LITMIR.BIZ

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This guy has been arrested half a dozen times before. Yeah, he got put away this time for a decent prison term, but it wasn’t because Stuart had hunted him down. We got a tip. A whole crowd of us was waiting when Floyd docked at the marina with a boat hold full of coke. The fact that Stuart cuffed and booked him was just chance.”

      Perhaps it was lack of sleep that made her feel so stupid. “Then…what do you think?”

      He shook his head. “I’ve got to tell you, I don’t know what to think. The fact that there’s a connection between Stuart and the dead man makes me curious. I don’t believe in coincidences, and it would be one hell of a coincidence if our guy, fresh out of prison for dealing, had just happened to decide to break into your house of all others. And, oh yeah, instead of walking back out, happy, with your TV and stereo, he instead gets himself killed in your husband’s office.”

      During this speech, her anxiety had sharpened into a knife blade of fear. She dampened her lips. “Then he must have been looking for something.”

      “That’s one possibility,” John agreed.

      “But what?”

      To her dismay, he shook his head again. “I wish I knew, Natalie. Any ideas would be appreciated. Stuart didn’t brag about collecting anything valuable, did he? Stamps, coins? He didn’t tell the whole world that he had his life savings stored as gold bullion in his house?”

      She was shaking her head the whole time he talked. “He played golf. He liked old car shows. He did tear stamps off envelopes if he thought they were curiosities—there are a bunch of German ones somewhere because he had a cousin in Munich, but he didn’t know anything about stamps. Or coins or…” She couldn’t even think of what else he might reasonably have collected. “And his life savings, which weren’t all that much, were in a mutual fund and a twelve-month CD.”

      So casually she knew he’d been waiting to slip the question in, John asked, “What about you? Antique jewelry Stuart might have bragged to someone else about?”

      Again she shook her head hopelessly. “The closest thing to a valuable antique that I have is a set of early Nancy Drew mysteries. I can’t imagine that your drug dealer wanted The Secret of the Old Clock.”

      “That does seem unlikely,” he admitted.

      “Besides,” she pointed out, “Stuart and I hadn’t even met five years ago. So they couldn’t have chatted about my collection of Nancy Drew. And how would they have run into each other since, if this guy didn’t get out of prison until after Stuart was dead?”

      “True enough.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

      “I’m groping here, Natalie.”

      She nodded, understanding. It was a form of brainstorming, like sessions they had at the paper.

      “What will you do next?” she asked.

      “Talk to Floyd’s friends or relatives. I’m heading for Tacoma this morning to tell his parents about his death and find out whether they knew a damn thing about what he was up to. Hell, maybe he wrote them letters about how he intended to rifle Det. Stuart Reed’s house when he was released. And, oh, yeah, his buddy Bill Doe wanted to help. We should be so lucky.”

      She nodded.

      “Then we’ll wait for fingerprint ID,” he continued. “Take a harder look at your house.” His tone changed, his eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Natalie. We need to see if we can find something Floyd might have been looking for.”

      “I understand.” Strangely, the idea of him searching her possessions wasn’t all that disturbing. She had always found him a comfortable man.

      If she had been more self-conscious around him yesterday and today, it was hardly surprising. Their roles had shifted; his job required him to consider even her as a suspect.

      And somehow here in John’s home, she was discovering tensions she hadn’t known existed. He clearly harbored some resentment concerning his mother, for example. His protectiveness toward his children had seemed both natural and misplaced—except that she didn’t know why he was still angry at his mother. Once she would have said she could ask him anything, but the guard he’d snapped into place when she asked made her realize their friendship had been more superficial than she’d realized. There was so much about the inner man she didn’t know. And so much about herself she had never told him, including a biggie, considering he had been Stuart’s friend first. He had assumed her marriage was completely happy, Natalie knew, and she had never disabused him.

      She came back to the present to realize that he was looking at her strangely. Had she been staring? Had he said something?

      Rushing into speech to fill what must have been a peculiar silence, she argued, “But mightn’t the murderer have taken whatever it was?”

      He grimaced. “Unfortunately, that’s a possibility, too. But what the hell could it have been?” Now he sounded frustrated. “You’ve surely looked through the records Stuart left. The files in the desk seemed orderly and totally uninteresting to anyone else. None of the boxes in the closet had been ripped open. Your place wasn’t ransacked. Had anything been disturbed that you noticed?”

      “No.” She pressed her lips together. “It was strange, wasn’t it? The house seemed so normal. Untouched. Only, there was this dead man upstairs. It would almost have been easier if the house had been tossed. You know?”

      “Violence should spread ripples,” he said unexpectedly.

      She blinked. “Yes. Exactly.”

      “I need to be on my way.” He didn’t move. “What are your plans today?”

      “I hadn’t thought yet.” She hesitated. “I could watch your kids if that would free your mom to go home.”

      His dark brows drew together. “I’m not going to use you. You’re a guest.”

      Puzzled by the edge in his voice, Natalie said, “It’s nice of you to have me here, John, but it won’t hurt me to help out a little.”

      “You always want to pay your way, don’t you?”

      “Is that so bad?” she asked quietly.

      He got to his feet and looked down at her. “Just this once,” he said, almost harshly, “do me a favor. Accept my help without baby-sitting my kids, bringing me cookies or knitting me a sweater. Okay?”

      “I don’t—”

      “Yeah. You do.” He reached out, touched her cheek, the most fleeting of contacts but enough like a caress to steal her breath. “Friends don’t have to be repaid.”

      She found herself nodding dumbly. “Yes. Okay.”

      “Do something self-indulgent today. Get a massage. Go to a movie. Hey, go back to bed.”

      “I’m going horseback riding.” She hadn’t known she’d decided.

      His quick, warm smile erased the harshness on a face made more angular by lack of sleep. “Good girl. Sounds like the right medicine. You probably don’t get enough chances.”

      “I go two or three times a week.”

      The one gift from Stuart that she truly loved was Foxfire, the bloodred Arabian stallion she kept stabled at a ranch just outside of town. He was probably too much of a handful for her. He wasn’t mean, but he danced and twisted and fussed over the smallest leaf blowing across the path. Despite his value, she’d considered having him gelded, but everyone who saw him thought she should put him up for stud. She’d pried out of Stuart the fact that he’d paid an outrageous twenty-five thousand dollars for the horse, and she was told she could maybe charge five hundred for each live birth. But to do that, she’d have to move him to a different farm where workers knew how to handle breeding, and she guessed if he was being regularly bred, with his blood fired up he might be even harder to handle. Since she did so love riding her elegant Arabian,

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