes was so racked with choking coughs that Zachary could feel the pain of it himself.

“You should go to the doctor. Maybe you’ve got pneumonia or bronchitis.”

Spencer nodded. He didn’t attempt to answer. Sweat and tears streamed down his face. Zachary sat on the edge of the desk, watching him.

“Do you want me to drive you to the doctor?”

Spencer shook his head. He held up one finger, and after a moment managed to get enough breath to answer, without bursting into another fit of coughs. “At the hospital. When I go to see Isabella.”

“You’ll see a doctor? In the ER?”

Spencer nodded his agreement.

Zachary just watched him for a few minutes, trying to think of what else to say to him, how he could help the man.

“A lot of men are abused,” he said. “It isn’t just women who are abused by their spouses, but men are afraid to speak up. Afraid that they’ll be made fun of. That it makes them less manly and people will look down on them.”

Spencer shook his head. “I don’t care about machismo, Zachary. Look at me. I’m as geeky as they come. I don’t have a reputation to protect.” He rubbed his chest and side. “It’s not Isabella. It’s just from coughing.”

It was a crisp, cold day, and Zachary had to keep moving to keep his toes from freezing. Moving around constantly wasn’t a very good way of keeping surveillance. People tended to notice a grown man bobbing and pacing as if he badly needed to pee.

He held his camera up and took some random tree shots. He zoomed the telephoto in on a squirrel and tracked it is it busily gathered nuts or pinecones and went up and down the tree. He looked back toward his subject to make sure he hadn’t gone anywhere or met anyone and went back to taking pictures of the squirrel.

Maybe if he ever retired, he’d take up wildlife photography. At least he wouldn’t have to write up surveillance reports. Retirement was a long way away. If he lived that long.

Glancing back, he saw the subject was on the move again, and swung his telephoto lens the other direction, pretending he was focusing on the waterfowl near the pond that hadn’t completely iced over.

As he watched, the subject handed a thick catalog envelope to a man in a long, black overcoat. Mae Gordon’s insurance agent. He was given a smaller envelope in return. An envelope that, while thinner, could still contain a pretty nice wad of cash. Zachary clicked away, recording all the details he could.

Kenzie answered the phone after four rings. Zachary had almost decided it was going to go to voicemail, and then there she was.

“I wasn’t sure I’d find you at work,” he told her. Though, of course, he knew that was exactly where she would be. “I thought maybe you would take off a few extra days for Christmas.”

“No, it’s a pretty busy time of year down here. Christmas is hard for some people.”

“Yeah.” Zachary kept his voice carefully unemotional.

“Your ex called me Christmas Day looking for you. She sounded pretty upset. I gather she found you?”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“What did she want?”

“Just to wish me a Happy Christmas. Make sure I was okay.”

“See, I told you she doesn’t hate you.” There was reserve in Kenzie’s voice. A tinge of jealousy? “That was nice of her.”

“You don’t have anything to worry about. We didn’t get together. She just wanted to make sure I got through Christmas okay.”

“I’m not worried,” she said breezily. “So… when are you going to tell me about it?”

“About Bridget?” Zachary asked blankly.

“No, not about Bridget! What your deal is with Christmas. It