“Thanks,” she said. “She’ll need to make arrangements...”

“I’ll handle it.”

“We’ve notified the authorities,” the EMT added. “The sheriff’s department and the coroner should arrive shortly.” The EMTs left, the ambulance silent and grim now, instead of alive with light and sound, as when it had arrived.

Michelle drank in the scent that clung to Gabriel, the smells of soap and spicy cologne, the leather smell of his jacket. Beneath that, the masculine odor of his skin. She pressed close into his arms and let the tears fall.

Zack Tallman arrived just behind the coroner. Michelle noted the activity on the front porch, but she didn’t want to see Roberta’s body again. She didn’t go outside.

She heard Gabriel and the lawman and the coroner discussing things, and there was the whirring sound a camera made. She imagined that they were photographing Roberta. She shivered. It was so sudden. They’d just had supper and Roberta went outside because she was hot. And then Roberta was dead. It didn’t seem real, somehow.

A few minutes later, she heard the coroner’s van drive away. Gabriel and Zack Tallman came in together. Zack was handsome, tall, lean and good-looking. His eyes were almost as dark as Gabriel’s, but he looked older than Gabriel did.

“The coroner thinks it was a heart attack,” Zack was saying. “They’ll have to do an autopsy, however. It’s required in cases of sudden death.”

“Hayes told me that Yancy Dean went back to Florida,” Gabriel said. “He was the only investigator you had, wasn’t he?”

“He was,” Zack said, “so when he resigned, I begged Hayes on my knees for the investigator’s position. It’s a peach of a job.”

“Pays about the same as a senior deputy,” Gabriel mused, tongue in cheek.

“Yes, but I get to go to seminars and talk to forensic anthropologists and entomologists and do hard-core investigative work,” he added. He chuckled. “I’ve been after Yancy’s job forever. Not that he was bad at it—he was great. But his parents needed him in Florida and he was offered his old job back with Dade County SO,” he added, referring to the sheriff’s office.

“Well, it worked out for both of you, then,” Gabriel said.

“Yes.” He sobered as Michelle came into the living room from the kitchen. “Michelle, I’m sorry about your stepmother. I know it must be hard, coming so close on the heels of your father passing.”

“Thanks, Mr. Tallman,” she replied gently. “Yes, it is.” She shook her head. “I still have to talk to the funeral director.”

“I’ll take care of that for you,” Gabriel told her.

“Thanks,” she added.

“Michelle, can you tell me how it happened?” Zack asked her.

“Of course.” She went through the afternoon, ending with Roberta feeling too hot and going out on the porch to cool off.