Read Betrayed: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel (Rosato & Associates Book 13) for Free Online

Aunt Barb faced Officer Hoffman. “Please, let me see the photo.”
    Officer Hoffman exchanged a look with Officer Ramirez, who pulled a BlackBerry from his Windbreaker pocket, hit a few buttons, and presumably downloaded the photo, pausing before he handed it over.
    Aunt Barb accepted the phone and looked down. “No,” she whispered, hushed. “No, it’s not possible. Iris?”
    “Aunt Barb, I’m so sorry.” Judy put an arm around her aunt’s shoulders, feeling a wave of sympathy.
    “Oh no, no, no. This can’t … be.” Aunt Barb burst into tears and buried her face in her hands, dropping the phone.
    Judy’s mother grabbed some Kleenexes from a box on the table and handed them to Judy for Aunt Barb, then picked up the phone and handed it to Officer Hoffman.
    Aunt Barb sobbed, hoarse sobs racking her frail frame. “She should have been … at work. Why wasn’t she … at work?”
    Judy hugged her aunt close. “Maybe she wasn’t feeling well, so she left work and went home?”
    Judy’s mother nodded, dry-eyed, taking her place behind the chair. “That’s probably what it was, Barb. You never know, she could have been nauseated. Nausea is a sign of heart attack. Jaw pain, too. Shoulder pain. Women often mistake warning signs. They think the problem is the flu, but it’s not. Did you know that?”
    Judy knew her mother was talking only to fill the silence, so she didn’t answer, but kept rubbing her aunt’s back.
    “No, no … this is too awful, it can’t be. It just can’t be. I just can’t believe … it’s her.”
    “Ladies, excuse us.” Officer Hoffman rose quietly, and Officer Ramirez followed suit. “We’ll leave now and give you some privacy.”
    “Officers, no, wait.” Aunt Barb lifted her face from her palms. Tears filled her eyes, her brow collapsed into deep furrows, and her downturned mouth made a mournful gash. “I want to go, I want to … see her. Where is she?”
    “What?” Judy asked, aghast. She couldn’t imagine her aunt’s going to the scene and seeing the body.
    Judy’s mother frowned. “Barb, no, you’re not thinking clearly. You’ve had a shock. Stay home, please. You have so much to do. Your friends from work have been calling. You have to call them back.”
    Office Hoffman blinked. “Mrs. Moyer, there’s no need for you to go to the scene. A photo ID suffices for a personal ID, for our purposes.”
    “I want to see her.” Aunt Barb took a long final sniffle, but her lips trembled, curling into a miserably wiggly line.
    “Aunt Barb, this is too awful to do—”
    “No, it’s not, I can do it.” Her aunt shook her head, stricken. “I know what death looks like. I saw my parents. I saw Steve, I was with him. I held his hand.” Aunt Barb pursed her lips, as if what she was about to say physically pained her. “Iris carried my name and number in her wallet. She thought I was there for her. Now I will be. I’m going. I’ll just get my purse, Officer.”
    Judy sighed inwardly. Her aunt may have been the baby of the family, but when she wanted to do something, there was no stopping her. It was no accident that she could grow the notoriously tricky heirloom roses. “Aunt Barb, let me go with you then.”
    “I’d love that, if you don’t mind.”

 
    Chapter Six
    Judy parked her tomato-red Volkswagen Beetle behind the police cruiser, on a long, straight stretch of Brandywine Way, a single-lane backroad through acres of shorn hayfields, which would have been pitch black except for the police activity. Uniformed police officers and men in ties and jackets stood in the street, talking in groups. Several police cruisers parked, with their red, white, and blue lights flashing silently from a light bar atop their roofs. Red flares marked a perimeter, sending smoke trailing into the air, where it vanished. In the center of the scene, its front bumper buried in a huge hay roll, sat an old brown Honda.
    Judy looked over at her aunt, who had sobbed softly