Page 69 of Wreck Me
“Yeah.” His voice was clipped, and Landon raised a brow.
“You okay, man?”
Aidan nodded once and handed him the tablet. “Fine. I need to go talk to next of kin.”
“You mean Margot? She has a name, Aid.”
Aidan got in his cousin’s face. “I know she has a fucking name, okay? But you know as well as I do that emotion has no fucking place right now. None.” He stepped back, his jaw bunched. “Now, go do your damn job.”
Landon, being Landon, didn’t back down from Aidan. They both knew tragedy was part of life, but it didn’t make it any easier. “Aidan, I can handle this if you want me to.”
“No, I got this.”
He didn’t have it at all. His heart fucking ached as he drove to the Davidson home. He knew one universal truth in that moment. Margot’s whole world was about to change course. He’d known her since first grade and yet he was now going to be a part of the worst day of her life. And Abby’s.
Life was about to knock them down, and he was the messenger of it.
His mind flashed back to the day that had changed his family’s life. He remembered when the sheriff had walked into the house and told his mother that their life as they knew it was over. That the man who Aidan had looked to, had wanted to be just like, was gone. In an instant. Here one second, gone the next.
The shadowy memories dissipated as he pulled up into the driveway and shifted the SUV into park before sitting there a moment, trying to pull it together.
He wished Megan were with him. To comfort him. To let him bury his face in her hair and inhale her scent. Calm his soul.
And yet this whole situation he was dealing with was why he didn’t want her around. Because he knew why this particular case bothered him, and she was at the root of it. She’d gone and opened his heart, and now he didn’t know if he could close it back.
But he needed to if he was going to survive.
With a heavy sigh, he pushed out of the vehicle and went to the door. He blew out a breath to steady his heaving stomach before he rang the doorbell. The cheery ringtone irritated the shit out of him.
Margot opened the door, her brow crinkled in confusion but a smile on her lips. She ran a hand over hair that hadn’t yet seen a brush and pulled the belt on her robe a bit tighter.
“Aidan. Hey. What’s up? If you’re looking for Rob, he isn’t here.” She peered around him. “He should be back any minute now though. Want to come in and wait?”
Aidan dug deep into his well of military and law enforcement training to keep his face as impassive as possible. He squared his shoulders and clenched his fists at his sides before releasing them. “I’m actually here to see you.”
“Me? Oh, okay. Come in.”
When he cleared the door, he took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair before placing it back on his head. “It’s about Rob.”
Her chin came up, and she swallowed. Her chest rose and fell quicker than it had before. She knew. She touched her fingertips to her mouth and wrapped her other arm around her own waist. Turning, she went into the living room off the foyer.
Aidan followed her, glancing around the room. It was a space that looked lived in. A comfortable couch, large TV hanging on the wall, pictures of the family on the mantel. A fleece throw was rumpled in a pile on the wide side chair by the window. A cup of coffee sat on the table next to it. He imagined that’s where she had been sitting when he rang the bell.
Her life before.
She sat on the edge of the couch, her hands between her knees, her legs bouncing. She whisked a stray hair out of her face and waved to the sofa next to her. “Please, sit. And tell me what happened.”
Normally, Aidan would have stood to deliver the news. But he did as she asked and went to sit next to her. He took off his cap again and held it in his hands. “There was an accident. It looks like he lost control of the vehicle somehow and left the road. Ended up in the trees.”
He swallowed, wishing like hell he was anywhere else.
“Tell me everything. He was my husband. I want to know.” Her voice wavered on the last word, and her eyes filled with tears.
He blew out a breath and told her everything he knew at that point in the investigation and that she’d need to come to the hospital to identify him.
And that was when she lost the fight to be brave. Her body folded over and was racked with sobs. A box of tissues sat on the coffee table, and Aidan set them in front of her before running a hand down her spine, trying to comfort her.
He was tossed back to when he was thirteen years old and doing the same thing for his own mother. He’d been the one to answer the door when the cops came to tell them his father was dead. Charley had been in her room playing and too young to answer the door.
