Free Secret Agent Boyfriend by Addison Fox

light.
    Maybe she did know something about her mother. Or could at least offer up a few strings to tug that made more sense than what he had right now, which was the simple fact that a wealthy woman had managed to vanish into thin air.
    “My mother’s complicated on a lot of levels, but very simple in others.”
    The comment was a surprise—not to mention an interesting place to start—and Derek felt himself pulled into the story. “She’s got a reputation for flawless beauty and high expectations of others.”
    “She does. And there’s no one she had higher expectations for than my father.”
    For the second time in as many hours, images of Sarah filled his mind’s eye. Their terse words that led to fight after fight. The seemingly endless tears. And the abject frustration that perpetually marred her features when he was working on a big case.
    Rena Frederickson’s kidnapping had been the final straw...
    “She loved him once. I’ve always believed that.”
    Landry’s words pulled him from the abyss of memories, an odd punctuation to his thoughts of Sarah. “Sometimes a person is simply unable to be what someone else wants them to be.”
    “Or sometimes they’re trifled with until their love changes into something else entirely.”
    She slipped her hand from beneath his and reached for her bottled water. “Of course, it’s observation only. My mother would never speak of anything as delicate as her pain or her feelings.”
    “Back to that public image again?”
    “But of course.”
    Derek had spent many years in the FBI observing some of humanity’s worst behavior. He’d thought himself well educated on how many ways humans could hurt each other. But sitting here with Landry, a light breeze whipping through the open-air market, he saw yet another facet of pain and loss.
    “Do you think she loved your father?”
    “With her whole heart. It’s the only reason I have for believing her innocent. Her love for him never truly went away, despite my father’s very best efforts to kill all trace of it.”

Chapter 6
    L andry curled up on the couch in her sitting room. She’d made her excuses when she and Derek had arrived home and hadn’t left her room since. A bottle of Cabernet sat, open but untouched, on her small coffee table.
    She’d thought to go straight to bed, the shock of the day mixing with the bone-deep weariness she hadn’t been able to shake for weeks. When sleep proved elusive, she’d roamed the room on restless feet before sending down for the wine.
    Then the wine had arrived and she hadn’t wanted that, either. So here she was. Unable to sleep or relax with a drink to think through her problems. Or the endless questions those problems churned up.
    What did she come from?
    The question had sneaked beneath her defenses after the initial shock of her father’s murder had worn off and had gotten louder—like a drumbeat—in the months since.
    She’d been honest with Derek. She believed to her core her mother was innocent of killing Reginald Adair. But Patsy had a long line of sins since that fateful night in her father’s office, and Landry couldn’t explain them away no matter how hard she tried.
    And at the top of the list was Patsy’s attempts to kill Whit’s wife, Elizabeth.
    “Who did that?” The words were out before she could stop them, a harsh cross between a mutter and a moan.
    Was she really the child of a woman who thought so little of another’s life she’d seek to take it? Her mother had claimed it was because she thought Elizabeth was Reginald’s pregnant paramour, but even that betrayal didn’t excuse her behavior. It only added to the possible body count had Patsy been successful in her attempts.
    The knock on her door brought her up short, and Landry briefly toyed with ignoring it before crossing the room. After the wine, she’d left specific instructions not to be disturbed, but maybe her brothers didn’t get the message.
    Or maybe Derek was back to question