Page 22 of You'll Be the Death of Me

Dell gravitated toward Tommy and his mom and casually lingered like an eavesdropper before she remembered she was invisible and could simply stand there.

“Mom, I seriously don’t know what happened,” Tommy said with a pained strain in his voice. He swiped a hand through his mussed hair. He still wore his pajamas.

Evelyn placed her hands on his arms. She leaned in and lowered her voice to a soft hum Dell wouldn’t have heard if she wasn’t inches away herself. “Tom, I need you to be straight with me. You can tell me anything—you know that.”

Tommy’s eyes widened. “Mom, I—”

“Tom. I just need to know what we might be dealing with here.”

Dell reeled at the suggestion in her voice.Dealing with?She thought back to the reporter outside suggesting Tommy had been involved in her death and wondered for a horrifying moment if his mother thought the same thing.

Evelyn moved her hands to his shoulders. “You can tell me, son.”

It struck Dell in that moment Evelyn’s entourage—her assistant and security guard—were there for a different type of damage control. They weren’t there to keep the story onherfrom getting out; they were there to protecthimin the event he’d been involved.

She shuddered at the realization.

But Tommy reassured his mother. “Mom, no. I had nothing to do with it, I swear. I just woke up next to her, and she wasn’t—” The end of his sentence disappeared and turned into a barb that hit Dell’s heart all at once.

Evelyn let out a big breath. “Good. The police will be here soon, and we need to tell them the right story.”

Tommy flinched like she’d struck him. “You mean the truth.”

Evelyn spread her lips into her winning smile. “Yes, darling. I mean the truth.”

The whole conversation left Dell unsettled. She knew she was marrying into a powerful family, but she’d never been privy to a hushed exchange like the one she’d just heard.IfTommy had somehow been involved, would his mother have... covered it up?

She shivered again and took a step back, only to bump into Cole. She yelped in surprise.

“What are you doing?” she blurted, and spun around to face him.

“Sorry,” he said. “But you might not want to listen in like that.”

“Isno eavesdroppingin the rule book too?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.

He smirked at her. “No, but you might hear things you don’t want to know.”

She reeled back in further surprise. “What doesthatmean?”

“It means they think you are dead, so they might say things they would never expect you to hear, that’s all.”

She considered his point and realized it was a valid one. Listening in from the other side was the ultimate eavesdropping.

“This does present a bit of a problem though,” she heard Evelyn say right after she’d decided not to listen anymore. Unable to stop herself, she leaned back in.

Tommy glanced over his shoulder, looking like he wanted to end the conversation with his mother. But ever loyal, he remained still.

“You never signed your prenup,” Evelyn all but whispered.

Tommy’s jaw clenched. He spoke so quietly Dell leaned inclose enough to see the stubble on his chin. “No. She left the appointment yesterday before we got the chance. But I also can’t marry her now if she’s dead, so it doesn’t matter anyway.”

Dell was leaning in so far she nearly lost her balance. His words had only begun to settle when a knock on the door drew everyone’s attention.

“It’s probably the police,” Dell’s father said. He rose from an armchair and made his way to the door.

“The police?” Dell said as it sunk in what was about to happen. She could still hear the paramedics upstairs moving around and imagined them loading her body up to be wheeled out. She dashed over to Cole and gripped his arms, profoundly thankful to be able to hold on to something, even if it was the person responsible for the whole mess. “You have to stop them. They can’t take my body away. What’s going to happen?”

He bit his lip with a grimace and did his best to reach for the rule book while she squeezed him like a vise.