“No joke,” said Oliver. “I’ve got a loaded shotgun just inside the door. I’m going to walk back to my chair now, and if you two douchenozzles aren’t back in your heap by the time I sit down, you’ll find out the hard way the real reason this house is called the Execution Estate.”

The slackers tripped all over each other clambering back into their clunker and hauling ass down the driveway. Once they were a safe distance away, the driver flipped Oliver the bird.

“You handled that remarkably well,” I said.

“Sometimes I wish I did have a shotgun.” Oliver sighed, easing into his rocker. “And a trophy room.”

“What you really need is a gate, bro,” said Cody.

“Yeah. You’re probably right.”

The evening wore on. On one side of me, Cody attempted tipsy conversation. On the other, Oliver downed glass after glass of vodka, rum and Coke, whiskey. Pretty soon he began to give off a vinegary reek, and I scooted my chair away from him. Bitterness burrowed inside me that he could so easily numb himself on alcohol while I felt every damn emotion.

When Oliver cracked a joke about his newest hire—predictably a bumbleheaded blonde whose breasts got her the job—and Cody laughed, I had had enough. Only yesterday the police had found a body. There would be no laughing today.

“I think it’s time to cut you off,” I said, standing up and grabbing Oliver’s half-full tumbler from his hand.

He grabbed it back, glaring at me. “Who made you in charge? I’m allowed to drink if I want to.” His voice was high-pitched with a nasally twang, a sure sign he was drunk.

“Not if you’re going to be partying the day after we found out our daughter might be dead.”

“Partying? You think I’m partying? We don’t all want to steep in the pain like you do, Felicity. I think about our daughter every damn moment of every damn day! For once I’m trying not to think about it. I just want to feel…nothing.” He saluted with his glass, sloshing the contents on his shirt.

My mouth dropped open, and the creak of Cody’s chair stopped. Not even a cricket dared chirp. Oliver shoved himself up from the rocking chair, dizzily circled to the front door, and slammed it shut behind him. Curse words wafted outside.

Cody placed a hand on my arm. “Felicity, I get what you’re going through, you know I do, but you need to relax. Let Oliver process this the way he needs to. Besides, you don’t know that it’s Vera. It could be anyone.”

I yanked my arm away. His touch burned me. “And you don’t know that it’s not her! Don’t talk to me like you know what I’m going through—it’s not the same. You’re not a parent.”