Read Online Love You to Death by Melissa Senate - Free Book Online Page B

since college.”

    “It’s not your fault,” she said.

    “So I just have bad taste in guys?” I asked.

    “Maybe,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Or maybe you’re only twenty-eight and haven’t met the right guy.”

    “Thanks,” I said. I hoped that was it.

    “Let’s skip this and go get pizza,” she said. “I don’t think looking at where it happened is going to give you any closure. It’ll just make you think of it. What if you have nightmares about it?”

    I shook my head. “I need to see where it happened.” But when I tried to step forward, I stayed rooted to the spot.

    “Hon, you don’t have to do this,” Shelley said, her brown leather glove on my shoulder.

    “I do. I just need to make it real for myself so that I can believe it’s not just some surreal nightmare.”

    “Okay, let’s go,” she said.

    We headed up the long pier. I could see the yellow “crime scene” tape at the end. I could also see someone standing there, not moving, not doing anything.

    I froze. “I think that’s Mary-Kate Darling,” I whispered to Shelley.

    As the woman bent to place the bouquet on the ground, I could see that it was Mary-Kate. She stood up and stared out at the water for a few moments, then snatched up the bouquet, ripped off the petals and threw them down at the ground. Because of the wind, the petals scattered all over the place.

    Shelley and I eyed each other.

    “That was weird,” I whispered.

    “Very weird,” she said.

    Mary-Kate then f lung the green stems on the ground and turned and started running. She froze when she saw me, her expression pure hatred, then she ran.

    I turned and watched her until she disappeared onto Commercial Street.

    “She didn’t exactly look like the grieving widow,” I remarked.

    “More like the black widow spider,” Shelley said.

Chapter 6
    I n the morning I found Ben’s card in the empty candy dish on the console table in my foyer. I hadn’t realized he’d put it there. Maybe he’d forgotten that he’d already given me one yesterday morning in the conference room. Yeah, like he forgot anything. I called, eager to let him know about Mary-Kate and her petal tantrum, but he wasn’t in.
    Because he was on his way to my apartment, of course. Not five minutes after I called, he buzzed.

    “Got that list for me?” he asked. He stood in the doorway. As usual, every thought went out of my head at the sight of him. He was that good-looking. That hot.

    I nodded. “Come in,” I said, stepping aside.

    He didn’t take off his coat or his gloves. Hopefully because he was in a rush to go out and catch the killer, not because he was going to haul me “downtown” to the station.

    I handed the list to him, and he scanned it. “What exactly are you going to do with my list of romantic involvements, anyway?”

    “I really can’t discuss an ongoing investigation,” he said. “Speaking of which, I understand you were at the crime scene last night.”

    Interesting. So Mary-Kate had reported in? Considering that she’d been the one acting suspiciously, I was surprised. Then again, maybe she was smart. Maybe she was covering her tracks, alerting Ben that she’d been there as the grieving fiancée, while making sure he knew I, as the spurned ex, had been there, clearly to hunt for any evidence I might have left behind. Like an earring or a scarf.

    “I just needed to see where it happened,” I said.

    “Do you know that most killers return to the scene of the crime soon after?” he asked.

    “No, I didn’t know that,” I said, my legs turning into rubber. “And if you know I was at the scene of the crime, you must know that Mary-Kate Darling was, too. Since I assume she reported my presence there.”

    “Mary-Kate was Ted’s fiancée,” Ben said. “It makes sense that she’d want to see where he was last living and breathing. For closure, for self-torture, I don’t know.”

    I stared at my shoes. “I loved Ted, too,” I