“She wasn’t coherent when I found her either,” I tell Skov again. Two hours in and I’m only repeating myself now.

I can take it all day long. I don’t know that the same can be said about my mother, though.

Glimpses of her disheveled state flicker in front of me and I pick under my nails rather than look back at the man I’m certain doesn’t believe me. He knew my father and by association, my mother and me and my sister. Only by name, though.

“Is this a normal reaction for her?” he asks and I glare up at him.

“A normal reaction to finding her husband dead? My father,” I say but my voice breaks and I force my eyes closed. “I’m sorry,” I whisper and with both elbows on the table I hang my head in my hands. “I just … I’m sorry,” I say, apologizing again.

“For what?” he asks and if I wasn’t truly destroyed from everything that’s happened, I would smile at his idiocy. My story is ironclad. It’s all up to my mother.

“For my shortness,” I tell him and take in a steadying breath. “I’m usually more … Talkative and approachable and … I’m usually better.” My voice cracks again as I speak and I shake my head. “I just don’t understand or believe it. He can’t be dead.”

Believe your lies and everyone else will too. I’ll never forget that phrase from Criminal Investigations 450 written on the chalkboard in a room full of expectant, soon-to-be lawyers. So long as they passed the bar.

“I should have …” I let the statement trail off and close my eyes. My mind drifts, wandering back to the front door of the home I grew up in. My throat’s tight as I remember opening it, the creak and the ominous silence that greeted me.

“It was supposed to be a girls’ night,” I say and my words are etched in agony as I stare up at the detective and let the pain of it all be revealed in the statement. “That’s what we should be doing right now. We should be out having fun while my father attends a conference.”

“As far as you know, there isn’t anyone who would want your father dead.”

Just as I’m about to respond by bringing up his cases from years ago or disgruntled former business partners, the door opens and Skov’s partner, Gallinger, comes in. The two are complete opposites. The clean-shaven, pristine cop is at complete odds with Skov’s disheveled state.

Even his polite smile and nod, plus the way he whispers to Skov, appear to be in direct conflict with the man’s appearance.

“How are you, Delilah?” Gallinger asks me, pulling out a chair and sitting across from me.

“It feels like everything is coming apart,” I say, making the admission because it does. And it adds to the testimony.

“You have to know how this looks,” Gallinger says while gesturing with his hand, sympathy in his gaze. Skov turns, still standing and paces behind him.