Her nose twitched, and somewhere in her head, she thought she heard the echo of a laugh. A practiced, insincere, nasally giggle.
She shivered and picked up a photo of the body taken from a distance. The woman was sprawled on the floor of a large walk-in closet. The kind featured on reality shows set in L.A. There was a tufted velvet hassock in the corner. Floor-to-ceiling shelves housed shoes most with skyscraper high heels. Luxury label purses, jeans, and tops hung in precisely spaced intervals and organized by color.
She whistled. “Someone with a closet like that lives in Harrisburg?”
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, wasn’t exactly Los Angeles. If there was a family tree of U.S. cities, Harrisburg would have been a bumpkin third cousin who kept getting divorced. But with several large health systems in the area as well as a nearby candy fortune, local pockets of money still existed.
“Her name is Bianca Hornberger. She was forty-four. A stay-at-home mother of two kids. The husband is a software engineer,” Kellen explained.
Nick wiped the last of the muffin crumbs onto the floor where Burt expertly hoovered them up. “You look at the husband?”
Kellen shot his ex-partner a bland look. “No. It never occurred to me to look at the spouse. Let me go ask him for an alibi.”
“Don’t be a dick. I’m sorry for messing up your fancy shirt and tie.”
Riley shook her head. Men’s ability to be infuriated one second and then trading good-natured insults the next fascinated her.
“Yes, I looked at the spouse,” Kellen said. “His alibi is airtight. He was at work in meetings with dozens of witnesses all day. Didn’t get home until eight and called 911 within minutes of walking in the door.”
There was a tightness in her chest, almost as if she couldn’t catch her breath. Her nose twitched again.
“Cause of death?” Nick asked.
“Suffocation,” she said quietly.
Both men looked at her.
Nick got up and squeezed her shoulder before moving to the sink to fill a glass of water. He put it in front of her and sat back down, dragging her chair closer until his body crowded hers. He might have been new at this boyfriend thing, but the man was a natural.
Kellen met her gaze. “That’s right. Medical examiner found signs of asphyxiation.”
Riley’s head was slowly filling with puffy pink and blue clouds, but she couldn’t see through them. “There’s something else,” she guessed, squinting at the table.
Kellen’s mouth tightened. “Yeah. This stays between us. This detail hasn’t been made public. But the coroner found a fancy pair of underwear lodged in her throat.”
“She choked on her own underwear?” Nick asked.
The clouds stayed too thick for her to see more than glimpses. She shook her head. “No. I think there was a bag over her head.”
The look the detective gave her was triumphant. “There was a plastic bag, with only her prints on it found next to the body. Coroner thinks the thong down the throat happened post-mortem.”
“That’s just creepy,” she said as the clouds dissipated.
“I need your help with this one,” Kellen said. “So far the investigation has turned up no leads, and my gut says this wasn’t random.”
Riley blew out a breath. “I’ll think about it and get back to you,” she told him. “You do get that my grandmother isn’t wrong, don’t you? I’m not very good at this whole psychic thing.”
“You were good enough to save your best friend and this son of a bitch here.”
“Technically, I saved her,” Nick cut in. His grip tightened comfortingly on her shoulder.
“If you want to get technical,Isavedbothyour lives,” Kellen added. “You owe me. So I’m calling in the favor. I need your help with this one. Otherwise, a murderer is going to walk free.”
Ugh. The last time she’d allowed herself to get involved in an investigation, she’d ended up at the bottom of the capitol complex fountain with a bullet hole.
The media circus that had made her life a living hell was only now beginning to calm down. The last thing she needed was more attention. She had two bins upstairs full of emails and letters from strangers begging for her to find lost items, contact dead relatives, and deliver predictions on future sporting events.
“I need to think about it,” she said.
