Bitter Nothings Read Online Free PDF Page A

fine. Now if you don’t mind, I have things to do.”
    “Can I use the little boy’s room first?”
    “Out!” She jerked the door back wider. He could pee his pants for all she cared.
    “I’m sorry. Are we interrupting?”
    Her head snapped around at the sound of Todd Gleeson’s deep voice. He and DSC Stewart hung back, looking more like Mormons loitering on her doorstep than police officers.
    “Not at all, Detective Senior Sergeant,” she said, enunciating the rank for her ex’s benefit. “Nathan was just leaving.”
    Nathan pressed a business card into her hand. “Call me, yeah?” Then with a backward flip of his hand, he was off.
    She watched his retreating back, the waiting detectives temporarily forgotten. If only Nathan Ward were as easy to forget.
    Todd cleared his throat.
    “Sorry.” She stepped aside. “Come in.” Inside, out of sight and out of earshot , she added silently. “Do you have some news? Have you found my father?”
    “Not yet,” Todd said. “But it’s only a matter of time.”
    “You sound sure of that.”
    “You don’t think we will?” he asked, turning it back on her.
    “No. I mean, yes.” She threw her hands up. “Oh God, I don’t know what I mean.”
    DSC Stewart brushed against Dervla’s arm. “Perhaps this would be better done sitting down.”
    The two detectives trailed her along the hall and through into the living room. She didn’t offer coffee and they didn’t ask.
    “So if you haven’t found my father, why are you here?”
    Occupying the same seat as he had the day before, Todd said, “We’ve spoken to your father’s employees and none of them have any knowledge of his whereabouts. His PA assures us that if he was attending a conference or out of town on some other business-related matter, she would know about it. From that, we have to assume his absence wasn’t planned. Which brings us to the next matter.” He flashed an open palm in his offsider’s direction.
    DSC Stewart opened her notebook. “We understand from your brother that when your father needed time out, he often went bush.”
    Dervla frowned. “He used to. I don’t know if he still does. I don’t understand. If you’ve already spoken to Gabe, why are you asking me? If anyone would know what my father gets up to these days, it would be him.”
    “Your brother did tell us he wasn’t aware of any plans your father had to go camping last weekend but thought that if he had, he or your stepmother may have mentioned something to you in passing.”
    She shook her head. “Gabe thought wrong.”
    “When you say your father used to go bush, was there a particular area he liked to frequent?”
    “You make it sound like he was going to a brothel. Like was there a particular prostitute he liked to frequent?”
    The detectives exchanged glances.
    “Forgive me,” Dervla said, flapping a hand in front of her face. “Lack of sleep has scrambled my brain. I know you’re just trying to do your job. I do want my father found. I do want whoever murdered his wife and children to pay. I do. Not one and the same, mind,” she added, just in case they thought otherwise. “It’s just that I feel like we’re talking in circles when you could be out there doing real police work. Honestly, if I knew anything – anything at all – I would tell you.”
    “We understand that you’ve had a dreadful shock and that you’re probably not thinking straight,” Todd said, “which is why some of our questions may appear to be unimportant or even irrelevant. Trust me, they’re not.”
    She bristled. When people – especially men – uttered that phrase, her bullshit antenna went up. Once bitten, twice shy, as her mother used to say.
    “If we come across as insensitive,” DSC Stewart said, jumping in. “I do apologize. It’s not intentional. We want what you want: answers. You can understand that, can’t you?”
    Dervla exhaled. “What was the question again?”
    “Where did your father use to go