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Her welcoming smile faded a little as she noted his exhaustion. Although he was only an hour later than usual, the poor guy was obviously dog-tired. She reined in her out-of-control hormones.
Heck!
Wally was forty-four. She didn’t want her pregnancy lust to kill him. Clearly this wasn’t the best time to seduce him or, for that matter, to discuss her reservations about continuing her role as the PD’s psych consultant.

Wally silently shed his jacket, hung it and his gun belt
on the foyer’s coatrack, then said, “It seems like years since I kissed you good-bye this morning at the pool.” Without waiting for her response, he swept her into his arms and added in a lower, huskier tone, “Dang it. I miss you so much when we’re apart.”

As his mouth claimed hers, Skye caught a glimpse of his expression. Passion and something she couldn’t quite read swirled together in his deep brown eyes. Was it apprehension? But why would he be uneasy? Unless, of course, his concern was about the case.

Mentally shrugging—she’d figure it out later—Skye twined her arms around his neck and buried her hands in his thick black hair. She loved the crisp feeling of the strands as they feathered through her fingers. His lips sent her heart into a wild disco beat, and she pressed herself closer, reveling in the sensations he aroused.

Wally deepened the kiss, his tongue stroking hers. He tasted sweeter than her favorite chocolate-dipped shortbread cookie, and she wanted to gobble him up. She forgot about the murder, the baby, and all her other qualms, and enjoyed the moment.

Wally’s fingers were cold as his hands crept under the hem of her shirt, and she shivered. But his touch immediately warmed up when he unhooked her bra and cupped her breasts. She ran her palms down his back, stroking the muscles and dipping below his waistband. She had no idea how long they stood there, absorbed in each other, but when they finally broke the kiss, both of them were gasping for breath.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and started to guide her toward the stairs, but when his stomach let out a loud growl, Skye stopped and raised an inquiring eyebrow at him. He twitched his shoulders, denying his hunger, and tried again to lead her up the steps. But when his stomach rumbled a second time, Skye refused to budge. She turned and shoved him in the direction of the kitchen.

“Did you eat today?” Skye asked as she pushed him into a chair.

“I didn’t have time to go out and pick up anything,” Wally said. “And I left here this morning without packing a lunch. But I had a can of root beer from the machine and a couple sticks of beef jerky.”

“Why didn’t you ask someone to go through Mickey D’s drive-through for you?” Skye asked, opening the refrigerator and examining their options for supper. Too bad this wasn’t a Dorothy day.

“You know I don’t like to take advantage of my position as chief.”

“I didn’t propose that you order an underling to pick up your dry cleaning—’cause I did that.” Skye brought Wally a bottle of Sam Adams. “Just ask a friend for a favor. Or even call Mom. She brings Vince lunch every day at his hair salon. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to feed you, too. Heck, once she knows I’m pregnant, maybe she’ll add me to her list of meals-on-wheels beneficiaries.”

“You must be hungry, too, or feeling light-headed.” Wally twisted off the beer cap and took a healthy swig. “Because you have to be pretty woozy to suggest involving May in our lives even more than she already is. I thought our goal was to keep our independence.”

“You’re right.” Skye scrunched up her face. “I just hate the thought of you going hungry.” She wandered over to the pantry. After examining the nearly empty shelves, she turned to him and said, “Our choices for dinner are leftovers from last night, an omelet, or frozen pizza.”

“Leftovers.” Wally took another swallow of beer. “That’ll be the quickest.”

“Okay.” Skye returned to the fridge, removed a glass casserole dish, and popped it into the microwave. “Tomorrow I’ll try to get to the supermarket after work. But whether or not I have time depends how the kids and staff react to the news of Blair’s murder.”

“I’d do it, but I doubt that I’ll have a chance, either.” Wally got up and started to set the table. “Why don’t we draw up a list and have Dorothy do the grocery
shopping? She’d probably be happy to earn a little extra cash. We can even ask her to make dinner.”

“Well . . .” Skye filled a glass with ice and caffeine-free Diet Coke. “Let me think about it.”

She was torn. They were both extremely busy, and having Dorothy help them out would be marvelous, but Skye wasn’t used to having discretionary income. Seven years ago, when she’d returned to Scumble River, she’d been beyond broke. Having made several foolish decisions that had maxed out her credit cards, she’d been deeply in debt. The only thing standing between her and living out of her car had been the generosity of her family. She’d worked hard and scrimped to pay off her obligations, but that fear of losing everything again hadn’t gone away.

Now that she and Wally had combined salaries, they were comfortable and could afford a few luxuries. In fact, they could actually have almost anything they wanted, because although no one from Scumble River knew it, Wally’s father was a millionaire. And Wally’s mother had left him a hefty trust fund when she died. Skye had only recently found out about his affluence herself.

Because he wanted his wealthy background and hefty bank account to remain a secret, Wally had always been careful to live within his means. And if anyone noticed that his father seemed to have more money than he should, the story that Wally had carefully spread around town was that Carson Boyd’s boss was a very generous billionaire.

It was probably silly to refuse the help, and after the baby came she’d need even more, but—the microwave beeped, interrupting Skye’s inner debate. Taking out their meal, she put the dish on the table and Wally fetched the salad. As they sat down to eat, Skye still hadn’t made a decision.

Digging in to their dinner, Skye felt a warm body press against her calf. Glancing down, she saw that Bingo had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere and was
gazing up at her with a pitiful expression of hunger on his furry little face. She snickered and said to the cat, “You’ve already had your supper.”

“It’s the law of dinner-table attendance.” Wally chuckled. “Cats must be present at any meal where there is anything even remotely appetizing being served.”

“Well, Bingo’s not getting any scraps.” Skye shook her finger at the beseeching feline. “His vet says he’s gaining weight again and somebody must be feeding him extra.” She tilted her head at Wally. “Either it’s you or Dorothy, because it isn’t me.”

“I plead the Fifth.” Wally kept his eyes focused on his plate.

“Tell that to the veterinarian at Bingo’s next checkup.” Skye ate a couple of bites, then asked, “Did Blair’s folks ever return your call?”

“Yes. Just as I was leaving the station, which is why I was late.”

“When are they flying out here to pick up their daughter’s body?” Skye asked.

“They aren’t.” Wally shook his head. “It seems they were estranged from Blair. Once the ME releases her, they’ll arrange her burial, but that’s it.”

“Oh.” Skye put down her fork. The polenta had formed a lump in her stomach. “Did they say what happened to make them feel that way?”

“They refused to discuss it. All they would say was that her actions had forced them to disown her.”

CHAPTER 10

TMI—Too Much Information

A
fter they’d eaten, Wally went upstairs to change out of his uniform, and now, as he entered the sunroom where Skye was sitting, she asked, “What in the world did she do?”

“Who?” While they cleaned up the kitchen, their conversation had turned to family and household matters, so at her abrupt question, Wally looked puzzled.

“Blair.” Skye chewed the inside of her cheek. “I’ve been trying to think of what I could possibly do that would make my parents not only disown me, but refuse to bring my body back home.”

“All Mr. Hucksford would say was that his daughter’s behavior was unacceptable to them.”

“Hmm.” Skye thought about all that statement could imply. “What do Mr. and Mrs. Hucksford do for a living?”

When Wally headed for his recliner, Skye tugged him down onto the settee and cuddled against the soft fabric of his T-shirt, inhaling the scent of Downy.

“He’s the principal of Hucksford Christian Academy and she’s the kindergarten teacher,” Wally said. “Blair’s
sister, Bernadette, is the school secretary, and her husband is the PE instructor.”

“So it’s a family endeavor.” Skye pursed her lips. “Maybe the estrangement was because Blair took a job at a different school.”

“That would be a fairly extreme reaction to a career choice.”

“Maybe not.” Skye held up her index finger. “First, taking the Scumble River job meant she lived thousands of miles away from home.” Skye added another finger. “Second, she chose to work in a secular versus religious school, which, depending on her parents’ beliefs, might be reason enough to shun her.” Skye wiggled three fingers at him. “And last, she . . . ah, fine, I don’t have a third reason, but I still think her teaching at Scumble River High versus Hucksford Christian Academy is important.”

“Possibly,” Wally conceded, but he sounded far from convinced. “Would you be up to calling Blair’s sister, Bernadette, to see if you can get her to tell you why her parents renounced Blair?”

“Sure.” Skye laid her head on his shoulder. “Do you have her number?”

“It’s upstairs in my shirt pocket.” Wally put his arm around Skye. “I’ll put it in your purse before we go to bed tonight.”

“Was there anything in the medical examiner’s preliminary report that might help the investigation?” Skye had held off discussing the case until Wally was fed and had had a chance to relax, but he appeared okay now.

“Not that I could see right off.” Wally scraped his hand over his face, clearly discouraged. “The ME concurs with Reid’s estimation that the vic died Monday night sometime between eleven and midnight—give or take a little on either end, since we aren’t sure how fast the pool cooled off after the power outage.”

“That reminds me of something I wanted to ask you but forgot to mention when I called you after school,”
Skye said. “Did Homer tell you that ConEd claimed there were no problems on their end?”

“No.” Wally frowned. “Knapik never spoke to me at all. As far as I know, he didn’t have any contact with the police or the techs.”

“Even though he said he would, I was afraid he wouldn’t bother to inform you since, when I brought it up to him, he insisted the information wasn’t important. But it made me wonder if the killer somehow monkeyed with the electricity, hoping that would interfere with any investigation.”

“Son of a buck! Homer Knapik is a useless piece of crap. That could be a vital piece of the puzzle.” Wally leaned forward and searched around the coffee table until he found a pen among the clutter scattered across the glass top. He rummaged through the flotsam and jetsam until Skye reached into a magazine rack by her side of the love seat and handed him a legal pad. Flipping to a clean page, he smiled and said, “Thanks for checking up on Knapik, darlin’. You always know exactly what I need.”

“I try.” Skye smiled fondly at the man she loved more each day that she was married to him. She was so fortunate to have made the right choice of husbands.

Wally scribbled, then said, “The problem with finding any forensics in the gym/locker room/pool area is that unless the murderer is someone who has no business in the school, their prints and DNA have a legitimate reason for being in those places.”

“But only the custodian has any reason to be in the boiler room.”

“Exactly.” Wally nodded. “I need to call the crime-scene techs and get them over to the school ASAP, before any evidence that might be there is lost.” He got up to use the telephone in the kitchen. Cell reception was poor in the big old house. “I’ll be right back. Do you want anything?”

“No.” Skye shook her head. “I’m still full from supper.” She hesitated. “Well, maybe some ice cream.” As he
took a couple of steps, she added, “With some caramel sauce . . . and whipped cream.”

His laughter floated back toward her as he walked away. While she waited for her dessert, she thought about how lucky she was. She’d never expected to find such a wonderful guy or to be this happy.

Picking up the remote, she turned on the television to see tomorrow’s weather forecast. Just as the meteorologist appeared on the screen, Bingo leaped onto the TV stand. Skye got up and nudged him, but the big black cat refused to budge. She tried to push him aside, but he dug his back claws into the wood.

She was still trying to shove the cat out of the way when Wally returned with two dishes of ice cream. He grinned at her efforts and asked, “What’s going on?”

“Bingo is blocking the television.” Skye gave up, clicked off the TV, and took a seat next to her husband.

Wally handed Skye her bowl, then dug into his. As he ate, he looked from where the unperturbed feline was sitting with his hind leg extended straight into the air while he washed his nether regions and said, “Darlin’, I’m pretty dang sure that Mr. Cat doesn’t think he’s blocking the view. He thinks he
is
the view.”

“You’re probably right.” Skye laughed, then asked, “Anything else from the ME’s report? Trixie didn’t have any specifics, or at least none she admitted to knowing.”

“Cause of death is drowning, but the chlorine would have washed away any other physical evidence, so there wasn’t much to go on.” Wally blew out a frustrated breath. “There were some gouges in the vic’s scalp. The ME’s working theory is that at some point after being Tasered, Blair regained some muscle control, at least enough for her to make her way to the surface of the pool. And at that point, the killer held her head under the water until she stopped struggling.”

“Was she raped?” Skye’s stomach clenched at the thought, but she had to ask. “Or would the chlorine make it impossible to tell?”

“You’re thinking because she was there so late that she was with someone,” Wally said.