“No charges were ever filed.”

“No. But I still have to ask about it.”

She sighed. “Yeah. We had a few fights that got a little loud. But it’s not like we were beating on each other. My neighbors just like to stick their noses where they don’t belong, so they called the cops. But I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that nothing ever came of it. It was just a few disagreements that got loud.”

“And what were these loud disagreements about?”

“Honestly, Sheriff, we’re both passionate people. Most creatives are. It’s just how we tend to be. Passion is necessary to create art,” she said. “And yeah, we both have a bit of a temper. But things never got out of hand. It was just… passionate disagreements. That’s all.”

A wan smile tugged at the corner of Spenser’s mouth. “And what were these passionate disagreements about, Layla?”

She shrugged. “Honestly, they were so long ago, I don’t even know anymore. Things between us have been really good for a while now. We were good. We haven’t had one of those kinds of fights in a long time, Sheriff.”

Spenser took a drink of her tea as she listened to Layla speaking. She sounded sincere. More than that, she sounded absolutely heartbroken. It was impossible not to hear the pain in her voice.

“Layla, can you think of anybody who might have wanted to hurt Seth?”

She shook her head. “Nobody I can think of. Everybody liked him. He was a popular trainer and people loved his music.”

“Are you aware somebody was going at him online for his steroid use?”

Her full lips curled downward, and her expression darkened. “Yeah. I know about that. But I don’t know who it was.”

“Did you know about his steroid use?”

She took a drink and nodded, unable to meet Spenser’s eyes. “Yeah. He tried to hide it from me, but I found out. We had an argument about that, actually. Mostly, he listened while I yelled at him. I told him I wouldn’t be with somebody who did drugs of any kind,, and he promised me that he’d stopped. I believed him. He’s been clean ever since we fought about it.”

“So, you think Seth was clean?” Spenser asked.

She nodded. “I do. He told me he’d stopped using.”

Layla said it like Hamill’s steroid use was a thing of the past and like she didn’t know he’d still been using. Which, since he’d still been using, suggested that her boyfriend had been lying to her. Which, given that he had clients upset about his steroid use, suggested she wasn’t the only person in his life he’d been lying to. It suggested he was leading something of a double life—one he showed the world and the other he lived out in private, behind closed doors in his music room. In Spenser’s mind, it raised more questions about who Seth Hamill was.

The other side of that coin, though, had her wondering what Layla would have done if she’d found out about Seth’s lies? If she’d found out he was still using. Would being lied to and finding out Hamill was using again be enough to push a woman like Layla, a self-proclaimed passionate person with a temper, over the edge? Would it be enough to make her kill? Spenser wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure if Layla had it in her to kill. She didn’t get that hit off her, but she couldn’t afford to dismiss her out of hand either. Hell hath no fury and all that.

After a moment, Layla’s ears perked up and she raised her head. “Wait. You just asked if I thought he was still clean,” she said. “That would seem to imply that he wasn’t. What aren’t you telling me, Sheriff? Was he using again?”

Her voice was thick with desperation that was tinged with anger. Spenser took a sip of her tea to give herself a moment to decide how to answer the woman’s question. Part of her didn’t want to ruin Layla’s image of a reformed man. Part of Spenser wanted to let her go on believing that he’d kept his word and stayed clean. But that wouldn’t serve the investigation and no matter how much she might empathize with Layla, she needed to do her job.

“I’m sorry, Layla, but he was,” Spenser said gently. “And we now believe somebody laced the Anadrol he was taking with the drug that killed him. We’re waiting for the lab to confirm that, but that’s what we believe happened.”

She leaned against the back of her chair and looked down for a moment then scrubbed her face with her hands. Layla shook her head then picked up her glass and took a long swallow as she seemed to be digesting what Spenser had just told her.

“I guess I should have known. Looking back on things, I can see that the warning signs were all there,” she said, almost as if to herself. “I guess it’s possible I just didn’t want to know. Things had been so good between us… I guess I just didn’t want to reopen that old wound again, so I buried my head in the sand.”

“You really can’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault.”

“The things we do—or ignore—for love, huh?” Layla asked with a wry twist of her lips.

“So, there’s nobody you can think of who had a beef with Seth? Nobody who was angry enough to want to hurt him?”

She looked off for a moment and started to shake her head but then paused as a curious expression stole across her face.

“What is it, Layla?”

“I’m not sure. It might not be anything.”

“But it might be something.”

“It’s just… a little while ago, this guy started messaging Seth,” she said. “He got really nasty and was threatening him. Seth didn’t take him seriously, but… it sounds like he should have.”

“What was he getting nasty about?”

“He said Seth stole his music. He just started going off about Seth being a thief and a plagiarist. Said he was going to get what was coming to him,” she replied. “I’m not naive. Seth wasn’t an angel. He was a lot of things, and not all of them good. But he would never steal somebody’s music. Never. Seth always said a person who stole another creative’s work was one of the lowest forms of life. Do you think he might have done this?”

That was a bit dramatic. Spenser could think of far lower forms of life than plagiarists. Hyperbole aside, though, she took her point. She wasn’t a creative herself, but she’d known enough of them to understand they tended to be very protective of their work, and rightly so. They poured their heart and souls into their art, and the thought of somebody simply waltzing in, snatching it, and calling it their own was infuriating. It made sense.

“Layla, what was this guy’s name?”

“Leonard something… but he goes by Bo. I don’t know his last name,” she said. “I’ve never met him or anything.”

“That should be enough. Thank you, Layla.”

“Do you think he’s the one who did this to Seth?”

“We won’t know until we start looking into him.”

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and raced down her cheek. She looked down and quickly wiped it away as she sniffed back the flood of tears welling in her eyes.

“I never thought about my life without Seth,” she says, her voice trembling. “I never wanted to think about my life without him.”

“We’re going to do everything we can to find the person responsible for this, Layla. I give you my word.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.”

Spenser drained the last of her tea and got to her feet. She had a direction to run, at least. A promising one.

“Thank you, Layla. And… I’m sorry for your loss,” she said gently. “And hang in there. It might not seem like it now, but it will get easier. And one day, you’re going to wake up and all you’ll remember are the good times. You’ll never forget him, but the pain of loss that stings so bad right now will have faded, allowing you to remember only the love.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.”

“Spenser, it’s Maggie,” the voicemail started. “You’re going to want to come by for the town hall going on at seven tonight. It’s important, so don’t be late. Okay, see you tonight.”

Spenser blew out a frustrated breath as she deleted the voicemail, hung up the phone, and dropped it in her pocket. She leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes for a moment. It had been a long day, and she was starting to get a banger of a headache. All she wanted was to go home, have a glass of wine, and spend some time with her dog. And with Ryker, of course. A quiet night in sounded like just the medicine she needed.