LITMIR.BIZ

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I clean up the glass? So the paramedics don’t step in it?”

      “Leave it. I called for another cruiser. We need to process the scene first. I’ll make sure it’s cleaned up afterward.”

      Zipping his coat, he strode toward the door, noticing they had left it wide-open in the excitement. He spent the next ten minutes searching for evidence. Other than footprints that led off into the woods, he found nothing. A horn honked. He lifted a hand in greeting as another cruiser pulled in, followed by the paramedics. A third cruiser pulled in and parked in the yard. Jace raised his eyebrows. A third cruiser was unusual, to say the least.

      He led the paramedics into the house and set the two officers about evaluating the scene. One of the officers approached Melanie. Jace stiffened. It was natural to question her, but the look of attraction on the officer’s face was unsettling. They were cops. It was their duty to remain focused. Letting an ex-con, no matter how pretty, distract them was not going to happen. Jace made his voice stern.

      “Olsen, go help Jacobs. I’ll want your report ASAP.”

      “Yes, sir.” The young policeman cast one last regretful glance at Melanie and returned outside.

      “On three...” The paramedics lifted Sarah Swanson onto a stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance.

      * * *

      Mel looked around the room, feeling lost. Her aunt was on her way to the hospital, and no one would talk to her or tell her what she should do. It was disconcerting enough being out of jail, away from the routines that had, for better or for worse, been her life for the past four years. She’d been told that she’d have to adjust to life on the “outside,” but no one had explained how to deal with something like this. How was she going to get to the hospital? Was she supposed to go in the ambulance? Would someone drive her? Should she get a taxi? Unthinkingly, her eyes sought out the lieutenant. He might not like her, but he was the only steadying presence in the house.

      Melanie glanced at him again. He had just flipped his phone shut and was talking with the officers as the ambulance roared to life and headed back to town toward the hospital. Well, that answered one question. Since no one was paying attention to her, Melanie made her way to her old bedroom.

      Melanie stood in the doorway, breathing deeply. The room was the same as it had been nine years ago when she moved out. The blue-and-lavender color scheme, the ruffled curtains. Even the Bible her aunt had given her on her seventeenth birthday was there, sitting on the little end table beside the bed. Waiting for her. Mel walked over and picked the Bible up. Tears clogged her throat.

      She had sneered at that Bible when she had received it, she remembered now with pain. What would she need that for? she had scoffed. Her aunt had merely smiled sadly.

      “Someday, Melly,” Aunt Sarah had replied softly, “someday you’ll need a friend. Someone strong to carry you. This is where you’ll find Him.”

      Her younger self had rolled her eyes at her aunt’s “preaching.” Thinking about it now, Mel was pretty sure she had never opened it. She didn’t even know why she had kept it. It wasn’t that she’d wanted to protect her aunt’s feelings. If that had been the case, she wouldn’t have walked out the moment she graduated from high school nine years ago.

      But she had never gotten rid of it. And when she moved out, her aunt had left it here as if she had known that someday her wayward niece would come back for it. Although neither of them could ever have guessed that it would take a prison sentence to bring Mel to God.

      Sitting on the bed, she opened the Bible to the book of Psalms. She read slowly, until she felt peace seep into her soul. Feeling calm again, she closed the Bible and stood. She startled when she saw Lieutenant Tucker standing in the doorway. He watched her, his brow furrowed and the corners of his lips pulled down.

      She walked over to him and waited.

      He stared back for several seconds. Then he straightened and nodded.

      “Right,” he said briskly. “Let’s go. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

      Mel hesitated. She didn’t relish the idea of remaining in his presence any longer than she needed to. He had made his disdain known. He was a man who viewed her as a criminal, and always would. Even if she could find a way to prove her innocence, would he believe it? Or was he too hardened against her?

      Lieutenant Tucker frowned at her hesitation. “Come on, Melanie. I really don’t have all day.”

      Melanie shivered at the chill in Lieutenant Tucker’s deep voice. His contempt for her was almost tangible. The last thing she wanted to do was get back into the cruiser with him. She needed to go to Aunt Sarah, though, so she followed him to the car.

      As he backed down the driveway, she caught one last glance of the house. A shudder ran through her as the sunlight glinted off the broken window. She had been released from the horrors of prison only to walk into a new nightmare.

TWO

      The scenery sped past as Jace drove to the hospital. Melanie tried to ask a question or two. He only grunted in reply. He couldn’t talk now. His mind was busy analyzing what had happened. The scene at the house made him uneasy.

      She seemed to get the message. The silence settled around them like a cloak.

      Jace couldn’t accept that the events of the day were all coincidental. Too much had happened in less than two hours.

      Melanie had been released from prison.

      She had been verbally threatened by the man in front of the courthouse.

      Sarah Swanson had been found comatose.

      Someone had thrown a rock through the window.

      Jace had found Melanie reading her Bible.

      That had really thrown him for a loop. Against his better judgment, he found himself feeling sympathy for the pretty brunette. The distress in her brown eyes over her aunt’s condition was real, he was sure of it. He had gone searching for her, knowing she would need a ride to the hospital. He watched in disbelief as she leafed through the Bible. Not idly. Purposefully, as though she knew what she was looking for. When she had finally noticed him, the expression of peace on her face shook him.

      “I don’t understand what happened to Aunt Sarah.” Melanie’s voice interrupted his musings. He threw her a confused frown.

      “I assumed she was stung by a bee.”

      She shook her head. “The only thing she’s allergic to is peanuts. She’s always been extremely careful. She would never eat or drink anything without reading its ingredient list.” Mel shifted her position and narrowed her eyes, looking as though she was speaking out loud to help her think. “She was so careful I used to tell her she went overboard. Nothing was ever in her house that had even been processed in the same factory with peanuts. If she needed to special-order items she would. No. I just can’t imagine her accidentally eating something with peanuts or peanut oil in it.”

      He wasn’t sure why, but Jace believed her. Jace had learned long ago to trust his instincts. He was uneasy. If Sarah had not ingested something tainted by accident, then it had been placed there deliberately. The question reverberating around his mind was who would do such a thing.

      He parked the car, and they strode into the hospital. Jace caught Melanie’s elbow as they crossed the wet parking lot. She gave him a startled glance.

      “It’s slippery out here,” he explained defensively. Yeah, right.

      She quirked her eyebrow but said nothing.

      They hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps when a voice called out to them. Jace tried to ignore the speaker, but it was too late. Of course he would have to run into Senator Travis now. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Mrs. Travis had been in the hospital for over a week now. It was only natural that her husband would visit her.

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