LITMIR.BIZ

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time of day we were born.”

      “Wasn’t your house just broken into?” the detective asked with a distinctly darker expression.

      “I’m afraid so.”

      The detective’s eyes shifted toward the backdoor. He focused on his paper and jotted notes. “Did you know the victim?”

      “I met her. That’s all,” Eve said.

      “I didn’t.” Having Daria yell at me did not constitute a meet and greet. I peered at the doorway. Couldn’t see her and didn’t want to. “Is she dead?”

      “It appears so. Would you tell me what happened?”

      I swallowed. Someone snuffed out this woman’s life. How awful. We told the circumstances of finding her. No, we hadn’t touched her, hadn’t gone inside, hadn’t touched the doorframe or anything near it. Didn’t see or hear anyone else.

      “Did you say she was your friend?” Wilet asked Eve.

      Was he trying to put words in her mouth?

      “No. I did some work back here, but her husband was the only one around. She came home, and he introduced us, and she went inside.”

      Our questioner asked more, causing us to say Daria’s husband Zane just died. He drowned back here. The detective knew of his death. The intensity of his eyes and his chin’s firmness said he knew much more than he was telling us.

      “Why did you come here today?” He aimed his question at me and then Eve.

      She faced me, the ESP we sometimes shared evident in her stony expression.

      I pressed my arms against my sides like I could hide her former friend in my pocket. If I mentioned the ashes, the detective might confiscate my jacket. I wanted to keep it. But mainly, Zane didn’t do anything wrong. I wouldn’t want part of him in some musty evidence room where he’d probably never get out.

      “Eve wanted to show me the job she finished here,” I said. “I’d started the work with her, but got sick, and she had to finish alone. Nobody answered the doorbell out front, so we walked back here, thinking no one was home.” I looked at Eve. “You did a nice job completing the project. Just maybe you could have tapped those pavers a sixteenth of an inch farther down on that edge.” I tilted my head toward the opposite side from where we’d walked.

      Her eyes went all squinty. She wanted to tell me off.

      I told the officer about knocking on the backdoor and then kind of trying the knob in case she was inside and unable to get to the door and we would have called out her name.

      “But we didn’t need to call her.” I swallowed, trying not to mentally see what we’d discovered inside. Across the yard people gathered around the doorway and beyond, marking their spaces, inspecting Daria and her house, taking pictures, taking measurements.

      Fear tightened my chest. What happened to this attractive woman who just lost her husband? Had someone killed him—and now her? A carol sought to escape. I forced my throat tight to stifle the song and covered my mouth with a hand to further stop the words, some still erupting like a muffled cry.

      The detective stared at me, his forehead creased, while he surely waited for an explanation for my outburst. Getting none, he said, “I’ll want to speak with you two another day.” He speared me with his gaze as though daring me to open my mouth again, then tromped off toward the others.

      Eve didn’t glance at the pond before returning to her car. “I can’t believe this happened,” she said once I got in, and we were riding off.

      “I know. He died, and then we found her. That’s horrific. And it sure shoots holes in my theory about her being his killer.”

      My twin gave her head a brief turn and narrowed her eyes at me.

      “Sorry. I don’t mean to be insensitive. You looked closer at her than I did. Were there any signs of what happened? Was she shot?”

      “I didn’t look that closely. And I wouldn’t know a gunshot wound from any other wound, would you?”

      I swallowed, felt my back tremble. “No.”

      “I’m sorry.” She reached out and squeezed my hand. Her ringing phone made me grateful for anything to get my thoughts away from murder. She also needed distraction.

      “Hello,” she said, tone bland. “Oh, hi.” Her arm holding the cell phone lifted along with her attitude. “I would like that information. No, I’m not home right now. Tomorrow? Great. I’ll see you then.” She clicked off, dropped her phone in her purse, and kept gazing ahead.

      “A girlfriend?” I asked.

      “No.”

      “From your enthusiasm, I should have figured.”

      She raised her chin and aimed her face at the road, heading toward our neighborhood. “That was Dave Price.”

      “Ah, the charming Mr. Price.” I watched a grin brighten her face, then changed the subject. “You need to come and stay at my house.”

      Keeping her lips tight, she shook her head and turned down my street. “My place is being watched now more than ever. And as you heard, I have plans for tomorrow morning.” Without giving me a chance to protest, she pulled up at my house and kept her motor running.

      “You’ll call if you need me? And if you change your mind, just come over. I’ll be home.”

      Her nod and back-of-the-hand wave as though she were shooing a sand fly told me to leave.

      Sleep didn’t come easily. I was certain it didn’t for her either, although she’d put on that show of bravado. I kept my phone next to my pillow and checked it often to see if she’d texted me, or maybe she’d called and I had drifted off and hadn’t heard it.

      Morning brought me back to thoughts from the previous evening. During the last days, somebody broke into Eve’s house. A woman I’d encountered turned up dead, probably murdered. Her husband drowned. Accidental? Unlikely, although I wasn’t as certain since she’d also died. Police would surely look into Zane’s death more now that it appeared somebody killed his wife. An image of my sister Crystal slammed into my mind. I sang through my shower and while I dressed in jeans and another work T-shirt, knowing I couldn’t dwell on death.

      Shortly after I forced breakfast down my throat so I wouldn’t get weak, Eve called.

      “You’re doing okay?” I asked.

      “Yep, excellent.”

      “Wonderful. I kept wanting to call you all night and this morning or drive over there to make sure.”

      She released a small laugh. “I figured you might have passed by a few hundred times already.” A small hesitation. “Can you come over now?”

      “You know it.” We disconnected, and I scurried across the street and between fences to reach her house, briefly noting the dismal morning before she let me in her backdoor and gave me a hug.

      “You are so good,” she said.

      The warm body contact felt especially soothing after my gloomy thoughts. “Thanks, Sis. So are you.”

      Once we backed out of the hug, she gripped my fingers. “I’m glad you think so.” Her deep breath and glance to the side gave me pause about her purpose for wanting me here.

      “You’re really all right?” I asked. “Do you want to come to my house or just get away from this place?”

      “Actually, no.” She faced me. “That good-looking Dave Price is about to come over to discuss a possible alarm system.”

      “Good.” I grinned. He would give her a nice distraction from worry. “And you’re sure you want me here?”

      “No.” She frowned. “Yes, I do.”

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