LITMIR.BIZ

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before she told him her theory.

      “Okay,” she said. “I’m sitting on the couch, watching TV. I hear something. I get up and turn around. It would explain the blow to the left side of her head—”

      Cade swung the imaginary bat. “But not her position on the floor.”

      “Use your left hand.” Air stirred against her cheek as he feigned a blow to the left side of her head. “I crumple into the exact position where she was found.”

      “So she had to be facing the TV.”

      “But if she stood because she heard the intruder, why didn’t she turn around?”

      “Her cell phone.” Cade said it at the same time as Laurel spotted it on top of the TV.

      “She got up to answer her cell phone.” Her stomach sank to the floor. “It was me. I called her from the airport at that very moment.”

      “Your call may have saved her life.”

      Laurel frowned at him.

      “If she’d been sitting on the couch, the attacker would have had a much better angle, and the blow would have struck much harder. It could have killed her.”

      Laurel looked at the cell phone. “Have you got gloves?”

      “Nope. You’ll have to use a tissue.”

      “Misty assured me she’d be at home. She always watches Secret Lives at six. At first I thought she didn’t answer because she was engrossed in the show.” She pulled a couple of tissues from a box on the end table and used them to pick up Misty’s phone. She accessed the incoming calls.

      “I called her at 6:25 when the plane landed. Then at 6:58, and 7:20.” She looked at the muted TV. The logo in the corner of the screen identified the station that carried Secret Lives. “If she was watching the show, then she was attacked after it started but before it ended. So she was attacked between 6:00 and 6:30.”

      As soon as she’d seen Misty’s floor littered with photos and paper, she’d known what the attacker was after. But now she had to face her own responsibility for Misty’s attack. Her mouth tasted like cotton. She couldn’t delay any longer. No matter what Cade thought of her shaky theory, she had to come clean. She needed his help.

      “So you think my phone call kept her from being hurt even worse. I suppose that’s some comfort, considering—” She stopped. This was as hard as she’d known it would be.

      His intense blue eyes held hers, lasering holes in her confidence. “Considering what?”

      She didn’t know if he was reacting to the guilt that must be written all over her face or the sudden tension that tightened like springs through her entire body, but his demeanor changed.

      He uncrossed his arms and casually flexed his fingers near the pocket of his sweats. At the same time he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. He was poised and ready for anything. The transformation was an awesome and frightening sight.

      “Do you see what’s all over the floor? Photos. Scrapbooks. Journals.” She gestured toward the hardwood floor. “I know why Misty was attacked.”

      Cade didn’t speak, nor did he move his hand.

      “All this—” this time she included the bloodstain on the floor and the couch in her sweeping gesture “—is my fault.”

      Chapter Two

      Cade Dupree didn’t know what it was about Laurel Gillespie, but he was having a devil of a time taking his eyes off her. If it hadn’t been for one glaring incident back in high school, he wouldn’t even have remembered her. She’d been a year behind him and two years behind his brother. His memory of her was of braces and glasses and wildly curly red hair.

      The reason he remembered that much was because of the part his brother James had played in embarrassing her in front of the whole school.

      She’d changed. Now her dark red hair was pulled back into a loose braid, but it still wasn’t totally tamed. Wisps and waves floated around her face. Unobscured by braces and glasses, her delicate features were lovely.

      Yep. She’d changed a lot.

      “Cade, I want to get to the hospital and check on Misty. She’s going to be scared to death when she realizes where she is.”

      Cade took off his baseball cap, folded the brim and stuck it into his back pocket. “Five seconds ago I’d have said go ahead, but you just inserted yourself into the middle of this. You want to explain why this is your fault?” He leaned against the door facing and crossed his arms.

      To his surprise, her face turned pink.

      “I got an invitation to our ten-year high school reunion, but I hated high school. I never intended to come back to town. But Misty begged me to come. I told her I’d think about it.”

      Cade blew out an impatient breath.

      “This is relevant, Chief Dupree. I was going to wait a day or two and call her back with an excuse. In the meantime, I pulled out snapshots from high school—mostly of graduation night. I wanted to review faces and names.” She turned back toward him and reached into her jacket pocket.

      Instinctively, he tensed. It was a ridiculous reaction, totally at odds with her words and body language.

      “I found something.”

      He flexed his fingers as she pulled out a small stack of snapshots. She held them out.

      He took them and shuffled through them. “Yeah? What?”

      “Something that would never happen in a million years.”

      He frowned at her but she just leveled a gaze at him. He stepped over to a small desk and turned on a lamp. He scrutinized the photos under the bright light. They were mostly snapshots of Laurel and Misty.

      The two girls wore white dresses and held their caps and gowns. Both were grinning from ear to ear. Cade studied the awkward high-school Laurel. She wore a dress that hung on her like a sack. Her delicate bone structure and pretty features were not quite obscured by those ugly glasses and braces.

      If he or any other guy had bothered to really look at her, they’d have seen what he saw now. Little skinny carrottop Laurel had been destined to be a knockout.

      “Put the photos side by side.”

      “You could just tell me, you know.” He laid them out like a game of solitaire, then leaned over to study them more closely.

      “Back then, I didn’t notice anything odd in the photos, but looking at them now, with seven years of experience in criminology under my belt, what I see doesn’t add up.”

      “Who are these people?” He pointed. “I recognize Misty and you. Nice braces.”

      She sniffed.

      “Who’s that standing behind you two?”

      She stepped closer and Cade got a whiff of the scent of gardenias floating around her.

      “That’s Wendell Vance.”

      “Vance? Where do I know that name?”

      “He died that night.”

      A vague memory surfaced. “He hanged himself.”

      Her nod stirred the air near his cheek. He picked up one of the photos and looked at it more closely under the light.

      “Notice anything odd?”

      “No. I barely remember him.”

      “Look at his face.”

      “Okay. His face is red. Embarrassed?”

      “You don’t remember what happened that night? What the CeeGees did?”

      He shook his head. He’d

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