Page 61 of Fatal Witness

“Could this wait a couple of hours? We just got here,” Mark said.

“I considered that, but I want to be here, and I have an appointment in two hours that will probably take the rest of the afternoon. Besides, the sooner she does it, the sooner we can figure out who might’ve killed Keith.”

“I’ll do anything I can to help,” Dani said.

“I figured you would. I’ll need your prints to send to the state boys, and Stone mentioned that you had recently provided a DNA sample to her. She offered to share the report with me.”

“I have no problem with that at all, and now is fine to go through the house. Oh, and if it’s okay, I’ll stop by your office tomorrow for you to take my prints ... unless you have—”

“Tomorrow is fine.”

While the men collected their luggage, Dani keyed in the pin for the door lock. She hesitated, then pushed the door open and walked inside the foyer.

Familiar scents met her. The cypress paneling from the den, lemon wax that the weekly housekeeper used ... She almost lost it when she identified the cherry smell from the pipe tobacco her uncle smoked.

Dani wasn’t certain she could do this.

Memories assaulted her as she went through each room, but she plowed through the task, clenching her jaw when she found her dresser drawers riffled through. No amount of washing would ever clean the contamination from the murder, and she wanted tograb a garbage bag and stuff the clothes inside, but she doubted that would go over well with the sheriff.

When she came to the den, she averted her eyes from the dark stain in the middle of the room. Dani stared at the wall safe standing ajar.

“Do you know what he kept in there?” the sheriff asked.

“No. He never shared the combination with me. And I don’t know how he did it, but whoever killed Keith made him open the safe.”

Crider eyed the empty box. “Why do you say that?”

“The company he bought it from assured my uncle it was burglar-proof. He didn’t believe it and hired a ‘reformed’ safecracker to try and break into it. He couldn’t.”

“What would have made Keith open it?” Crider asked.

“That’s easy,” Mark said. “The killer threatened Dani.”

28

“Do you mind?” Dani asked as she placed two frozen meals in the microwave and set the cook time.

“Not at all.” Mark had noticed two vacuum-sealed steaks in the refrigerator, but he didn’t question her when she put them in the freezer.

She pulled ingredients from the refrigerator and set about making them salads. Their dinners were almost ready when she set a colorful salad beside each of their plates. “Maybe this will make up for not cooking the steaks, but I just couldn’t eat one.”

“Don’t worry about it. What we’re having has to be better than MREs.”

“MREs?”

“Meals ready to eat.”

“I forgot you were in the military.”

He nodded. “I wish I could sometimes.”

“Want to talk about it?”

He tried hard to focus on the dark irises in her blue eyes, but the flashback came all the same. Gunfire. Blood. Jolie ... The soft dinging from the microwave brought him out of it. That or her hand as it covered his.

“Mark?”

“Sorry. Just a bad memory.”

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