Along Came Trouble

She sighed. “Maybe we’d better save that discussion for another time.”

Since Tucker’s supposedly rigid self-control had been weakening for the last ten minutes, he knew better than to press her on that. One tiny hint that she was back here because of him, because of something personal, and he’d be in that bed and all over her. It seemed like a really bad idea to go that route, especially if someone had very recently killed her husband.

Which, he noted as he headed for the kitchen to make the coffee, she didn’t seem to be all that broken up about. She was scared and shaken, not grief-stricken. He was going to have to ask her about that. Hell, he had so many questions, they might not get out of the house for days.

While the coffee brewed and he waited for Mary Elizabeth to join him, he called the station and told the dispatcher that he wouldn’t be in.

“Until later?” she asked, sounding stunned.

“No, I won’t be in at all,” he told her, understanding her shock. He hadn’t taken a day off in weeks, if not longer. Work had been his refuge, especially since Bobby’s wedding. He knew that he was on his father’s shortlist of projects. Staying out of King’s path had seemed like a good idea. “Until further notice, I am officially on leave.”

“Well, good,” Michele said, rallying. “It’s about time. I hope she’s gorgeous.”

“This is not about a woman,” Tucker said very firmly.

“Yeah, right. It’s always about a woman when a workaholic male finally takes time off out of the blue and in the middle of the week.”

“Well, this time it’s not,” he said, lying through his teeth. The last thing he needed was word getting around that he was holed up at home with a woman. Until he knew what was going on with Mary Elizabeth, he had a hunch no one should know she was even in town, much less hiding out at his place. He told himself he was gathering evidence, not hindering an investigation in which he already knew he would have no formal role. He needed an hour, two at most, to get a firm grip on what the hell was going on. After that, he’d go the official, by-the-book route.

“Have fun,” Michele said cheerily, clearly not believing him.

Tucker hung up on her. He looked up to find Mary Elizabeth regarding him with amusement.

“Haven’t taken much time off lately?”

“No.” He poured two mugs of coffee and handed one to her. He surveyed her from her tousled, subtly frosted brown hair to the pink tips of her perfect toes, noting the shadows in her eyes and the fact that she was wearing another one of his shirts and not much else. “I asked this before, but I think maybe I ought to ask it again— Where are your clothes?”

“In the trash,” she said with a shudder.

He stared. “Why? Please don’t tell me there’s blood all over them.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you that,” she said.

Tucker was forced to admire the stubborn, defiant jut of her chin. He’d leave the issue of the bloody clothes for later. As long as they were in his trash, whatever evidence they might provide was safe enough.

“Are you hungry? The cupboard’s pretty bare, but I can manage eggs or cereal.”

“Nothing for me. You go ahead.”

“I had breakfast earlier, while I was waiting for you to wake up.” He handed her the coffee, noticed that her hand shook as she accepted it. She was not nearly as composed as she wanted him to believe.

She met his gaze. “Then I guess there’s nothing left but to deal with all those questions racing around in your head.”

“Just one question for starters,” he corrected. “What happened?”

“If only the answer were as simple as the question,” she said. She took a sip of coffee, then another, clearly not anxious to get into it. She set the mug on the table; then, as if desperate for something to do with her hands, she picked it up again.

“There are lots of starting places,” he told her. “The beginning. The end. Anyplace in between.”

Still she hesitated. The color in her cheeks faded and her eyes took on a faraway look, as if she’d retreated to a place where her world had come crashing down.

“I found him in my grandfather’s library, in a chair in front of the TV. The news was on. The anchor was talking about some fireman who’d rescued a cat from a roof.” She met Tucker’s gaze, looking lost. “Funny how I can remember something like that, but I can’t remember what it felt like to love my husband.”

She sounded so pitiful, looked so fragile, that once again Tucker fought the temptation to reach for her, to offer any sort of comfort. Years of training as a cop told him to sit perfectly still, to wait her out until the whole story had come spilling out. Years of loving her made that almost impossible. His fingers tightened around his own mug of coffee and he waited.

“I thought he was asleep at first, but he was a light sleeper. Usually the slightest sound brought him wide awake. When I spoke to him and he didn’t answer, I knew something was wrong. I knew…” Her voice shook, then steadied. “Somehow I just knew that he was dead.”

“Did you call for a doctor? An ambulance?”

She shook her head. “I started to. I really did. I walked closer to get the portable phone beside him. That’s when I saw it.”

“Saw what?”

“The bullet hole.” She shuddered. “In his chest. And the blood. There was so much of it. The bullet must have hit an artery or something. I touched him. His eyes were wide open and he was cold.” Her gaze sought Tucker’s. “That means he’d been dead a long time, right?”

“Probably,” Tucker agreed. “Was it a suicide?”

She shook her head. “Definitely not his style.”

“That’s not an explanation that’s going to wash with the police. Any man’s style can change if he’s feeling desperate enough.”

“Okay, then, there was no gun.” She regarded Tucker with a helpless look. “That means he had to have been murdered, right? There’s no other explanation.”

“You’re sure about the gun? Think, Mary Elizabeth. Could it have fallen on the floor, slid under the chair?”

Fresh tears welled up in her eyes at his harsh tone. “I looked,” she whispered. “I looked everywhere, and then I realized that someone had shot him and that I was going to be the first person everyone thought of. I panicked. All I could think about was coming here and telling you, letting you figure out what happened.”

“Why would anyone think you’d done it?” he asked, even though he knew that the spouse was the most likely suspect in a case like this, at least until things had sorted themselves out and more clues had been uncovered.

“Because I was leaving him for good.”

Tucker was as shocked by that as he had been by her announcement that Chandler was dead. “You were?”

She nodded. “It was a well-kept secret that we were having problems. I’d moved out of the Richmond house months ago.”

“You didn’t come back here,” he said. He would have known, would have heard if she’d been back at Swan Ridge alone. If nothing else, King would have warned him away from her.

“No, I traveled with a friend. Larry told everyone I was taking an extended vacation, that he’d planned to go along but that pressing matters in Richmond had kept him here.”

“Any of that reported in the media, any speculation that you two were splitting?”

“No. His press secretary was very careful. He knew Larry would fire him if so much as a hint leaked out.”

“Okay, then, if everything was so hushed up, what makes you think people would suspect you of killing him?”

“I got back to town two days ago. I’d made up my mind to end things. We went to dinner in Richmond, and I told him it was over. We had a really nasty, very public brawl. I had thought it would be better if I told him in public, that he wouldn’t risk a scene because of the political ramifications, but I was wrong. He went crazy. He started accusing me of cheating on him.”

“Were you?”