Loyalty Under Fire - Trish McCallan Page 0,3

the pages, most of them about Becca. Drawings of Becca sleeping, picking flowers, skipping across the marble foyer with a rosebud crown askew atop her head. The entire journal was an illustrated love letter… to her—Rebecca Blaine—from her mother.

She stared at the happiness on her young face, at the loving stroke of her mother’s pencil, at the lilting, lyrical stories and poems cascading across the parchment. She hadn’t imagined those early years. Her mother had loved her, well and truly loved her, and she’d known it back then. Contentment and happiness radiated from her young face.

But that realization just led to more questions. If her mother had loved her as much as this journal indicated, why had she killed herself? Why abandon her only child in such a cruel fashion? She must have known Becca would be the one to find her body. The one to walk in on her writhing…

She blocked the image from her mind and focused single-mindedly on the pages beneath her fingers, turning and turning until she’d reached the last few entries in the journal. But the diary’s tone never changed. Her mother’s stories and poems didn’t darken. A shadowy stain never spread across the parchment. If anything, her mother’s words sounded more vibrant, full of happiness and hope, certainly not the desperate wretchedness of someone in the throes of deep depression.

As she turned the last page, a thin, smooth rectangular piece of paper slipped out of the diary and onto her lap. She picked it up. The paper was faded, but she clearly saw a curled form within the black and gray static. It didn’t surprise her that her mother had kept an ultrasound printout of when she’d been pregnant with Becca. Rachel Blaine had been unabashedly sentimental.

Letting the printout fall back onto her lap, she shook her head in frustration. Apparently her questions would remain unanswered. There was nothing between these pages to indicate why her mother had killed herself.

The final page, dated the morning of her mother’s death, held the sketch of a necklace. How strange. Her mother hadn’t shown much interest in jewelry. She’d been just as happy wearing a chain of daisies as a chain of diamonds.

Although… the necklace was quite lovely. On a lacy bed of webbed filaments floated a multifaceted, octagon-shaped stone. Since the drawing was in pencil, she couldn’t tell the color of the centerpiece, but it looked like a gemstone. And its backing, well that looked almost like a miniature dream catcher with its delicate, webbed netting.

Her mother had collected dream catchers. Had the design been hers? It certainly looked like something she would have created. Becca ran a finger down the sketch. It wouldn’t be difficult to bring the necklace to life. She could take the sketch to a jeweler and have them create the pendant using a sapphire. Her mother’s favorite color had been blue.

With one last look at the drawing, she picked up the ultrasound. Wouldn’t you know it? Invading her mother’s privacy had just brought more questions. As she started to slip the printout back into the diary, the date stamp caught her eye. She froze, her hands suddenly cold and clammy.

The paper was dated the day of her mother’s death.

Which meant this ultrasound wasn’t a keepsake of her mother’s pregnancy with Becca.

Her fingers trembling, she turned the paper over and found a name scrawled in bleached blue ink across the back.

Aaron Robert.

Aaron had been Becca’s father’s name. Robert had been her mother’s father’s name. The cold in her hands spread up her arms and into her chest.

Aaron Robert…

Her mother had been pregnant. Becca had had a baby brother on the way.

She sat there, her chest tight and aching, as grim conviction hardened inside her.

Her mother had been pregnant the day of her death.

Pregnant.

Which meant there was no way… absolutely no way her death had been a suicide.

Chapter Two

“Hey, Addario,” Danny Fresno called out in his husky, two-pack-a-day voice.

Rio lifted his head from the crime scene photos spread across the scuffed surface of his gray metal desk and watched Fresno lumber down the center aisle of the bull pen.

“What’s up?” Rio asked as Danny closed on him.

“You got time to look into a cold case? I’d do it myself, but I’m due in court.” Danny lurched to a halt next to Rio’s chair.

“What case?” He had enough on his docket to keep him busy for the next hundred years—give or take—but there wasn’t anything that couldn’t be put off for a few hours