Page 5 of I'm Watching You

Lindsay dropped her purse on a well-worn kitchen table that was covered with nicks and flecks of paint from a child’s weekend craft project. ‘I’ve seen my share of death. Maybe the devil has stolen my soul.’

‘Don’t even kid about that.’

‘Do the police know who the dead guy is?’

‘If they do, they’re not telling me. A detective just arrived minutes ago. I told him everything I know, but he was pretty tight-lipped when I asked questions. He’s the one who said to stop what I was doing and track you down.’ Ruby’s sharp gaze traveled over Lindsay. ‘Are those the clothes you wore yesterday?’

Lindsay glanced down at the faded jeans and pink cotton top. She smoothed a wrinkle from her shirt. ‘Yes.’

Ruby cocked a dark eyebrow. ‘Where have you been? Lord, I hope you’ve been with a man.’

The idea made Lindsay blush. ‘Nope.’

‘Too bad. You certainly could use a man in your bed. That no-account husband of yours hasn’t paid you any attention this last year.’

‘We’re separated, remember?’

‘No man in his right mind would leave you.’

Lindsay was unwilling to get into another discussion about her failed marriage or her monastic, workaholic life. ‘I taught a yoga class yesterday afternoon and then went home to work on this grant. I fell asleep in my clothes on the couch. The power went out sometime last night and the alarm didn’t go off.’ If not for her roommate, Nicole, who’d been awakened by a barking dog, she could have slept a couple more hours.

Ruby grunted. ‘Well, if you ain’t got a man, I’m glad you at least got a good night’s sleep. You work too hard. You’re burning the candle at both ends, if you ask me.’

This last year, since she’d separated from her husband,she had stayed particularly busy, even by her own standards. ‘You’ll be glad to know that I slept like the dead.’

Ruby grimaced and glanced toward the heavens. ‘Don’t be making fun of the dead. The devil will come and get you.’

Lindsay pushed her hand through her hair. ‘Sorry. Morbid jokes are a holdover from having lived with a cop.’

Ruby frowned. ‘Your husband is a cop?’

‘Yeah.’ This was another topic she did not want to explore. ‘I’m going to talk to the police. I want to get those squad cars away from my house before everyone figures out we’re a shelter.’

Ruby’s heavy feet trailed behind Lindsay. ‘Don’t waste your breath. I tried a couple of times to talk to that “detective.” ’ The worddetectivesounded like an expletive. ‘He said to stay out of his crime scene. He even locked the back door and pocketed the key from the deadbolt so no one would go in or out that door.’

That ticked Lindsay off. Sanctuary was her creation. ‘This cop is on my turf now and he is going to tellmewhat’s going on?’

Grinning, Ruby shook her head. ‘Sometimes I think you’d rather fight than eat.’

She smiled. ‘Somebody’s got to lead the charge.’

Ruby snorted. ‘Honey, you’ve got too many causes. About time someone worried about you.’

‘I’m better off taking care of myself.’ She’d said those words so often in the last year that she almost believed them.

Lindsay headed out the front door and went aroundthe side of the house to the loose slats in the privacy fence. She bent the slats back and slipped through unnoticed.

The closest cop to her was a patrolman. He stood at the lip of the yellow tape and faced the crime scene, his back to her. He was slender, a little gawky, and appeared fresh out of the academy. He couldn’t have been much more than twenty-one.

A humid breeze tunneled through the backyard’s still, hot air and carried with it a host of smells. Blood. Waste. Gunpowder. Death.

From this angle she couldn’t see the body beyond the circle of six cops who stood around it.

She approached the uniformed cop. She cleared her throat. ‘Do you know anything about the victim?’

The young cop whirled around and glared down at her. ‘Where’d you come from?’

‘That house.’ She crooked her head toward Sanctuary and then nodded to the crowd of cops. ‘Do you know who was murdered? I hear it was a man.’

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