The White Carnation Read Online Free Page A

room.
    “Come on. Let’s get you out of here. There’s nothing more you can do. Amos and Logan need to get the body ready for transfer, and the lab guys are on their way up.”
    He hurried her out of the apartment and down the stairs, remembering her phobia of that particular elevator. They walked out to the street where the crowds were beginning to form. It was early evening in Beacon Hill on a Friday night. Many of her residents wouldn’t make it home for hours yet.
    “Tom, get a ride back with the black and white,” he yelled at his partner, who was questioning the concierge. That guy would probably be looking for a new job come Monday. The rest of the condo owners wouldn’t be impressed with a home invasion and a death on his watch. Rob opened the sedan’s passenger door and helped her in. Faye automatically buckled her seat belt, as the tears spilled down her cheeks.
    Rob walked around the vehicle and got in behind the wheel.
    “Where are you taking me?” From her tone, he could tell she didn’t really care. She knew he’d have questions, and she was probably grateful he’d chosen to ask them elsewhere. But she’d never admit it. Her color wasn’t good, and she shivered. He turned on the heater even though the temperature outside was in the mid-sixties. Despite what the officer on the door had said, for a crime reporter, she’d never had much of a stomach, and seeing Lucy that way would have been a shock.
    “Home. I should probably take you to the ER, but knowing how much you hate hospitals, there isn’t any point in making things worse for you. You can answer my questions in the comfort of your own living room, sitting on that god-awful buttercream leather sofa you love so much. By the way, you haven’t moved, have you?”
    He recognized bitterness in her chuckle.
    “No, my career may be in flames, my finances worse, but my real estate is sound. The couch is gone.”
    He cocked an eyebrow at her words but didn’t comment. Things must be bad if she’d parted with that damn custom-made couch. “Where’d you park the Camaro?”
    “It’s gone, too. My Ford’s a half block down.”
    “I won’t miss the couch, but that Camaro was your baby. Why get rid of it?”
    “It didn’t match my shoes,” she spat out bitterly.
    “Don’t chew my head off. You called me, remember?”
    Faye nodded, gave him the license plate number, and he radioed it in, making arrangements to have her vehicle towed to the police station for collection tomorrow.
    The only sound she made during their twenty-minute ride to her East Cambridge condo was the
sup-sup
hiccupping he expected from someone who’d wept the way she had. Rob tried to ignore the wretched sound tearing at him. He wanted to curse and swear at her for all the pain she’d caused him, ask her how she could’ve believed he’d do something so despicable. But seeing her like this, broken and bereft, the way she’d been the night they’d met, touched a small corner of his heart he didn’t know still existed. You didn’t kick someone when they were down no matter how angry you were. This was the woman he’d loved, the one he’d planned to spend his life with. That dream might’ve been shattered, but he’d still find the man who’d done this and make him pay.
    Rob drove down the ramp into the underground parking lot for the converted factory that housed half a dozen lofts and a few shops on the ground level and parked in a visitors’ spot. Together, they climbed the two flights of stairs to her condo. He waited as she unlocked the door and preceded him inside.
    The first thing he noticed was how bare the room looked. Her collection of Depression-era glass that had filled the étagère in the corner was gone, as were the original folk-art prints that had adorned the walls. The leather couch and chair had been replaced by a cheaper fabric-covered set in dark green. He’d forgotten her demotion would have come with a cut in pay. How many of her