“No,” she said. “I couldn’t hear much of anything over the dogs down the street. They must have seen the thief and it got them going. They seemed to quiet once he was gone.” She scratched her head, referencing back to her diary. “Let’s see… I saw your babysitter let herself in the front door. I figured everything over there was settled, and I went to bed shortly after that.” Mrs. Haggerty’s nose scrunched up, pushing the wrinkles in her forehead together into a maze of thoughtful lines. “Come to think of it, I woke up before dawn to a horrible crashing sound, but I couldn’t tell you what caused it.” That would have been the garage door falling closed after Vero and I got home from the farm. Which meant she hadn’t witnessed us coming or going in between.
“Good… I mean, thanks.” My shoulders sagged with relief. “Did you happen to call the police? About any of it?”
“No.” Her slack skin wobbled with the shake of her head. “I didn’t bother. No point wasting anybody’s…” Her thought broke off. She peeled off her glasses, staring up at me with her beady blue eyes. “Why?” she asked eagerly. “Did that man steal something? If he did, we can go down the street and talk to that policeman right now.” She pointed at Officer Roddy’s unmarked car.
“No, no. Everything’s fine,” I insisted, stepping back from her door. But it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. By my best estimates, I had forty-eight hours to figure out who’d killed Harris Mickler before Nick dug up his body.
CHAPTER 38
I unlocked the front door of my house and let myself in, surprised by the silence inside until I remembered the children were with their father. Still, the quiet was unsettling. The TV was off. All the lights were out.
“Vero?” I called. Her name echoed back. Maybe she’d gone to the library to study.
My dress heels clicked loudly across the kitchen. I cracked the door to the garage. Vero’s Charger was there, beside the empty space where I usually parked. I’d left Ramón’s loaner car back at his shop after the incident with Feliks, and I still hadn’t gotten my van back.
I shut the kitchen door, and as the sound was absorbed by the empty house I had the sudden heavy feeling that I wasn’t alone. That I was being watched.
Something was definitely wrong. Something was very—
“Surprise!” My heart skidded to a halt. Vero jumped through the opening of the dining room with Zach on her hip. Delia jumped out after her. A bouquet of helium balloons had been tied to the buttonsof her overalls with brightly colored ribbons that matched the spikes in her hair. A cake perched in the center of the cleared folding table where our bills used to sit. Streamers had been strung from the brass chandelier, and a bottle of champagne and two juice boxes were chilling in a bucket of ice.
Delia bounded into my legs, nearly knocking me over. I wrapped her in a tight hug, memorizing the shape of her—her slight weight, the feel of her soft skin against mine—wondering how old she would be the next time I saw her after Nick found Harris’s body.
“I thought you were spending the weekend with your father.” I pulled back to look in her big hazel eyes.
“Daddy had to go to work,” Delia said, her tiny hands fiddling with the diamond studs in my ears.
“Steven showed up with them about an hour ago,” Vero explained, rocking Zach on her hip. “He said there had been some emergency at the farm and he needed to go. Theresa was out showing homes and he couldn’t reach her, so he asked if the kids could stay here tonight. And considering the amazing news, the three of us thought it would be a good excuse to celebrate!” Delia handed me a balloon. Zach blew spit into the plastic noisemaker in his mouth, his toothy grin wide around it.
“What news?” I asked as Zach reached for me and leaned into my arms. I squeezed him tight, pretty sure nothing was as newsworthy as Nick’s discovery this afternoon.
Vero handed me a folded copy of the local gazette. “Bottom of the front page,” she said.
I set Zach on the floor and he toddled off. My balloon thumped against the ceiling as I let it loose to open the newspaper.
There I was.
My author photo—me with my blond wig-scarf, my eyes obscured behind dark sunglasses—had been printed in black-and-white under a headline:Local Author Scores Six Figures for Her Upcoming Crime Novel.
My heart soared for half a second before it crashed in a burning pile of ash.
I was in the newspaper. My book was in the newspaper. What the hell had Sylvia done?
I skimmed the article, my pulse climbing.
An interview with Fiona Donahue’s agent, Sylvia Barr, of Barr and Associates in Manhattan, revealed a sneak peek into Donahue’s book, due out next fall.
When asked why she felt this book had made such a splash with her publisher, Mrs. Barr said, “Fiona is a real talent. This book will put her on the bestseller charts. It’s fresh. It’s hot. I smell a huge hit with this one!”
I let out a breath. Maybe that was all she’d told them. Maybe she hadn’t told anyone what the book was actually ab—
I sank down into a chair, certain I was having a coronary as I read on.
When a professional hit woman is hired by a desperate wife to dispose of her problem husband—a wealthy accountant with ties to the mob—someone beats the assassin to the punch… and now the wife’s gone missing, too. Determined to investigate her mark’s mysterious murder before she can be framed for it, a sexy contract killer teams up with an unsuspecting hotshot cop to figure out what went wrong.
“You did it, Mommy! Vero says you’re famous. Like a TV star.” Delia squeezed my legs, looking up at me with the same doe-eyed, adoring expression she usually reserved for her father. “Can we have cake now?”
“Yes, this calls for cake!” Vero marched the kids to the kitchenas I read the rest of the article with my heart in my throat. A month ago, this news would have been every dream I’d ever had for myself. But if Nick secured a warrant to dig up that field, this press release could be the nail in my coffin.
