“Fair enough, fair enough.”

Hands were shaken, cards exchanged. They took Sutton’s laptop and datebook. Glanced around a few more times while they stood on the porch.

When the door shut on the cops, Robinson turned to Ethan. “You idiot. I told you. You’re completely screwed.”

THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS

“Tell me, Holly. Do you believe him?”

Sergeant Roy Moreno was head of the homicide unit, and Holly Graham’s current superior officer, about six times removed, seeing as she was a simple patrol officer, and he was in charge of homicide. He was her superior, in all ways. Moreno knew a lot about this town, about investigations, and lucky for her, had shown an interest in her from the beginning. Not in the creepy way some of her fellow cops had, but a sincere interest in her as a person and an investigator. It was her dad’s doing, probably.Derek Graham was a well-respected district attorney, but who cared? Holly was getting a chance to work with the old horse directly, and that was going to be nothing but good for her career.

The old horse in question was currently sucking on a toothpick, staring out of the windshield of the patrol car. The laptop between them glowed. They were parked in the lot of the five-star Mexican joint down the street from the Montclairs’ lovely home, having rolled away just as a news truck came sharking around the corner. She watched the truck pull to a stop at the curb. Heading to the Montclairs’ gorgeous Victorian mansion, perhaps? The media in Nashville were very good at ferreting out drama, and the missing wife of a major author was bound to pique their curiosity.

“Should we do something about that?”

She glanced over at Moreno. Not only an old warhorse, a veteran of the force, he was a genuinely good man. She was lucky to have him riding with her to do some investigative training. His son was on the force, too, a few years ahead of Holly.

“Montclair’s a big boy. Let him handle them. I asked you a question.”

“He’s very believable. But I also think he knows a lot more than he’s saying. Something wasn’t right in that house. Did you see the bloodstain on the counter near the refrigerator?”

“I did.”

“It’s in the kitchen, so anything could have happened, from a nosebleed to a knife cut. It was such a small amount, and it was old, it had been there for a while. Who knows? We’ll have to pull the incident reports, look at the details on the domestics. But add in a deceased child, the wife’s supposed history of mental illness, the husband being a minor celebrity, a recent online kerfuffle, and the fact that he hired one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the state before he called us? There are so many angles we can take it’s not funny.”

“Robinson being there made me sit up and take notice, too. Makes him look guilty as sin.”