“But the last few weeks something changed. He was out of it. Acting odd. Not talking. I didn’t tell you because he’s not your responsibility, but now I wonder if he was trying to hide the depression from me. If I missed the clues.”

Liam already shouldered so much. She didn’t want him to carry this burden, too. “You are not to blame, Liam. If Baines did this . . . then he did it, not you.”

“He would have seen it as weakness, and we both know he hated to show weakness.” Liam sighed. “Just please, for your sake, let this go.”

She doubted that would be possible.

Chapter Eleven
Jessa

Jessa wanted to be anywhere else. Literally, anywhere. She’d dug the black dress out of the back of her closet. Not the cute little-black-dress one. The serious one. The kind that Covington, her boss and work date to this business-related event, would find appropriate. The same one she wore to the other funerals she’d attended for clients and colleagues.

Four funerals in ten months. She hadn’t been to four funerals in her entire life up until then.

The reality of those numbers left her feeling claustrophobic and aching to claw her way out of the room. For someone who made her living talking, convincing, finding the right argument, she had no idea what to say to the grieving people she barely knew or to the one person she did.

She’d walked into the service with Covington. Sat there listening to the eulogy and heartfelt speech from the deceased’s brother. As he spoke, Jessa fixated on the women in the first pew. Mother and daughter. Mirror images with wavy brown hair and big blue eyes. Attractive in a way that drew attention, though they’d be the type to pretend not to notice. As if their looks didn’t open doors, even though they clearly did.

Jessa could hear the low thrum of painful cries coming from the teenager as tears rolled down her cheeks. Jessa had always been so detached from the idea of a mom. She knew the indifference was nothing more than a protective mechanism subconsciously built up over years to make her loss bearable. Never knowing her mom, and her dad rarely dating anyone seriously, left Jessa both confused by the mother-child connection and deeply envious of it.

Her maternal grandparents waged a relentless campaign for custody. Her father spent hours talking about how terrible they were. Both sides weaponized her until the fight morphed into habit and focused on “winning” her time, not her genuine affection.