Page 22 of Dying to Meet You
“I need to ask you about other men in your life,” Riley says. “Are you dating anyone else?”
“What? Why?”
She looks back at me with a tired expression. “We need to figure outwho’d want Mr. Kovak dead. If someone in your life saw him as the competition, that person might have a motive to harm him.”
Jesus. “You can cross that idea off your list. There aren’t any other men in my life. There haven’t been for years.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Your daughter’s father is... ?”
“Harrison Jones. We were never married, and I haven’t seen him since Natalie was a toddler. That’s when he went to prison.”
She looks up from her notes. “For what?”
“Assault. It was a bar fight. He was abusing drugs at the time.”
I fight the urge to squirm in my chair. I recognize the irony of telling her that no man from my past could have murdered Tim—and then saying in my next breath that my ex went to prison for assault.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “And where did this take place?”
“Here in Portland.”
“What was the fight about?” she asks. “Were you there?”
My stomach drops, like it does every time I think of that night. “There was a guy giving him a hard time, and Harrison basically lost his mind. He’d never been violent before, and it was the most terrifying night of my life.”
“Where was he incarcerated?”
“Maine State Prison, originally. I lost track of his whereabouts more than a decade ago.”
“Is he currently incarcerated?” she asks. I can almost see how badly she wants to whip out her phone and check.
“No. He got out a few years back.” My neck heats again.
“And when did you last speak?” she asks.
“Um...” I try to think. “After he went away, he relinquished his parental rights and stopped speaking to me.”
I don’t tell her that my mother offered him a bribe—a couple of thousand dollars in his commissary account if he’d sign over his parental rights.
He sold us off really cheaply. I’ll never forgive him.
“So, no contact?” she asks. “None at all?”
“None over the past decade, but he emailed once recently.”
“Really, when?”
I pick up my phone again and typeHarrisoninto my email app’s search bar. “Um, May twenty-fifth.” The subject line isI’d like to talk to you about Natalie. I pass her my phone.
She scans the message, her brown eyes serious. “It’s friendly. He’s asking about your daughter and asking for a phone call with you. Did you speak to him?”
I shake my head. “I have full parental rights. I don’t have to give him visitation. He’s an ex-con and a druggie, so I can blow off his emails.”
“Understood.” She taps her chin, thinking for a moment. “Do you own a gun?”
The change of topic surprises me. “Me? No. I’ve never evenhelda gun.”
“Does anyone else keep a gun in this house?”
