The Nassau Secret (The Lang Reilly Series Book 8) by Gregg Loomis

pew for perhaps the twentieth time since the clerical-garbed minister started reading from the Book of Common Prayer, commending the soul of Livia Haynesworth to a Merciful Savior.
                  He gave Gurt an “I can’t help it” shrug and turned his attention to the elaborate floral displays that graced the altar and choir stalls. The attendees kept him from total boredom. Hair colors were every shade of the rainbow and a lot that weren’t. Body piercing and visible tattoos were the norm not the exception for both sexes. He speculated that, in ten or fifteen years, about the time the youngest of this avante-guard crowd started to seek serious employment, removal of body art would be a thriving business.
                  Mercifully, the service ended and Lang and Gurt filed out, going from vestibule into the narrow porte-cochere, so narrow only the smallest of contemporary cars could have driven through were the old driveway still there.
                  “There’s a reception in the parish house,” Gurt reminded him.
                  Lang inhaled deeply. “Smell those onions? How ‘bout lunch at the Varsity?”
                  One block west and just across the expressway from Tech, The Varsity had been around almost as long as All Saints. A true 1950’s style drive in, it advertised itself as the largest in the world as well as the largest single seller of the famous local product, Coca-Cola and serving the world’s best hot dogs. Lang was unsure of the first two but, like most native Atlantans, had no doubt about the third.
                  “It might be best to at least sign in.”
                  Lang acknowledged the wisdom of getting credit for attending the service by taking her arm and leading her across a putting green of a lawn.
                  Inside, Celeste and a couple Lang guessed were Livia’s parents formed a brief line meeting the guests much like a reception line at a wedding. Lang was reminded of the similarity of the two services, the major difference being this one was by far more likely to be permanent.
                  A soon as Celeste spied Lang, she broke ranks to embrace him in a smothering bear hug. “Lang, I haven’t had the chance to thank you for referring me to Phil McGrath. What with Livia. . .”
                  She broke into tears. “I don’t think I can go on!”
                  Lang somehow slid loose, all too aware of the debilitating nature of grief. As his first wife had slipped further into the grips of incurable cancer, he had realized the promises they made to each other as to the good times they would share once she was well were little more than lies in the form of placebos. When she had finally succumbed, the relief he experienced that she suffered no more made him feel guilty. The moment he returned from the funeral to the small cottage in the Virginia-Highlands area of Atlanta, the starkness of the empty house had all but crushed him. His best friend was gone, the woman who worked two jobs to help send him through law school. She would never enjoy the benefits of practice that seemed to grow daily. As he had stared at the pictures on the walls she had selected, the fabric she had picked out for the sofa one rainy afternoon she had succeeded in dragging him along, the chair in the bedroom worn from her head as she read her romance novels, he had, for the first and only time, given serious consideration to a voluntary departure from a life both cruel and unfair.
                  Lang Reilly knew grief.
                  It was a place as much as an emotion. One rarely visited voluntarily but departed by sheer strength of will coupled with a healing process not unlike recovery from a physical wound.
                  Lang Reilly knew grief.
                  He had found himself there again