Careful to skirt away from the body so as not to contaminate evidence, she moved around the island to Lydia Kensington’s body. In stark contrast to her husband’s death, Lydia’s appeared far less vicious, though no less disturbing. In fact, if it weren’t for the light pink silk blouse that bore small, smudged, bloody handprints, and the one neat bullet hole that decorated the woman’s forehead, it might’ve appeared that she’d simply chosen an odd place to take a nap. Based solely on the vastly different styles of killing, Alyssa speculated that Gabriel had been the main target.

Cord, who had stopped to talk to one of the officers recording the crime scene, came to stand beside her. ‘Think this might have to do with one of Gabriel’s investigations?’

Tuning out the racket of voices of people milling about collecting evidence and snapping photographs, she squatted near Gabriel’s body, careful not to get in the way of the technician placing plastic bags over his hands. ‘It certainly crossed my mind. It might explain why his murder was more brutal than his wife’s.’

Rising back to her feet, she angled her body so that she could take in the kitchen, the wet bar, and the patio door at the same time. ‘Or maybe it’s the fallout from a burglary gone bad, or it could have something to do with the Kensington family name.’

‘Ah, the Kensington Swindle story heard around the country,’ Cord said, quoting the infamous headline. ‘That was before my time.’

Alyssa snapped a hair band on her wrist while she filtered through her thoughts. ‘If it was misplaced revenge, a burglary gone bad, or something pertaining to Gabriel’s work, why take Addis and Emerson instead of killing them, too?’

‘That’s a good question.’ Cord pointed to Lydia’s chest. ‘There’s another. Looks like someone tried to resuscitate her, so was Mrs. Kensington still alive when Addis and Emerson walked in? And if she was, where was the killer at that time?’

Alyssa didn’t have an answer, but unfortunately, she could imagine the terror Addis must’ve felt at realizing her parents’ murderer was still in the house. ‘Grace said she found Addis’s phone in Gabriel’s office, which tells me the girls went there to hide. But if Addis was trying to revive her mother when she realized she and Emerson weren’t alone in the house, why wouldn’t they just try to slip out the patio door?’ She felt there was something obvious she was overlooking. ‘Maybe Gabriel’s office will offer more clues,’ she said abruptly, already shifting course to follow the voices down the hall.