LITMIR.BIZ

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you.

      Alex’s bottom lip stuck out. I don’t want to. Maddie’s a stupid dog, he repeated.

      Not stupid. Young. She won’t learn unless we take the time to teach her. Come on, I’ll help you.

      For the next half hour they worked with the dog, trying to teach her to obey the hand signal for fetch. Elizabeth was tempted several times to use verbal commands with the dog but she resisted, remembering the advice of Alex’s speech pathologist.

      Maddie was Alex’s dog, a birthday gift from her and Luisa a month ago, just a week before Tina’s death. As her master, he should be able to command her. Since the boy’s oral speech was unreliable to nonexistent, his speech therapist thought it best to use only hand signals with the dog.

      With a little instruction, Maddie was a smart thing, Elizabeth thought as the dog finally managed to figure out what they wanted from her. At last, she eagerly bounded after the stick and brought it back to Alex, who giggled and let her lavish doggie kisses on his face.

      His frustration forgotten, the boy and dog wrestled happily in the thick carpet of grass above the shoreline. Elizabeth returned to her bench, content to watch them, her love for this sweet child a thick ache in her throat.

      She remembered that first moment she had seen him, shriveled and red and already squalling his little heart out. Tina had asked her to be her labor coach, so she had been there throughout that miraculous day he entered the world.

      Every time she thought about seeing him born, she wanted to weep with joy that she had been allowed to play such an important role in his life.

      She’d been there, too, at the routine six-month well-baby check with Tina when his pediatrician first suggested the child couldn’t hear. And at the subsequent specialist appointments when the doctor’s suspicions had been confirmed.

      She loved him as fiercely as if he had been her own child, and she wanted to do all she could to make sure he lived a happy life and grew up to be a confident, self-assured young man who would never look at his hearing impairment with any kind of shame.

      While they worked with the dog, storm clouds had begun to gather over the water. It was getting late, and Luisa would probably have dinner ready soon, she realized.

      She had waited just a moment too long to herd the boy and dog inside. By the time she managed to get Alex’s attention to sign that it was time to go in, the first drops of rain began to pelt them.

      She and Alex raced for the house, laughing as Maddie jumped around them with excitement. By the time they made it to the back door off the kitchen, the skies had opened in earnest and they narrowly escaped getting drenched.

      Inside the vast, gleaming kitchen, they were met by the luscious aroma of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies baking and by Luisa holding out the cordless phone to Elizabeth.

      “For you.” Luisa didn’t bother to hide her disapproval. “I was taking a message when I heard you come. It’s the policia. That detective.”

      Elizabeth froze, gazing at the phone as if it had suddenly barked at her like Maddie. She hated the funny twirling in her stomach but she couldn’t seem to control it.

      She wasn’t at all sure suddenly if she could handle another encounter with Beau Riley just yet. Maybe in a few days.

      She almost instructed Luisa to take his number so she could call him back after she had a chance to muscle up the courage. Then Alex brushed past her, caught in the gravitational pull of the cookies, and the words tangled in her throat.

      Alex. She had to remember Alex. Maybe Detective Riley already had new information about Tina’s death. He didn’t strike her as a man who wasted any time. She had no choice but to talk to him and find out if he’d learned anything.

      She wiped suddenly clammy hands on the jeans she’d changed into after she returned from the city, then took the phone from Luisa.

      With a grim feeling that she would need all the concentration she could muster to hold her own with him, she slipped out of the kitchen and into the music room down the hall.

      “Hello?” she finally said, despising the thready edginess in her tone.

      “I thought maybe we were cut off.”

      In contrast to her own nervous squeak, the detective’s voice was deep and commanding, a smooth, rich bass. He had shades of the South in his voice, she discovered. Not much, just a hint of a drawl, like a slow-moving Georgia creek hidden in thick timber.

      Her mind went blank for a moment but she fought hard to regain composure. “No. I’m sorry. I needed to find a…quiet spot to talk.”

      “Big party going on?” Not exactly cordial in the first place, that voice dropped several degrees. He must not have a very high opinion of her if he thought she could come to the police station one minute speaking of her best friend’s murder, then return home to throw a soiree.

      Of course he didn’t have a high opinion of her. The first time they’d met, she had given him the coldest of shoulders and the second time she had sat at his desk all but wringing her hands like the helpless heroine of some silent film. He must think she was a complete idiot.

      Stupid cow. Stupid, tongue-tied cow.

      “No party,” she said finally, trying her best to silence the taunting ghosts of the past. “Just the usual chaos.” A boy, a puppy and Luisa, with her mournful eyes and disapproving frowns. “Has something happened?”

      “Yeah. Something’s happened. My partner picked out something in the crime-scene photographs the other detectives must have missed. It might not mean anything, but it’s worth checking out.”

      Excitement flickered through her. “What is it?”

      There was just the slightest delay before he spoke. She wouldn’t have noticed it except it was the same pause she employed while she concentrated on trying to pick her words carefully. She had the impression the detective didn’t want to answer her question but he finally spoke. “Some unusual bruising on one wrist.”

      “Bruising? What kind of bruising?”

      Again he hesitated. “What you might expect to see if someone were to grab your wrist tightly.”

      Oh, Tina. Elizabeth drew a sharp breath as a host of terrible images slithered across her mind, of fear and violence and a terrible death. She sank down onto the piano bench. What had happened to the sweet, innocent girl who had loved to dance and to swim and who used to sit at this same piano for hours with her picking out “Chopsticks” and “Heart and Soul”?

      “Ms. Quinn?”

      “Yes. I’m here.”

      “I’m sorry. I thought you’d want to know.”

      “Thank you. I…I did. I do.” She drew a ragged breath. She had known this wouldn’t be easy. “So what now?”

      “I’m still trying to figure out how this slipped past the medical examiner and what else they might have missed. I’ve got a few other leads on this end. I’d like to talk to neighbors, co-workers, that kind of thing. I have to warn you, I don’t know how far we’re going to get. Coming in cold to a three-week-old murder is about as easy as trying to find hair on a frog. The trail cools a little more with every passing day.”

      “I know. But thank you so much for helping me. I…can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

      There was another pause, then he cleared his throat. “I’d like to take a look at her personal effects, too. See if she left an appointment book or address book or something that might give us a little more to go on. Can you tell me where I might find her belongings?”

      “Here. Everything is here. The landlord wanted her apartment cleared so he could make it ready for another tenant but we…we weren’t ready to go through her things yet. Luisa and I had them packed into boxes and brought here after the other detectives cleared the scene.”

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