After Death

CHAPTER 8- TROUBLE IN PARADISE

Steve was moving around the boxes of Ada's things the cleaner had helped him put in boxes for him to sort through them himself.

He sighed and picked up a framed picture of Ada as a teenager. Next to no breasts, awkward piggytails, scrawny looking body and unfocused eyes. For good reason she hated the picture but she couldn't bring herself to tear it up.

Maybe she kept it as a reminder of what she used to be but for whatever reason, she had kept the picture.

This boxes had been open since Monday and he hadn't set foot into the room since Adeline's coincidental visit. He had begun to realize a few things about his wife he never gave deep thoughts to. Which was why he found himself in the room that afternoon ready for whatever came his way.

He peered into the first box, it was labeled and contained Darcy's stuff which were surprisingly a lot. He looked into the box taking out things one after the other. He hadn't paid attention to these things before so he was surprised to see them after Raelynn had offered to pack up Ada's stuff.

He was about to dump back the things he had taken out but paused when he saw the edge of a ripped paper staring right back at him at the bottom of the box.
He dropped the items in his hands on the bed and picked up the ripped paper staring at it in so much confusion.

It was a note of some sort written in red ink. Dread rose up in Steve's spine as he thought he knew that who ever had written this had written it in live blood not paint. He was an artist, he would know.

Panic rose up even more when he read the contents.

Stay away, homewrecker...

Steve gulped and stared at the door where he felt someone had been watching him.

He was next, he wasn't safe.

"Two cups of cappuccino, an espresso and one mocha." Said a smiling waitress as she laid down their coffee orders. Not that Adeline noticed or even heard her, her scowling face and concentration was on the swing doors of the cafe.

"You keep frowning at the door for long and you'll have a long face." Gareth admonished. "Thank you Marie." He said to the pleasant waitress.

"No problem Jesse." She threw a wink before sashaying away.

"You keep fawning over her and I'm gonna puke." She retorted still scowling.

"What, she's nice and beautiful. I'll be stupid not to appreciate that."

"Hm." She looked away from him to their other companion.

"Lily, are you okay?"

Liliane nodded, "just thinking."

Adeline raised an eyebrow, "I'm listening."

"Okay, Ada had a good list of those she hurt and those that hated her enough to actually kill her." She started. "But there was this case I was reading some weeks ago that was handled by Kurt Bridger. The case dragged for six months and was about to become a cold case but he said he sat back to review what his five-man crew had been doing for all those months."

She looked each of them in the eye, "everything was on point. Excellent theories, everything was perfect yet they couldn't find their culprit."

"What was the nature of the murder?" Adeline asked gripping the corner of the table. She thought she knew where this was going because she once worked with Kurt and he was one hell of a man. Both in bed and when it came to the job. He was a lover and was damn discreet when he needed to be. Unfortunately she was bound to the charms of Cassidy to see clearly.