“But not like this. I told you not to come here. I told you to wait. That I’d tell you when he’d been moved to the morgue.”
“I would have been here immediately,” Sam retorted. “But I had to wait until Nick turned up to stay with Naomi. Where is he?”
Jonathon sighed, and slowly released his grip on Sam. “Over here.”
Sam gasped as he walked into the living room and saw his twenty-year-old nephew lying in a heap on the blood-soaked carpet. He stared in silence at the body for a good ten minutes before he asked, “You're sure it’s him?”
Allina nodded at Kane who pulled a bag from his case and handed it to Sam. “He left this. Another photo of Naomi. It looks like it was taken just after the fire. I would guess the Christmas after, she still looks the same age, but David and Eli aren’t in it.”
Clutching the picture, Sam’s gaze kept bouncing from it to his nephew and back again, his expression inscrutable. Then as if the thought just occurred to him, his eyes flew to the hall. “Where’s the baby? Did he kill her too?”
“Relax,” Jonathon soothed, “she’s right through here.”
Her partner disappeared into the back of the house and returned a moment later with a gurgling baby in his arms. He handed the infant to Sam, who cradled her with surprising gentleness, burying his face against the baby’s silky soft little head.
Allina wondered whether Sam could continue to be Naomi’s bodyguard now that her stalker had irrevocably changed his family.
* * * * *
4:46 P.M.
This felt so surreal.
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Sam wasn't sure he would believe it was real. Hehadseen it with his own eyes, and he still couldn’t believe this was really happening.
In one fell swoop, the heart of their family had had her heart broken.
His oldest sister sat curled up in a corner of one of the couches in their parents’ lounge room, clutching her now orphaned baby granddaughter in her arms. For now, Bethie remained blissfully unaware that she had just watched her father’s murder.
Sam was so full of anger he could feel it vibrating through him, causing tremors in his hands, which he had curled tightly into fists and then shoved under his armpits. He needed an outlet for his anger only he couldn’t find an appropriate one.
There was an easy one to choose.
Naomi.
It was her stalker who had killed his nephew. If he didn’t work with her, if he wasn’t her bodyguard, if they weren’t friends, then the stalker would never have targeted his family.
And she still wasn't being completely honest with him.
She knew more than she was saying about that time in her life. Her insistences that it wasn't related to the fire, or what was happening now were unfounded. She couldn’t know that. If she’d told him, then perhaps they could have figured out who the killer was before his family was destroyed.
The horror written all over her face when he’d gotten the call flashed through his mind.
He thought she had been babbling apologies at him over and over again, but he wasn't sure. As soon as Jonathon called to tell him he had called Nick, told Naomi to stay inside, then paced up and down his driveway as he waited for Nick to arrive. Sam cared about Naomi, but she wasn't family, and his family needed him right now, they were his priority. And to be honest, he and Naomi weren’t really anything but work colleagues. She rebuffed all his attempts at asking her out, she kept a vast ocean of emotional distance between them, and her lies had cost him someone he loved.
“Maria.” He went to his sister, sat beside her, and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You should go and lie down.”
Huge dark eyes opened to look up at him, they were so watery they may as well be a puddle. “I can't let go of her.” Maria’s voice was thick with emotion. “She’s all I have left.”
“You’ll get through this.” He awkwardly patted her back. He didn’t want to sound callous and he knew his sister’s heart was broken. While it could be repaired it could never be whole again, he just didn’t know what to say to ease Maria’s pain. He had learned at an early age how to be cold and detached from a couple of experts.
His parents.
Who even now as their oldest child grieved the sudden and brutal loss of her only child, stood quietly at the side of the room.
Growing up, life in his house had been difficult. His parents weren’t abusive, but they were emotionally closed off. There weren’t hugs and homemade cookies when he got home from school each day. There weren’t big family gatherings for birthdays, Christmas, and other special occasions. There weren’t kisses and wishes for a good night’s sleep when he climbed into bed at night.
What there were was a lot of lessons.