Daddy's Home (10 page)

Rebecca had done a number on his family, and if he had his way, he would have her completely out of their lives. He wanted his daughters to be able to move on if their mother really didn’t care, and it was becoming very clear to him that this was the case. She was a self-centered bitch. It had taken him the last three years to heal. He’d even reverted back to his glory bachelor days for a few months, perhaps an attempt to prove that his penis was just fine.

There had been that night that the twenty-two-year-old cutie had approached him and a couple of his drinking buddies. She’d actually sidled up to
him
, and not the jerks he occasionally hung around with and called friends. Him! Damn if he hadn’t felt like the ultimate bachelor that night with that bodacious redhead next to him. What a night! He still remembered their screaming out loud!

But something about those getting-lucky, beer-drinking nights had left him cold and feeling exposed. They were indeed overrated, and far different than when he’d been in his early twenties. It hadn’t done for him what it supposedly did for other men.

Brendan was a Paul McCartney—a marrying kind of guy. He was as sentimental as his own dad and grandpa, both of them married for most of their lives.

About a month prior to meeting Holly, he’d finally come to terms with his ex’s desertion and her need for the whole soul mate thing. He would never have believed it possible that there was such a thing until the day that he had come face to face with Holly.

Swear to the heavens above, a white light had shimmered above her, and the sense of always having known her had settled over him. It had been the first day of second grade for both of their daughters at the Saint Francis School. Madeline had run up to him, “Daddy, Daddy, I made a friend, a good friend, my very best friend in the whole world.”

Maddie was the drama queen in his life, and Brendan cherished that in her. Shiny, wavy, strawberry-blonde curls spread down her back, complimenting her sparkling blue eyes. He always wondered about that tinge of red in her hair, until his mother reassured him that it was simply their Irish ancestry showing its bold side. He’d come to believe her as Maddie grew older and took on more of her father’s characteristics, including his horribly ugly toes—the two in the middle were much longer than the rest, big toe included. Brendan loved his children. Maddie was the light of his life, and Megan held that place in his heart that only an oldest daughter could hold. They’d had a tight bond from the time she entered the world, and until a few years ago, he thought nothing could come between that. Then her mother left, and Brendan knew that at some deep level Meg blamed him. Rough going for a bit was truly an understatement, and Brendan missed the camaraderie he and his eldest used to share. But maybe the tide was changing, and if so, he couldn’t help but feel that Holly could have something to do with it.

Holly appeared to complement his family like fine wine, and her Chloe fit right into it. Damn, he couldn’t believe he was thinking like this. He’d only had a couple of dinners with Holly, a few yoga classes, and some parent participation time at school. How could he, in his mind, already be walking down the aisle with her?

He knew how he could be thinking it. That day at the St. Francis School when he first met Holly was a life-changing day. When Maddie ran up to him all out of breath, flush from the excitement of her first day of school filled with friends and possibilities, he couldn’t help but love that little kid even more. With Maddie, it was always the glass half full. She’d certainly taught him a lot.

“So you had a good day, huh?” he’d asked.

“The best, Daddy. My teacher is very nice and funny. Except she kind of has a mustache.” She’d grimaced, then stuck out her tongue.

Brendan had forced himself to stifle a laugh. Maybe he would suggest to the room parent that the teacher’s holiday gift should be a gift certificate to a local day spa. With waxing in mind.

“But even better, I met my best friend in the whole wide world. She doesn’t have a daddy. He died. I told her my mommy left us, and we only see her sometimes.”

Brendan hadn’t known how to reply, but there had been no need to as his bubbly daughter had continued talking.

“Daddy, can she come over?”

“Oh, Maddie, I don’t know, I’ve got to get back over to the clinic this afternoon. I need to check on one of my patients, an old pup that’s had a hard time today.”

“Daddy, please. We can go with you. Come on, can she come over?”

“It’s the first day of school, and what’s her mum gonna say?”

“Guess you can ask her now.” He’d followed Maddie’s eyes as she looked up.

And
that’s
when the bright light came on. Brendan saw the most amazing woman he’d ever seen in his life. Her golden hazel eyes met his, and Brendan melted. Damn, she was beautiful. He could barely get out any words as she’d stuck out her soft but firm hand, shaking his. “Hi. I’m Holly Jennings. Looks like our girls have become fast friends.”

“It does.” Brendan hadn’t known what he was saying; all he could think about at that moment was getting her alone and finding out all about her. “Maddie and I would love to have your daughter over. She could stay for dinner, if you’d like.”

“I don’t know. We’ve still got a few school supplies to get this evening.”

Chloe had whined, “Oh, please, Mom. We can go tonight after you pick me up.”

Brendan had watched Holly’s face soften. Her daughter obviously had the same effect on her as his did on him.

“I guess. But dinner? I don’t think so. We really should get over to the store.”

“We’ll eat early. Maybe get a pizza or something. You can join us if you’d like,” Brendan had said. She made a slight face that he didn’t quite know how to read. Was it apprehension? Or a
You gotta be kidding me
look? He quickly tried to recover. “It might be easier for you. We could meet you over at Pepe’s. It’s in the same strip mall as Target where you can buy Chloe’s supplies.” God, he’d hoped he wasn’t sounding too pushy.

“Yeah, Mommy, that’s a great idea,” Chloe had said.

Holly had looked around, as if she’d find an excuse somewhere on the school grounds. By this time, Brendan figured she thought he was a loser.

“Fine. Sounds great.” Oh, God, she had agreed! “I’ll meet you guys at Pepe’s around six.”

“I hate to be a pain about it, but could we make it six-thirty? I’ve got a patient to check in on, and I need to give his family a call. My office is close by. I’m just going to stop in for a minute,” Brendan said.

“You’re a doctor?”

“My daddy is a vet,” Maddie had said with that perfect smile.

“Really?”

Had there been a hint of interest in Holly’s voice? “Actually, yes. I’ve got an older dog that had a cancerous growth and had some surgery this morning. I like to check in on my patients before the long evening stretch.”

“Sure. I can understand that.”

“So, do you have animals?”

“A cat.”

Chloe had interrupted, “He’s a really fat kitty and not too smart, my mom says. She also says that all he does is eat and sleep. And she says he doesn’t even catch mice.”

“Okay, well I’m going to head out now, before we get into a discussion about more of the cat’s negative traits.” She had laughed, a hearty, yet feminine laugh that Brendan liked.

“We’re going to the car, Daddy,” Madeline had said.

“Be right there,” he’d replied.

“Be good, Chloe,” Holly had instructed.

“So what do you do?” Brendan had assumed by the way that she was dressed (nice khaki slacks and a knit short-sleeved sweater almost the same color as her eyes) that she was a career woman.

“I’m a detective with SDPD. A criminalist, actually. We work with forensics and violent homicides.”

“Really?”

She’d nodded confidently.

“That is very impressive.”

“Not really.”

“Yes, it is.”

Holly had started to protest again, but the blaring of his car horn interrupted them. “Girls are getting impatient.”

“They seem to be.” He’d looked down at his watch. “Whoops, I’m late to pick up Megan at the high school.”

“You have another child, then?”

“Yes, a sophomore, and she’s not a happy girl when I’m behind, if you know what I mean. I’m sorry, gotta run. I’ll see you at six-thirty.”

“All right. Bye.”

She’d shown up at the pizza place on time, and their discussion—in between ordering children to use their napkins and not to say words like “fart” or “stupid”—had been lively and interesting, and Brendan couldn’t help feeling further attracted to Holly. He hadn’t felt like this in . . . well, he’d actually never felt like this right off the bat.

He’d thought about mustering up the courage to ask her out, have dinner alone with her. But the right moment never seemed to present itself. So, on parent night at school, he’d noticed that she had already signed up for some volunteer time. He’d put his name down for the same date and time. That had worked out rather nicely. However, he didn’t work up the courage to ask her out, so instead he encouraged her to take the yoga class that he’d been taking. That she agreed to. Inroads made.

Now what?

Something about Holly sort of intimidated him. She still had that glow about her, and he felt as strongly about her now as he did the first time that he had laid eyes on her. Sometimes he got the sense that she felt it, too. But she had a concrete wall for a barrier, and she wasn’t about to let it down.

Even after finishing the yoga video and trying hard to think about nothing, he was unable to shake thoughts of Holly. He’d been through plenty of ups and downs in his life, and he knew right in the center of his heart that Holly Jennings was the one for him. And whether she knew it or not, he would have to take a leap of faith and get out his sledgehammer, because he was determined to bring down that concrete wall around her.

Even if his own heart got smashed in the process.

CHAPTER TEN

If there was one place where Holly did not like to hang out, it was the medical examiner’s office, even though Dr. Peter Lareby was a nice guy. He just worked in such a dismal atmosphere! Holly knew that many could say the same thing about her profession. But as far as she was concerned, she simply found and studied dead bodies and tied the links together to hunt down the monsters that destroyed human life on a daily basis. What Doc Lareby did to dead bodies on a daily basis made any contents in her stomach do one of those gymnastic-type twists. On the days that she knew she would be spending time in the freezing, sterile, small area the doc thrived in, she made certain she kept her food intake to a minimum.

“Hello, Detectives,” Dr. Lareby said as Holly and Chad came in the door. Across the room, little Sara McKay lay stretched out, hard, cold, and blue on top of a gurney. Her face and body almost didn’t seem real. More like a figure in a wax museum.

“Hey, Doc,” Holly replied. She tucked her hair back behind her ears and started twisting her pearl earring, a habit she fell into when she was anxious. Chad knew it, too. He’d mentioned it to her one day over coffee when Jack’s name came up, and she had started fiddling with the damn earring. So she consciously tried to avoid doing it. But down here, in this place of death, Holly found herself fighting off a panic attack.

She glanced down at Sara. “What can you tell us?”

Dr. Lareby looked up through his protective eye shields at the two detectives, holding a small saw instrument in his hand. He had kind, warm gray eyes. No one would have thought eyes like that would see what they did daily. Or maybe everything that he saw was what gave him the aura of sympathy he wore so well. “I can tell you that she was not raped or sexually molested in any way.”

“Thank God,” Holly said, a sigh escaping her lips.

Chad looked at her with a warning that said, “Don’t get too involved here.”

“There are no marks on her, no bruises. There are a few scratches on her face that are post mortem. My assumption is that they are from an animal, in that she was exposed to the elements for almost forty-eight hours. The murderer shot her point blank with a revolver and a silencer. I honestly don’t think that she felt anything. He even closed her eyes afterward. Possibly he told her to before he did it.”

“What about asthma? We found prescriptions for Albuterol solution for a nebulizer and some Prednisone tabs in Sara’s name,” Holly said.

“I did find both drugs in her system. I can’t say exactly when she took either of them, but I’m fairly certain that they were administered shortly before her death. See here . . .” He pointed into the lung cavity. “Most of the capillaries are open, but not all of them. Both drugs are fast acting. The Albuterol acts faster than the Prednisone, because the Albuterol through the nebulizer releases directly into the system. Prednisone takes six to eight hours to really kick in, but the effects are longer lasting. Both drugs were in her system, as I said, but the Prednisone didn’t have time to kick in.”