LITMIR.BIZ

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the witch ever came into Matt’s life.

      Guided by her tone, Sean made the only logical assumption. “But she wasn’t ‘the one,’ was she?”

      “Not unless we were talking about barracudas, sir,” Charley replied, deliberately staring straight ahead, past the CSI chief’s head.

      “No need to call me sir,” Sean said. That sort of thing created a formal atmosphere and right now, he was striving for the exact opposite. Nodding his head to indicate Declan, he added, “He never does.”

      “I do, too. You just don’t listen,” Declan told his father.

      “All too well, Declan,” Sean said, glancing at his son knowingly. “All too well. All right, if you two want to stand over there and wait until I finish processing the crime scene, it shouldn’t be all that long.” He glanced at the opened bottles of vodka and Kahlua on the coffee table. “A little early in the day to be getting into that right now. Was that his drink of choice?” he asked. “A black Russian?”

      It hadn’t been, initially. All Matt ever drank—if he drank at all—was a beer, maybe on rare occasions, two. He hadn’t been very big on anything that allowed him to lose the tight rein he had over his control.

      “It was a habit he picked up from Melissa,” Charley told him.

      Declan scanned the room as if that could somehow answer his questions by the very nature of the vibrations that had been left behind. “Then maybe she was here, too,” he suggested.

      “Only one glass,” Charley pointed out. “It was the first thing I checked for.” Once she could bring herself to leave Matt where he lay, she added silently. “Besides, there’s no lipstick on the glass.”

      “Big on makeup, was she?” Declan asked, curious. This detective seemed to know a lot about the woman in question. Why?

      “It helped to cover up her physical flaws,” she explained.

      He laughed at the way she worded her answer. “Not a big fan of the woman in question, I take it.”

      Charley saw no reason to deny or cover up how she felt about the woman who had deliberately broken her brother’s heart. What did it matter? Matt was gone and his feelings were the only ones that had ever mattered to her anyway. If she’d held her tongue before about Melissa, it was only to spare him.

      In hindsight, maybe if she had said something, he wouldn’t have gotten to this point. Maybe he might have even been alive now because he would have been at work, not home and unprotected.

      “I wouldn’t lift a finger to save her if she was drowning in a puddle of rainwater,” Charley told the detective.

      “Talk about cold,” Declan couldn’t help commenting.

      Actually, it was the exact opposite. Whenever she thought of the strawberry-blonde with the flat brown eyes who had led her brother around as if he were some sort of trained monkey on a leash, her blood pressure went up by at least ten points. Possibly even more.

      “She cut out his heart and stomped on it. I have no reason to get all warm and toasty whenever I think of her—which is as infrequently as possible,” she informed Declan, her tone indicating that she didn’t want to discuss the woman anymore.

      “Duly noted,” Sean said. For a minute, she’d forgotten the other man was still in the room.

      The head of CSI took out the camera he’d paid for with his own money, preferring to use something he was comfortable with rather than the one the department had issued to him.

      “Will you two be working the case together?” he asked mildly.

      Declan said, “Don’t know yet” at the same time that Charley said, “Yes.”

      Sean smiled. “A slight difference of opinion, I see. Apparently the situation is all tangled up, which is nothing new.” He lowered the camera for a moment to look at her. “I’ll keep Declan here posted and he can let you know what progress has been made, if any.”

      She didn’t want to be on the receiving end of anything secondhand. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stop by the lab whenever you’re done processing the evidence.”

      Sean glanced up for a moment, assessing the woman in front of him. Seeing the expression in her eyes. There was that pain again, he noted. Definite pain. This wasn’t just a fellow brother in blue she’d looked in on. This was someone important to her.

      For now, he let it go at that. He had a crime scene to process. “Give me your card, Charley.” She was quick to oblige him, digging out one of the cards the department had issued to her.

      Matt had his own made up for her at the same time. The cards were identical—except for the drawing of a teddy bear on the front. The image represented Barney the Bear, another toy he’d given her. One, he told her, that was supposed to keep her company and protect her whenever she felt afraid.

      Barney was propped up on her bed where, even now, he spent his days and nights, a vivid connection to her childhood.

      And now he would also serve as a reminder of the brother she’d lost today, she couldn’t help thinking.

      Steady, Charley warned herself.

      Sean tucked the card into his pocket and went on taking photographs of the crime scene.

      “Your friend have any enemies?” Declan asked as they walked out of the house.

      She hated leaving Matt there, lifeless on the sofa, no longer regarded as a person, just a statistic. But she knew she had to. There was nothing she could do for him now—except find his killer.

      “None,” she answered the detective.

      “How about this ex-girlfriend?” he prodded. “Melissa?”

      Charley shook her head. As much as she hated the woman, she knew Melissa wasn’t responsible for Matt’s murder. “Melissa didn’t do this.”

      Declan looked at her with more than mild interest. “What makes you so sure?”

      “To begin with, she’s not bright enough to know how to work a stapler,” Charley said sarcastically, referring to the note that had been stapled to Matt’s chest. “And the note said this was only the beginning. That means whoever did it was holding Matt accountable for something and he—or she—was obviously holding other people accountable, as well.”

      “Accountable for what?” Declan asked.

      Charley shook her head in complete frustration. “I don’t know.”

      For now, he took her at her word. “Fair enough. But there’s also another explanation, you know.”

      She looked at him, waiting. She certainly couldn’t think of any. “Which is?”

      “Maybe whoever did it wanted to make it sound as if there were going to be other fatalities to throw us off. Maybe Holt was the killer’s only intended victim.”

      The theory had merit, she supposed. “It’s a possibility,” Charley allowed, even though she didn’t want to. This gave them far too many possibilities, far too many avenues to investigate.

      Well, at least he got her to admit that, Declan thought. Maybe this meant she wasn’t as terminally stubborn as she used to be. “This Melissa, you know her last name?”

      “Merryweather,” Charley told him, then repeated, “She didn’t do it.”

      Declan nodded, barely paying attention to her. He was busy forming plans in his head.

      “So you said. Humor me.” And then he realized that she could still be of some more use. “You wouldn’t by any chance know where we could find her, would you?”

      Charley’s expression was totally unreadable. “Other than under the first rock you come to, no.”

      “That’s

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