The landlady smiled complacently. “You and your son will like it here.”

“Oh, Clancey’s not my mom,” Tad piped up. “She’s my sister.”

The landlady looked taken aback. “Your parents?” she asked gently.

Clancey grimaced. “All dead,” she said quietly. “It’s just Tad and me. I work for the Texas Rangers, the cold case unit,” she added. “Tad and I go to the Methodist church.”

“We’re Baptist,” the landlady said, and looked not so pleased.

“Church is church,” Clancey said gently.

The woman shrugged. “Well?” she asked. “Are you going to take it?”

Clancey glanced at the paper. “The ad said you were asking...”

“We had to have the roof replaced, so we’ve had to add to the rental price to help us pay for it,” she said. She named a figure that was four hundred dollars more a month than the quoted price.

Clancey’s face mirrored her disappointment.

“Are you going to take it?” the landlady asked again.

Clancey sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “But it’s way over my budget...”

The landlady turned and walked out, leaving Clancey and Tad to follow, muttering about cheap people who didn’t know a bargain when they saw it.

Tad exchanged a long look with his sister. Now that they weren’t prospective tenants, the landlady dropped her sweetness and reverted to type. This would not have been a good place to live. Clancey, oddly, felt relieved.

“Thank you for letting us look at the apartment,” Clancey said politely at the door. “I’m sorry we can’t take it.”

“No problem,” the woman returned curtly. “We had five other queries from the ad already. Good day.”

She shut the door in their faces.

Clancey turned to Tad as they walked toward the waiting cab. “By the skin of our teeth,” she whispered.

Tad chuckled. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I didn’t want to live there anyway.” He looked up at her. “Why can’t we ask the Martins if they’ll rent us a room? They could use the money, I know.”

Her heart jumped, but just as quickly calmed. “We wouldn’t dare,” she said. “What if Morris came after us there and hurt them?”

He ground his teeth together. “I didn’t think about that.”

“I work for the Texas Rangers,” she said. “It rubs off.” She flashed a grin at him as they got into the cab. “I’m developing incredible deductive skills.”

The cab driver, a patient soul who had turned the meter off while they were in the house, laughed with them. “I have a brother who’s a deputy sheriff,” he told them.

“Really?” Clancey said. “My grandfather was one, also!”

“Where does he work?”

Clancey sighed. “He’s been missing for over five years,” she said sadly. “We think he’s probably dead. They never found a—” she hesitated “—a body.”

“That would be worse than finding him,” he agreed.