Love Can Be Murder

to think about Daniel at every turn. In my desk drawers were matchbooks from restaurants we’d gone to. In the break room by the coffee machine sat his Vanderbilt University mug. I walked by his office once. Eric North, the attorney who presumably had inherited Daniel’s cases, was inside with Leora Painter, their heads and hips close. But when they looked up, Leora pinned me with a glare.
    When I got back to my office, my phone was ringing. I sank into my chair and picked up the receiver, hoping to be immersed in a hairy real estate legal issue, something that would bend my mind away from the murder matter. But it was Grant.
    “How’s it going?” he asked.
    “It’s awkward, but I’m hanging in.” Then I remembered the damning text message I’d stupidly deleted. “I have some information…and a confession to make.”
    A shadow fell across my desk. I looked up to see Detective Salyers standing there holding a document I recognized as a search warrant. And from the pointed look she gave me, I knew she’d overheard my last comment.

    ***

    “STANDARD PROCEDURE,” Grant assured me over a dinner of grilled fish and mixed vegetables. Grant could stoke a mean grill and had done all the cooking when we were married. “I would expect the police to search your office and Hale’s, too.”
    “They took my cell phone. I shouldn’t have erased that text message.”
    “Probably not,” he agreed. “But don’t worry.”
    Nice try. I lay awake that night in the guest bedroom reliving all the mistakes I’d made in my life, including abandoning my marriage. I hadn’t been wholly happy here with Grant, but I’d wanted to be. He had loved me, and wasn’t that worth something? Maybe a counselor could have helped us…or maybe if I’d been honest with Grant about how claustrophobic I’d felt….
    I wiped my eyes. I realized now the sense of freedom I’d felt after the divorce, like a balloon being cut from a child’s too-tight grasp, was actually the sensation of being afloat and bumping along the horizon, lost.
    I heard a noise at the door and when the knob turned, my heart catapulted to my throat. Grant stuck his head inside, his glasses askew and his hair ruffled.
    “Is something wrong?” I asked, sitting up.
    “Just checking on you,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
    “You didn’t. I can’t sleep.”
    “Try to rest, you need your strength.” He started to retreat.
    “Grant? Stay with me?”
    He walked over to the bed and sat down, stretched his legs out on the mattress next to me and leaned against the headboard. He sandwiched my hand between his. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
    I’d been a fool to run from this man’s love, and I was ashamed it had taken something so sordid to bring me to my senses. I deserved to be tossed in the clink for stupidity alone. I exhaled against the sleeve of Grant’s starched pajamas, repentant.
    When I woke the next morning, I felt more rested than I had in months. The spot next to me was cool, but I heard Grant in the kitchen.
    When I shuffled in, he was whistling under his breath.
    “You’re in a good mood,” I ventured behind him.
    He turned and smiled. “It’s nice to have you here.” Then he sobered. “Even under these circumstances. Do you want me to go to the memorial service with you?”
    I shook my head. After last night’s revelation, I was feeling too vulnerable to ask anything more of Grant.
    “The police will be there,” he warned.
    “Surely they won’t arrest me at a funeral,” I said with a little laugh.
    “Probably not,” he agreed, although by the tone of his voice I could tell he was more worried than he’d previously revealed.
    “Did your forensics people go through my apartment?”
    “Yes. Other than one unidentified fingerprint, it’s all you, Renni.”

    ***

    AT THE CHURCH, the laser stares of my coworkers penetrated my skin as the minister talked about justice in the afterlife even as justice on earth seemed elusive. Guilt oozed out of my pores. Instead of reflecting on Daniel’s life and his good deeds that were ticked off as if St. Peter himself were taking notes, all I could think of was how Daniel had manipulated so many people, and the law, for his own selfish ends. How he had plowed through hearts and beds with no regard for the outcome.
    And what kind of person did it make me that I’d gone back for seconds?
    I started to cry, great guffawing sobs for the random senselessness of his