Colton's Killer Pursuit

“I wasn’t suggesting that you leave town. Just that...as we’re looking...maybe keep your eyes open for everything to do with the health spa. Just in case.”

“If this had to do with the spa, wouldn’t it have been broken into, as well?”

“Obviously, whoever is looking for something believes firmly that it’s in this house...”

“Or was. Maybe they found it and now just need me gone to do whatever they want to do with it.” While he’d been stacking books, she’d gone to the corner with the tackle boxes. They were still intact this time, unopened, just out of the cupboard where she’d so neatly placed them.

Her theory held some weight. More so than his health-spa one did. “What would you being out of town have to do with any of it?” he asked, thinking aloud, keeping his thoughts focused. Her life depended on him doing so. “You still own the building downtown. You still own this home and everything in it. With you out of state, everything would still be yours...”

On her knees in front of the floor cupboard she’d been refilling, she looked up at him, frowning. “You’re right, of course. So, what...?”

It made no sense to him. Meaning the motivations of whoever he was after were not making sense? That he’d been right all along, and this was a crime of passion? “We have to face the fact that we’re not going to find a clear motive,” he told her. Everleigh was in as deeply as he was now, in terms of this particular investigation. That had been her choice, one that she had every right to make. “And I’m back to being certain it’s a former lover,” he said. “Or, more likely, one who was current at the time of Fritz’s death. She’s not acting rationally. She’s acting on emotional impulse.”

“Maybe that’s what she’s been in here doing—removing any evidence that she was involved with him, so there’ll be no proof to link her to the murder.”

Now, that made sense. He grinned.

She grinned back at him.

And he got hard.

* * *

Everleigh tried not to notice the bulge in Clarke’s jeans as she went back to work, straightening the room. A woman who was done with him shouldn’t have been looking at the crotch of his jeans to notice anything getting larger there.

As she worked, she was looking for evidence, too, but figuring that if whatever the killer wanted had been in plain view, it would be gone now. Taking stock of all of her deceased husband’s things...recognizing some, not others...wasn’t easy.

The book she’d bought him on tying flies... It was still the most read one in the office.

And the photo of him on the elliptical... She’d had it professionally framed for him to hang in his small office at the spa, but he’d chosen to keep it at home, where he did most of his desk work. He hadn’t liked keeping records at the health club. He’d wanted them at home with him...

“We need to go through the physical health-club records,” she said. The room was basically put back together. Enough for them to move around and know what they’d searched and what they hadn’t. “He was funny about not keeping confidential information at the club... If something was important to him...he’d have kept it here.” She glanced at the framed photo again. “Maybe there’ll be a picture of the woman...”

Not that a photo would necessarily tell them anything. But it could.

“We need to be looking for a journal, a calendar, anything that might make mention of a meeting, a place, something that will tie him to this woman,” Clarke said, going to the drawers in the desk. He pulled them all out, looked behind and underneath every one of them.

“I never knew him to keep a journal,” she said. “Fritz wasn’t big on writing...or reading, either...” Should she be feeling guilty, being in Fritz’s office with the man she’d just slept with?

Would the old her have felt guilty?

Did it matter?

What would Gram think?

Back at the bookshelf, she shook her head, started pulling out every single title, leafing through them, looking for a written dedication, a name, any notes. Finding that on most of them, the bindings weren’t even cracked.

She was thirty-eight years old. What her grandmother thought of her choices, while noteworthy, wasn’t a decision maker or breaker. Yeah, for all of her youth, Gram’s teachings had shaped her, but she wasn’t a kid anymore. Not by a long shot.

And at the moment, she wasn’t even sure she agreed with the older woman about the case. Thinking a jury was going to exonerate her because of circumstances...or worse, thinking that Everleigh’s freedom was worth spending the rest of her life in jail...

“I called the prison this morning to check on Gram,” she said aloud. “She’s not feeling better, but she’s not any worse.” Yet. She’d asked for special visitation privileges again that day, just needing to see for herself that her grandmother shouldn’t be in the infirmary. Being sick in prison...a woman Gram’s age...with all the communal facilities, eating, showering...the gatherings during free time...

“That’s good to hear.”

She glanced at Clarke, watched him flip Fritz’s desk chair, knocking around the bottom of it, as though Fritz could have hidden something there.

She wouldn’t put it past him. But she’d never have thought to look there. Clarke didn’t find anything. Put the chair down and moved to other furniture in the room. He was professional. Thorough.