The man who made terrible pancakes every Sunday because he insisted mine were “too pretty to eat.” The man who held me when my father died. The man who had slept beside me for 18 years.
Had he been hiding this?
Had I been loving a stranger?
By midnight, Daniel was named a prime suspect.
By morning, I felt hollowed out.
Then the forensic report came in.
Detective Kellan arrived just after breakfast, his jaw tight.
“The fingerprints on the florist order came back,” he said.
I braced myself.
“They are not Daniel’s.”
I blinked. “Then whose are they?”
His face changed.
For a moment, he looked older.
“They belong to Amos.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Kellan swallowed. “He was a retired detective. He worked the original case with your father.”
My father’s old partner.
The room went silent.
Kellan sat across from me and spoke more softly. “Your father suspected him before he died. He never had enough proof.”
A shiver moved through me. “Why would he send roses to me?”
“He didn’t,” Kellan answered. “We think the bouquet was bait.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We found evidence that Daniel had your father’s old notes. Your husband must have discovered something recently. Amos believed Daniel was getting close to the truth.”
My heart stumbled. “Daniel knew?”
“He may have been trying to protect you.”
That broke me.
I had spent the night imagining my husband as a monster, when he might have been fighting one.
Police tracked Amos to an abandoned hunting cabin outside the city. I was not allowed to go, but every second felt like a year. I sat at the station, holding Daniel’s wedding ring between my fingers because he had left it on his dresser before his “trip.”
When Detective Kellan finally returned, his eyes were wet.
“He’s alive,” he said.
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