Page 7 of The Woman Left Behind

Because I could mentally avoid it like a pro, considering I’d been doing that for over a decade and a half.

But the time was nigh.

And I knew this was going to be the hard part.

Strike that.

The excruciating part.

“You wanted to talk about my parents?”

He studied me over the rim of his mug (that was just plain sexy, God, did I have it bad) before he lowered it, took a beat, then in a voice that was still deep and gorgeous, but now I didn’t like it, he suggested, “Maybe we should sit down.”

I felt my heart squeeze as I stared at him, but I didn’t move a muscle.

“Please,” he said softly, his voice even more gorgeous, and more terrible, “come sit down, Lillian.”

I didn’t want to.

I really didn’t want to.

But I led the way to my living room.

And we sat down.

TWO

Denial

Lillian

I sat on the short end of the sectional, and Sheriff Moran sat in the middle of the long end.

He took another sip of his coffee before he set it down on a coaster in the large tray I had on the cream square ottoman with navy pinstripes, which did double duty as a place to rest my feet and the coffee table where I set my drinks.

“That coffee is really good,” he said quietly.

Oh God, he was totally setting me up for bad news.

I knew it, but for sixteen years, I refused to believe it.

“Probably makes it worth the money,” he went on, still going softly.

“And they recycle the pods,” I replied in a monotone, forgetting in this day and age any mention of climate change and doing things to alleviate it to a stranger put your chances at fifty-fifty that person would get up in arms about it. “Unlike the other pods, which are really bad for the environment.”

“Gotta admit, I prefer our lakes and firs like they are, not consumed by fire or ravaged by drought,” he said.

I liked his remark, a whole bunch, but I didn’t like the look on his face a whole bunch more.

He started it. “I’ve had occasion, Lillian, to audit Sheriff Dern’s files.”

“I know. You mentioned it at a town council meeting.”

His eyes sparked with surprise, and I had no idea what that was about. I also didn’t have it in me right then to try to analyze it.

“One of those files was the Dietrich robbery,” he told me.

I knew this was about the Dietrichs.

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