“Think about what I said.” She raised her voice slightly as he left.

“Dammit!” he muttered as he pushed “L” on the elevator.

She’d brought up two good points that he was already investigating. Was she covering her own tracks by throwing him off course, and why was she taking a vacation right now? Hiding evidence?

CHAPTER THREE

On Tuesdays the trash man picked up the garbage, but since that particular day was a holiday, they wouldn’t get it until Wednesday. Still, Jamie was determined to get rid of anything in her house that had belonged to Conrad. She did leave one picture of Gracie with her father in her daughter’s room. Even though Conrad had been a son of a bitch, he was still her father.

Was it something in the genes? Jamie’s mother hadn’t had a lick of sense with her relationship, and Jamie had been the result. She twisted her black hair up the back of her head and held it with an oversize clamp, dragged two bags out to the curb, and returned for a third big black one that held their actual garbage for the week. It would be ready for the trash man when he came the next day, and it would damn sure be out of her house.

Her grandmother had suggested giving his things to a charity, but Jamie was a little superstitious. She sure didn’t want another man to put on one of Conrad’s shirts or even his socks and feel the urge to become a con artist. The trash truck rumbled down her street before she even made it back to the porch of the small three-bedroom house that she and Conrad had bought together the week after they’d married. They’d planned on at least two children—a boy and a girl was what Conrad wanted. Moving from a small one-bedroom apartment, she’d felt as if she had bought a mansion when she first moved in. Now it seemed small, because memories lurked in every corner and every damned one of them fueled the red-hot anger inside her.

She would sell the place and move into an apartment. There was no way she could make the mortgage payment, pay taxes and insurance, and keep up with all her other bills on her teacher’s salary. He might have been a bastard, but he did give her the money for the mortgage every month.

“Unless I can sell the cabin and put the money on the house.” She sat down on the porch, propped her elbows on her knees, and put her chin in her hands. “That has to be Gracie’s inheritance, since she is his oldest living blood kin. As her guardian, I could sell it and pay off most of this house. I’ll make a will leaving this property to her, which I would have done anyway.”

“Who are you talkin’ to, Mommy?” Gracie plopped down beside her. She smelled faintly of cinnamon from the french toast they’d had for breakfast, but the rest was sweaty kid that had been playing jump rope in the backyard.

If anything could ease the feelings inside Jamie that day, it was love for Gracie. She hugged her up next to her side. “I was talking to myself, trying to get things figured out. How would you like to go to the cabin for a few weeks?”

Gracie jumped up and clapped her hands, her black ponytail flopping up and down in excitement. “Yes, yes, yes! We can swim and go to the snow-cone stand down by the store and will we be there for the festival? And Daddy can share cotton candy . . .” Gracie stopped and tears filled her eyes. “Daddy won’t be there, will he? Do you think he’s in heaven like the preacher said?”

Jamie pulled her down on her lap and buried her face in Gracie’s hair. “Only God knows that.”

“Maybe Mama Rita will know. She talks to God.”

“You’ll have to ask her.” Jamie smiled.

Gracie wiggled out of her mother’s embrace. “Can we go to the cabin today?”

“We’ve got some stuff to take care of first, and tonight we have to go see the fireworks display with Mama Rita. How about this weekend? That will give you time to get your toys packed and decide which outfits Barbie will need to take.” Jamie smiled.

There would be memories at the cabin, but they only spent a week there each summer. It would be a far better place to figure things out than sitting in the house all summer, and besides, Gracie loved it there.

“I think I left one of my Barbies there last time we went. I bet she’s lonely.” Gracie sighed. “I will miss Daddy. We never been there without him.”

“I know, sweetheart, but we’ll have a good time, and maybe you can turn some balloons loose when we leave. They can rise right up in the sky and he might even see them.” Jamie fought the desire to cross her fingers behind her back.

“Okay,” Gracie said with a serious nod. “Now I’m goin’ to start packin’ my Barbies and their clothes. They’ll need bathing suits and I’ll have to take Snugglies or I won’t be able to sleep.” She disappeared into the house in a blur, leaving the sound of a slamming screen door in her wake.

An official-looking black vehicle slowed down as it passed her house, then backed up and pulled into her driveway. She shaded her eyes with her hand and hoped to hell it wasn’t more bad news. That detective from the funeral got out, shook the legs of his jeans down over cowboy boots, and tipped his hat toward her. Tall and dark haired, he shot a winning smile her way and swaggered over to lean on a porch post.

“Mrs. Jamie Steele?”

“That’s me,” she said.

“Could I come inside and ask you a few questions?”

“No, but you can sit on my porch with me and ask anything you want,” she said.

The hat and clothes might make him look like an innocent cowboy, but she’d been conned by a professional for seven years. Detective Waylon could barely be classified as an amateur in the field, even with his winning smile and those sexy eyes.

“Hot one, ain’t it?” He sat down on the top step and rested his back against a porch post.

“I’ve never expected snow in July,” she said. “Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want to know?”

He pulled out a notebook and a pen. “You are a schoolteacher, right?”

She nodded.

“Are you angry right now?”

“Not that it’s a bit of your business, but hell, yes, I’m mad. I just found out my husband is a polygamist and he’s got at least two other wives. Have you found more?”

“Not yet, but I’m still investigating.” Waylon smiled.

Might as well pack that grin up in your shirt pocket, because it’s not going to win you any favors in my court.

“Then why are you here?”

“I want to know where you were on the day he died, from early morning until after three,” he said.

“Why until then? Why not until midnight?”

He looked up from the notepad. “He died instantly at three o’clock in the flower shop.”

“And who were the flowers sent to? They damn sure didn’t come here,” Jamie said.

“It’s an ongoing investigation, so I can’t tell you that.”

A new rush of pure old mad flowed through Jamie. Conrad never sent flowers to her, not one time. When they were courting, he’d brought her a bouquet of wildflowers in a quart jar, and on their first anniversary he showed up with a box of chocolates that he’d bought on the half-price after-Christmas sale shelf. At the time she’d thought it was sentimental. Now that she knew he was shopping at an expensive florist, it was just downright cheap.

“Did that son of a bitch spend money for flowers on those other two hussies? He never sent me a damn thing, or Gracie, either, for that matter,” Jamie fumed.

The detective poised his pen over the notebook. “I told you I can’t answer that. But it will help if you can tell me where you were all day.”

“Thursday, I spent the morning with my grandmother. We went to a farmer’s market and bought vegetables. At noon we stopped by a burger joint down near Desoto, and then we went came home and put away the produce, had waffles for supper, and I heard about the murder on the television that evening. My grandmother and Gracie were with me all day. Do you think I killed him?”

Was the detective mentally challenged? If Jamie had killed him, she would have been standing on the roof of that flower shop shouting to the whole world. She was not a woman to run and hide, and Mr. Detective could write that in his little notebook.