Page 33 of Accidental Murder
“Of course. I’ll be right back.” David entered the house through the sliding glass door and said over his shoulder, “I’m going to take a quick shower and pour myself a drink.”
Kayla sighed. He hadn’t come to the reception. How much had he drunk since arriving home? She told herself to let it go. He was a grown man. He wasn’t driving anywhere.
Fearless chipmunks skittered past her feet and dashed into a sugar pine. A whippoorwill hooted in the upper branches of a sycamore. Amidst the calm of nature, she perched on a bench and urged her breathing to return to normal.
David returned, clothes changed and hair wet. He was carrying a tumbler of whiskey on ice. “Beautiful out here, isn’t it? I love this time of year. Crisp, cool.”
His speech, as always, was precise. Kayla doubted any of his colleagues knew he had a drinking problem.
“You look . . . pretty,” David said.
A flush of heat rushed up her neck. No one ever said she was pretty. Ever. She had scoured Ashley’s closet for something fashionable but comfortable to wear. Clad in an Irish cable-knit sweater, designer jeans, and suede Calvin Klein ballet shoes, she thought she looked practical, not attractive.
David sat on the bench beside her. “You’ve been busy. I see your face in a lot of magazines.”
“I’m going to take a break from work.” She settled back and drank in the cool air. “It’s lovely here.”
“Kayla enjoyed it. She made me promise never to sell the place. I’ve wanted to renovate, but she wouldn’t let me. She said it’d lose the charm.” He took a long swig of his drink.
“It is charming.”
“It’s my fault she’s dead,” he mumbled.
Seeing him suffer made her deception so much worse. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.” David slammed the glass on the bench. “I set her up on that blind date.”
Kayla reeled. Did he believe Richard Troy, the guy with the braces and the carnation in his lapel, was a killer? She hadn’t considered the possibility. “No, David, it’s not your fault. I fixed her up.”
“Oh, sure, you might have fixed her up”—he slurped more whiskey—“but I was the one who sent him to you for your approval. You said the idea had to come from you. She wouldn’t go, otherwise.”
Kayla pictured Troy with his broad shoulders and dark hair. He would fit Mrs. Tennyson’s description of the guy running from the scene.
David set his glass on the bench and pulled a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket. “He was the last man to see her alive. What if she asked him in for a drink?” He drew a cigarette to his mouth, then as if rethinking his need for it, tossed the cigarette aside. “What if . . .” He didn’t go on.
Kayla’s chest tightened. What if Troy, feeling jilted, had come looking for her? Had Ashley or her uncle given him her address? Even if David had, he shouldn’t bear the guilt of introducing them. A blind date gone wrong was not his fault. Plenty of people went on blind dates and survived.
“The police have a guy in custody, David. Not Richard Troy.”
“I’m calling them.” David stood up, a fierce resolve imprinted on his face. He pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket. “I’m putting them on alert about Troy anyway.”
Kayla knew it was the liquor talking. She didn’t intervene.
When someone at the precinct answered, David demanded to talk to Dennis Wald. The familiarity of him asking for Dennis by name and not by rank drew Kayla up short. In less than a minute, David shared his concerns with Dennis. He ended the call calmer.
Inside the house, Kayla put a frozen pizza in the oven, and David lit a fire in the fireplace in the living room.
When Kayla sat on the leather sofa, the smell of wood burning in the fireplace dredged up painful memories. Smoke engulfing the office. Licks of flame outside the window. Ashley gasping for her last breath.
“Want me to put on some music?” David asked.
“No,” Kayla said, a tad sharply. “I like the night sounds.”
David sat in the armchair and placed his feet on the matching ottoman. Ice cubes clattered in his tumbler as he got comfortable.
“You sure do like guns.” Kayla gestured to the room. It was filled with her uncle’s prized possessions, which included weapons of all shapes and sizes—Berettas, Colts, army issues. Moose antlers from a trip to Lake Louise hung above the fireplace. A bearskin rug acquired during a trek to Mount Shasta lay on the floor. Dozens of pictures hung on the knotty pine walls. David with Kayla’s father in hunting gear. David and some traveling buddies at the taxidermist’s office. None of his daughters had cared about his hobbies. A month after the fifth had been born, David’s wife dragged their girls across the country, leaving him to figure out what he had done wrong.
A chill snuck up on Kayla. She slid a crocheted blanket around her shoulders.
