Page 44 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

“Another one?”

“Oh, come on, Detective, don’t try to bull sh—pull one over on me.” Morrisette cocked her head to one side to survey him. “It’s written all over that ugly mug of yours. You find the widow attractive.”

“She is attractive,” he said carefully.

“I mean, attractive to you. If she wasn’t our A-number one suspect, you might just think about taking her out and trying her on for size.”

“Don’t think so,” Reed lied, not wanting to follow that line of thinking. “She’s a little wacky for my taste.”

“I told you not to bullshit me. Oh, darn, another quarter.” Looking disgusted with herself, Morrisette hopped off the desk. “You like ’em a little wacky. Or kinky. Maybe even a lot kinky. As long as they’re at least one step out of the mainstream. Wasn’t that the trouble with the schoolteacher? Helen? She was too square.”

Reed didn’t answer, but his jaw tightened.

“Hey!” Morrisette held her hands up to her head as if in surrender. “I’m not the one to talk about relationships. If there’s a loser within a five-hundred-mile radius, I end up dating him.”

He didn’t comment. Didn’t want to pursue this conversation. And he didn’t want to think about Helen and what life might have been if he’d stuck it out in San Francisco, given into the pressure and married her. His feelings about Caitlyn Bandeaux were clear: she was a suspect. Period. The suicide theory was history as far as he was concerned, though he wouldn’t admit it to the press or Bandeaux’s family just yet. He snapped the chair back to its normal position. “See if you can track down her shrink. Rebecca Wade. She left town a month or so ago, and I don’t like it. Do what you have to do to find her. ASAP. I want to know why she left when she did, where she is and what she can tell us about Caitlyn Bandeaux.”

“There is that little problem of patient-doctor privilege.”

“Work around it. It’s just too convenient that she’s missing.”

“You think her patient killed her?”

“I don’t know what to think, not until we locate her. Meanwhile, I’ll double-check Caitlyn Bandeaux’s alibi.”

“That would be a good start,” she said, slapping the top of his desk, “a damned good start.”

“And that’s another quarter. At this rate you’ll have both kids’ college tuition funded by Christmas.”

“Very funny,” she muttered under her breath and looked as if she wanted to cuss him out big time, but held her tongue. “I’ll let you know when I find Dr. Wade. In the meantime, get over your fantasies and figure out how to prove that Caitlyn Bandeaux killed her husband.”

“So I take it you don’t believe in innocent until proven guilty?”

“I think that’s pure, unadulterated . . . hogwash. I’ll stake all of my kids’ college fund that Mrs. Bandeaux is guilty as sin.”

The dream replayed as it always did.

She heard her brother’s voice ricocheting off of the surrounding cliffs.

“Help!” he yelled, his strong voice fading in the storm. “Someone help me!”

Caitlyn ran through the thicket of spindly pines, her boots slipping on a dusting of snow that was beginning to cover the forest floor. “Where are you? Charles!” she screamed, frantic as she scrambled over a fallen log. Was she getting closer or farther away? “Charles!”

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Where was he? Snow fell from the sky and night was closing in, darkness seeping through the undergrowth.

Bursting through a thick copse, she caught sight of him lying in the brush, the shaft of an arrow sticking out of his chest, a red stain pooling dark upon his corduroy shirt.

Oh, no! She stumbled, then climbed to her feet, but her legs felt leaden, weighted down by the ice and snow swirling around her. Dry leaves crackled underfoot, and somewhere far off a dog howled. “I’m coming,” she yelled, running forward, her breath fogging the cold winter air. As she reached him, she dropped to her knees, her icy fingers wrapping around the horrid weapon protruding from her brother’s torso.

“Don’t!” a frightened voice warned. She turned to see Griffin, pale-faced and wan, standing between two saplings. Snow had collected on his collar and in his disheveledhair.

“Help me!” she screamed.

Griffin didn’t move. His gaze was glued to the arrow. “Don’t pull it out!”

“But he’s dying!” Her words echoed in the forest, swirled in the falling snow.

“You’ll kill him sure if you yank that out.”

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