“Awful what happened to that Scottsdale narcotics detective,” he said. He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder what this world is coming to.”

I sat up as straight as if my backbone had been electrified, tried to eyeball the front page.

Clive passed me the newspaper, and I almost dropped the orange juice I was holding in my other hand.

There was an old shot of Tucker in a patrol uniform. His hair was still short, his eyes innocent of the things he’d probably seen since the day he graduated from the academy. He was even smiling a little.

The headline would have stopped my heart if he hadn’t called the night before, and given me that cryptic warning.

Family, Fellow Officers Mourn Fallen Comrade

I blinked. Don’t panic, Tucker had said. I almost did, just the same; the thing looked so real. According to the article—which I skimmed three times because my brain kept balking at taking in more than a glaring phrase here and there—Detective Tucker Darroch, 32, had perished when his car exploded in the parking lot of a convenience store. Darroch was survived, the reporter went on, by his former wife, Allison Darroch, and seven-year-old twins, Danny and Daisy Darroch.

I felt sick, and I must have looked pretty bad, too, because Clive put a firm hand on my arm and spoke with concern. “Mary Jo? Was this someone you knew?”

If you see my face on the evening news…don’t panic.

But this wasn’t the evening news, it was the Arizona Republic, the biggest daily in the state. Did that mean…?

I shook myself inwardly. No. It doesn’t. Tucker mentioned the front page.

But it was damn convincing.

Uncle Clive sent the maid back to the kitchen for water.

“Mary Jo?” he repeated.

I finally realized he was talking to me. “I’ve met him,” I said, because I knew Larimer wouldn’t believe me if I denied it. People don’t react the way I did to the death of a stranger, no matter how tragic.

I wondered if Allison and the kids were in on the secret, or if Daisy and Danny really believed their father had been killed.

“It’s a shame,” Uncle Clive said.

I put the paper aside with a shaking hand. “Yes,” I agreed, hoping to God this was what Tucker had meant when we talked the night before. What if, by some horrible coincidence, he’d really died in that explosion?

I was saved from meaningful conversation when Uncle Clive’s personal communication device began to beep. He picked it up off the table, used a stylus to bring up the menu.

“I’d better take care of this,” he said, with a frown. He got up and hurried into the house.

For the second time since I’d arrived at Casa Larimer the night before, I found myself sitting alone at a table.