Page 3 of Twisted

Maisie’s eyes blinked, her cheeks bleeding pink through her mascara tracks for a moment. She dropped her gaze and nodded bashfully. Interesting.

“Lindsay Garfield, sir. Randy’s her husband and Carter’s business partner. She…doesn’t know I know, I think…”

Shawn scratched at his stubbly cheek in thought.

“Would she have access to your home?”

Maisie paused, lips turning down into a sour frown before she nodded.

“Yes, sir. Carter gave her a key. That was how I found out…I came home early after visiting my parents in Hope Mills. He said when he broke it off that he got the key back from her…” she said, brows puckering as she shook her head. It seemed her mind was jumping to the same conclusion as Shawn Cooper’s.

“Ya don’t think—”

Shawn gave a sharp shake of his head.

“Just have to exhaust all my resources, Mrs. Hale.”

“Cooper,” Hays said from the doorway, bidding him to come examine the body before the coroner took it. Shawn stood, frowning down at the innocent looking little sprite of a woman. Pale and sickly, just as his wife had been during the first trimester of both pregnancies. Her words had flowed with ease and rang with truth, but the detective side of him still rankled, thinking it could always be her. But for now, it clearly wasn’t.

“Anyone to corroborate your story, Mrs. Hale?”

She blinked again, as though she was staring straight into the sun. It took the breath from Shawn’s lungs. God, she was a beaut.

“Oh, yes, sir. We have cameras all over the outside of the house, and we attend church with the Jackson’s, they own the store down the street. I chatted with Wendy for about fifteen minutes when I checked out…” she said, swiping her finger under her mascara smudged eye. Shawn frowned. With cameras and a witness of her grocery store run, the possibility of it being her was lessening.

“Was anything missing, out of place when you arrived home?”

“No, sir, not that I saw. I just…fell to him…I don’t even remember calling the ambulance…”

Her face paled another few shades, her eyes off in the distance, seeing that horror anew—a look he’d seen on the faces of murder victims’ families time and again. Shawn frowned, tapping his pad to his hand. He knew his next steps, now.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hale. We’ll be in touch.”

She just nodded as Layla took over soothing the poor woman again. Shawn trudged from the ornate sitting room and into the kitchen where Hays stood above the cool body. Carter was dressed in work attire; tie loose, cufflinks unbuttoned. A sure sign he’d just gotten home and decided to relax, as any normal man would on a Friday night.

“Handgun, I think. No weapon found yet,” Hays said, his voice raspy from the years of tobacco he allowed into his body. Shawn pinched the fabric of his slacks at his thighs and crouched down to the body, eyes skimming it. There were Mrs. Hale’s handprints, the body clearly disturbed from her distress post-mortem. He closed his eyes, envisioning the scene he’d constructed in his mind, when he smelled it; menthol cigarette smoke. Hays smoked a pipe. This was different.

“He a smoker?”

“Not that we know of.”

Shawn stood, crossing his toned arms over his broad chest. He’d seen his share of bodies before. This was less grisly than most, but still more puzzling.

“You swiped her hands for powder?”

“Yeah. Nothin’. Clean as a whistle, save for the blood.”

Shawn nodded. All the clues were pointing to it being someone else. He could feel Hays lean in.

“Thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

Shawn snorted, but prevented himself from turning it into a full laugh. He couldn’t do that over a freshly murdered corpse. It wouldn’t bode well for his reputation.

“Mistress or wife?”

“Can’t be that tiny thing. Look at the entrance wound.”

Shawn did. Whoever shot him was taller than Mrs. Hale by a considerable amount. Frustration coursed through him. Why, on the first day of summer, did he have to be handed such a complex case? He’d have to cancel his family trip to Charleston. His wife would be pissed.

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