Free The Dying Room by Debra Webb Page A

beer and Dan thanked her. “This gift is for Jess. There’s this mother and child necklace I want to give her when the baby’s born. I’ve been looking all over for just the right one and I finally found it. I’m picking it up today.”
    Six or seven times Buddy had gone over how he would approach the subject and now that Dan was here, he wasn’t so sure where to start.
    “You have something on your mind, Corlew?” Dan knocked back a slug of his beer.
    No use putting it off any longer. “I need some information on a friend of yours.” He leaned forward, braced his forearms on the table. “But this has to stay strictly between the two of us.”
    Dan’s eyebrows reared up. “I don’t keep secrets from my wife, Corlew. She has issues with secrets. The last one I kept from her, when I had Hayes keeping an eye on her, cost me three nights in the guest room after we got back from our honeymoon.”
    Danny boy was right about that. Jess would kick both their asses. “Okay, but tell her she’d better not say a word to Sylvia.”
    Dan frowned. “Sylvia? What does she have to do with this?”
    Buddy had two options here. He could tell Dan Sylvia’s secret or he could spill his own. “She...” He slouched back in his chair and blew out a burst of frustration. “I got a thing for her, man.” He moved his head from side to side. “I can’t shake it.”
    Dan nodded slowly, a frown furrowing its way across his brow. “You’re saying that you like Sylvia? You’re interested in her...
romantically
?”
    Buddy had never allowed a woman to get so far under his skin. Not once. He’d never been married—hell, he’d never been engaged. He had no desire for kids or any of that home and hearth baloney. Sylvia made him want to stake a claim. The thought of her with another man made him see red. He couldn’t keep her out of his head long enough to focus on a damned thing. Over the years, his pals had told him this would happen one day. Love was like a drug, once you stumbled upon the one that tripped your trigger you were addicted.
    “Yeah,” he confessed. The admission didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected it would. “She’s all I think about.” Saying the words out loud somehow lifted the elephant off his chest and let him breathe a little easier.
    Dan chuckled. “April fool’s day is not until tomorrow, Corlew.” He reached for his beer again.
    “Part of me wishes this was a joke, but it’s not. I need your help, Danny boy. I gotta figure this out.”
    “You’re serious?”
    Buddy nodded. “As a heart attack.”
    Dan was the one bracing his forearms on the table and leaning forward this time. “Are you two seeing each other?”
    “We had this moment.” He couldn’t believe he was spilling his guts like this. “That night... after your wedding. I guess we both tried to pretend it was nothing, but then... it started again.” Just thinking about this morning had him sweating. God Almighty, he wanted that woman every minute of every day.
    Dan nodded. “All right, so how can I help?”
    Buddy shrugged. “I’m way out of my league here. I know Sylvia was married once to Larry Grayson.” He knew the lieutenant from his days on the BPD. Grayson was a veteran cop with only a slightly better pedigree than Buddy. Rumor had it that Sylvia only married Grayson so people would stop wondering when the senator’s oldest would get married. The marriage had ended when Grayson turned his attention to another, younger woman. “Since that didn’t work out, I’m wondering if there was someone before that who maybe stole her heart. Maybe she’s already had the love of her life and isn’t interested in finding anyone new. Like you and Jess, you know? If that’s the way it is, I’d like to know before I get in any deeper.”
    Dan held up a hand. “You have to forgive me. First, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, but secondly, and more importantly, I’m having trouble with the idea that the