Heinous Read Free

was a sprawling twenty thousand square feet. The backyard, complete with vibrant fountains and lush landscape, would put to shame the gardens surrounding a luxurious resort hotel.
    The lavish presentation was a little overwhelming, beautiful, but overwhelming. Jess couldn’t see herself in a home this imposing. Cradling her sparkling water, she glanced up at the man at her side and wondered if this was his notion of the ideal home he wanted one day. His home on Dunbrooke—the one he’d lost to the fire—hadn’t been quite so ostentatious. Jess had spent a great deal of time at Dan’s home before the fire. She’d grown comfortable in that house with him. The truth was she could be comfortable anywhere as long as he was there.
    Dan leaned her way and murmured, “I know that look.”
    The sound of his voice sent a familiar and sweet little shiver through her. Jess had been in love with Dan Burnett for more than two decades and still his voice, simply looking at him, undid her in a way she’d never been able to restrain.
    “I beg your pardon,” she murmured back, opting not to meet his gaze. She’d always had a weak spot for those blue eyes of his, too. The square jaw and those cute dimples were pretty amazing as well.
    “You’re thinking,” he went on, somehow seeming closer than before, “how sorry you feel for Sylvia and Nina having grown up in such a formal atmosphere. Trust me, it’s not like that and wasn’t when they were kids. The Barons enjoy their home. They
live
in it, Jess, in every sense of the word.”
    Dan would certainly know from experience. Nina, Sylvia’s younger sister, was his second wife. During law school, Nina had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Still, she graduated at the top of her class and went on to have a very successful law practice. Shortly after her brief marriage to Dan eleven years ago, she stopped taking her meds and the happily ever after ended. Since her illness had been kept a secret and with his work schedule in the department, he hadn’t recognized the critical symptoms until it was too late. Delusional, paranoid and in an utter state of panic, Nina had tried to shoot Dan with his own weapon. Afterward she retreated inside herself, and that was where she’d stayed since, leaving little hope of ever understanding why she suddenly considered him a threat.
    “The lack of hominess might have crossed my mind,” Jess admitted quietly, not wanting to be overheard. There were at least two hundred people mingling about the house and gardens. This was no simple family barbecue. The who’s who of Birmingham was here. “Actually,” she teased, “I was counting all your exes.”
    Jess surveyed the crowd looking for the chic cream-colored dress Gina Coleman was wearing. They’d spoken briefly when Jess first arrived. “You could have your own reality show with all these gorgeous women.”
    Gina, Birmingham’s award-winning TV news journalist, and Dan had once enjoyed a sort of friends with benefits relationship that ended with Jess’s return. Then there was Annette Denton, Dan’s third and most recent ex-wife. Jess spotted the lovely brunette in her dazzling white dress huddled with a handsome man who was not her current and soon-to-be ex-husband.
Interesting
. The ex Jess really wanted to meet wasn’t in attendance. Meredith Dority, his first wife, had recently aligned with the mayor in his plot to remove Dan as chief of police. The move was completely out of character based on what Dan had told Jess about his first wife—another mystery Jess wanted desperately to solve.
    “Trust me, if I had a reality show,” he whispered against her ear, “you would be the star.”
    Jess turned her face up to his to see the grin she heard in his voice. The small bandage on his forehead made her heart ache. “What I was really thinking is how beautiful Nina looks and how sad it is that the doctors here don’t seem to be able to help her.”
    Nina Baron sat in a