Night Shift by Nora Roberts Page B

something with your hair,” he said as he walked out of the room. “You look like hell.”
    He found Deborah downstairs in the kitchen, fully dressed, sipping a cup of coffee. That she was waiting for him was obvious. The moment he stepped into the room, she was out of her chair.
    “She’s fine,” he said briefly. “I’m going to fix her some breakfast.”
    Though her brow lifted at this information, she nodded. “Look, why don’t you sit down? I’ll fix some for both of you.”
    “I thought you had an early class.”
    “I’ll skip it.”
    He headed for the coffee. “Then she’ll be mad at both of us.”
    She had to smile as he poured a cup, then rooted through a drawer for a spoon for the sugar. “You already know her very well.”
    “Not well enough.” He drank half the cup and felt nearly human again. He had to think of Cilla. It would be safe enough, he hoped, if he kept those thoughts professional. “How much time do you have?”
    “About five minutes,” she said as she glanced at her watch.
    “Tell me about the ex-husband.”
    “Paul?” There was surprise in her eyes, in her voice. “Why?” She was shaking her head before he could answer. “You don’t think he has anything to do with what’s going on here?”
    “I’m checking all the angles. The divorce … Was it amicable?”
    “Are they ever?”
    She was young, Boyd thought, nodding, but she was sharp. “You tell me.”
    “Well, in this case, I’d say it was as amicable—or as bland—as they get.” She hesitated, torn. If it was a question of being loyal to Cilla or protecting her, she had to choose protection. “I was only about twelve, and Cilla was never very open about it, but my impression was, always has been, that he wanted it.”
    Boyd leaned back against the counter. “Why?”
    Uncomfortable, Deborah moved her shoulders. “He’d fallen in love with someone else.” She let out a hiss of breath and prayed Cilla wouldn’t see what she was doing as a betrayal. “It was pretty clear that they were having problems before I came to live with them. It was right after our parents had died. Cilla had only been married a few months, but … well, let’s say the honeymoon was over. She was making a name for herself in Atlanta, and Paul—he was very conservative, a real straight arrow. He’d decided to run for assemblyman, I think it was, and Cilla’s image didn’t suit.”
    “Sounds like it was the other way around to me.”
    She smiled then, beautifully, and moved over to top off his coffee. “I remember how hard she was working, to hold her job together, to hold everything together. It was a pretty awful time for us. It didn’t help matters when the responsibility for a twelve-year-old was suddenly dumped on them. The added strain—well, I guess you could say it hastened the inevitable. A couple of months after I moved in, he moved out and filed for divorce. She didn’t fight it.”
    He tried to imagine how it would have been. At twenty, she’d lost her parents, accepted the care and responsibility of a young girl and watched her marriage crumble. “Sounds to me like she was well rid of him.”
    “I guess it doesn’t hurt to say I never liked him very much. He was inoffensive. And dull.”
    “Why did she marry him?”
    “I think it would be more appropriate to ask me,” Cilla said from the doorway.

Chapter 5
    The something she had done with her hair was to pull it back in a ponytail. It left her face unframed, so the anger in her eyes was that much easier to read. Along with the jersey she’d slept in, she’d pulled on a pair of yellow sweatpants. It was a deceptively sunny combination. Her hands were thrust into their deep pockets as she stood, directing all her resentment at Boyd.
    “Cilla.” Knowing there was a time to argue and a time to soothe, Deborah stepped forward. “We were just—”
    “Yes, I heard what you were just.” She shifted her gaze to Deborah. The edge of her temper softened.