Romancing the Gravestone (A Jane Ladling Mystery 1)

He did? If she hadn’t waxed poetic about the sandwiches, she might have noticed him right away too. “Help me avoid him, okay? He’ll tell me to leave the moment he’s near me.”

“That,” Beau replied, suddenly vibrating with amusement, “I can do.”

He wasn’t wrong. He dodged and evaded, and he did it well. As Jane made several passes around the room, speaking to different people, sneaking notes into her investigation pad, Beau ran interference.

Something she learned for their efforts: She had no stealth. Dr. Hotchkins had been adored or hated and nothing in between. Everyone he’d ever encountered had a motive—more than she’d realized in the beginning. Jane was now addicted to cucumber sandwiches, and the doctor had always brought a nurse to SCP. Usually the same one. A woman matching Emma Miller’s description, who just happened to go by the name of Nurse Emma. Once, the two were caught kissing after hours.

Affair confirmed and then some.

“—wanted to know about a time this drunk lawyer stormed into the clinic and punched the doctor in the face,” the person beside Jane was saying. Oh right. She was in the middle of eavesdropping on a gossip session between a volunteer who had worked alongside Dr. Hotchkins.

Who had wanted to know about the lawyer? Conrad?

“How terrible,” the girlfriend said. “Did anyone ever identify the assailant?”

“No. Dr. Hotchkins refused to press charges.”

A lawyer? Emma’s husband, perhaps? Anthony Miller. The couple had just solidified their place as number one and two on her lists of suspects. Circled, underlined and surrounded by stars.

Emma and Dr. Hotchkins. A woman capable of betraying her husband might not shy away from murder if, say, her doctor lover refused to leave his wife for her.

As Jane’s stomach rumbled, she cast a glance to Beau. He stepped in front of Conrad and crossed his arms. The perfect distraction. She worked her way to the snack table for a quick recharge. A moment to get her thoughts together.

Already she could visualize what had happened the night of the murder. After Dr. Hotchkins and Emma got caught at the clinic—the reason for the uproar among staff—they needed a new location to conduct their affair. Somewhere their spouses wouldn’t think to look. What better spot than a cemetery? Except the husband had been suspicious of his wife’s extracurricular activities for weeks. He followed her and seized the first opportunity to strike, surprising the couple as they desecrated a grave. Hubby Dearest knocked out his wife, killed the doctor and dug up the burial plot, planning to hide the body inside the casket. But something interrupted him.

Or maybe Emma had learned of the doctor’s other women and snapped. Maybe she’d planned the whole thing, with or without her husband’s aid.

Then, she or they started spray painting the fleur-de-lys on everything, hoping to throw people off their trail. A good plan. Get everyone’s mind on gold instead of romance. Or possibly things were reversed, and the romance had been meant to distract from the gold. So many possibilities, all of them one hundred percent valid and without (many) flaws.

Think. What did Jane know about Mr. Anthony Miller? For starters, his face occupied several benches in town. Fiona often touted him as an ambulance chaser. Interviewing him might be tough. A death had occurred, and he had a connection to the victim. As an attorney, he knew better than anyone that his name automatically rose to the top of the suspect list. But for the sake of Jane’s reputation, she had to try.

Beau rushed up behind her, startling her. “Incoming,” he said. “I couldn’t hold him off any longer.”

Jane straightened and twisted with a snap, bringing the last four cucumber finger sandwiches with her. “But I’m not…my food—” A scowling Conrad approached.

She shoveled two of the treats into her mouth, barely chewed, and swallowed, destroying the evidence of her greed. As a mix of foreboding, excitement and heat zipped over her nerve endings, she pasted on a bright smile.

His burning gaze remained fixed on her. “What are you doing here, Jane?”

“Don’t answer that,” Beau advised, maintaining his post behind her.

She frowned at them both before concentrating on the agent. As she and Conrad sized up each other up close and personal, she finished off another sandwich and stayed as cool as, well, a cucumber.

He waited her out, saying nothing.

“Am I committing a crime, officer?” she finally asked.

“It’s detective—” He blinked. “It’s special agent. And you tell me. Are you committing a crime?”

“No?” Was she? Who knew anymore? “I’m performing a public service. In fact, I already have a lead in our case.”

“My case. Mine.” He stepped closer, a slow ease into her space. “You will not follow this lead, Jane. Say it. Let me hear you.”

“But you haven’t even heard my idea yet,” she said, his scent hitting her. Oh, sweet goodness. So freaking good. Her eyelids dipped as heat washed over her.