Jaclyn paused, waiting. When the usual phrase didn’t follow, she said, “You didn’t say ‘bless her heart.’”

“God would know I didn’t mean it. I’d rather be uncharitable than lie. Maybe. Okay, I’d rather lie. Bless her heart.”

Jaclyn made a little sound that was half-laugh, half-hiccup, then she said raggedly, “The police have been here, asking questions. They know about Carrie slapping me. They think I did it.”

A new horror seized Madelyn. “What?” The word was almost a shriek, and belatedly she glanced around to see if anyone else was in the bathroom. There was; beneath one of the stall doors she could see a pair of sensible black pumps; the wearer was being very still, not peeing or anything—well, she couldn’t say for sure about the anything—obviously eavesdropping. “Hold on,” she said. “Let me step outside.”

Finding real privacy meant she had to thread her way through the crowd again, and step out into the humid night air. Even then she wasn’t completely alone, because several smokers were standing around, the glowing ends of their cigarettes moving back and forth like red fireflies. She threw them a frustrated look, which of course they couldn’t see, and walked several yards in the opposite direction. Only when their conversation became indistinct was she certain that anything she said would be just as indistinct to them.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I’m alone. Are you serious? They actually questioned you about this? Are the cops in Hopewell absolute morons?”

“I was evidently the last one to see her alive,” Jaclyn replied, her tone bleak.

“No, you weren’t. The person who killed her was.”

“Okay, the last one to see her that they know of. Throw in the fact that she slapped me, then fired me, and anyone could say I had motive.”

“Considering her personality, probably half the Atlanta metro area had motive,” Madelyn said fiercely. “Besides, when you left the reception hall, you met me at Claire’s. I’m your alibi.”

“Evidently coming up with an exact time of death in real life isn’t as easy as it is on television shows. Oh … even worse. I forgot my briefcase this afternoon, and left it at the reception hall. They found it there. I could have killed her either before meeting you, or after.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, of course not. I’m not really worried,” Jaclyn said, even though Madelyn could hear the thread of worry in her voice that said the exact opposite. “I didn’t do it, so there can’t be any evidence that says I did. It’s just that, starting out, I’m the most likely suspect.” She swallowed audibly. “They took my clothes.”

“Your clothes?” Madelyn asked, trying to envision Jaclyn standing naked in her town house, without a stitch to wear.

“The clothes I wore today. I’d washed them, which doesn’t look good, either. They took everything that was in the washing machine.”

At least they hadn’t taken all her clothes. Still, the action struck her as being rude and humiliating, and she knew her daughter needed her. “Let me see if I can’t speed things up, get the happy couple on their way to forever together,” she said. “Then I’ll be there lickety-split. Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll make sure this all gets straightened out.”

Jaclyn hung up, comforted just by talking to her mother. Hearing Madelyn’s outrage made her feel better, made her feel as if this would all go away tomorrow. The police would find whoever had killed Carrie, and tonight would be nothing more than a nasty taste in her mouth.

The irrational thought occurred that maybe she should call her dad. If anyone would know some tricks about dealing with the police, it would be Jacky.

Something was seriously wrong with the world when she was considering asking her dad for advice. He’d probably have her on the lam in Mexico before dawn. Running away from trouble was Jacky’s stock-in-trade.

No, she’d stick right here, cooperate with everything the police asked of her. Madelyn would support her through thick and thin, and everyone else who had been at the reception hall today would back up everything she’d said. And when this was over with, if Eric Wilder dared ask her out again as if nothing had happened, she’d restrain the impulse to call him a low-lying, back-stabbing, sewer-sucking son of a bitch—after all, he was only doing his job—and simply say she didn’t think they suited each other. Taking the high road would make her feel better.

She burst into tears.

So much for feeling better.


Chapter Twelve

ERIC WAS SO TIRED HE COULD PRACTICALLY FEEL HIS ass dragging on the pavement behind him as he trudged into H.P.D. Not only had it been a long day, but he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. The reason he hadn’t gotten much sleep had been a good one, but sleep-deprived was still sleep-deprived. He had a ton of evidence and paperwork to deal with before he could go home, so he doubted he’d be seeing his bed for another few hours, at least.

The victim’s family had been notified. That was always the hardest part. In this case, because her fiancé’s father was a state senator, he and Garvey had made two of the difficult visits. The victim’s parents were devastated. They hadn’t dissolved in a flood of tears and questions, but instead looked as if they’d been flattened, their reason for living suddenly taken away from them.

The fiancé, Sean Dennison, had been almost catatonic with shock. “But I talked to her,” he kept saying. “It can’t be her.” They’d already known he’d called the victim because they’d checked the calls on her phone. He’d been at work when he called her, he said, something that could be easily verified in the morning, so if it was a lie, it was a stupid one. Not that Eric discounted stupid; he dealt with it every day. Criminals, by and large, weren’t mental giants.

Eric had already made one trip back to H.P.D. to log in evidence, before going to interview Jaclyn, and now he had her wet clothing to deal with. He had the consent forms she’d signed, he had reports to write—hell, was it any wonder he’d decided to throw a can of oil at a robber instead of shooting at him? If he’d fired his weapon this morning, he’d still be filling out paperwork. Instead, he was free to work a case … and fill out paperwork. There wasn’t any getting away from the damn forms and reports.

He took care of logging in the evidence and transferring it for testing, though in the case of Jaclyn’s clothing he was pretty sure he wasn’t proving guilt, more likely eliminating her as a viable suspect. As Garvey had said, she didn’t have the vibe, didn’t ring the internal alarm bells. They couldn’t enter their gut feelings as evidence in court, though, so until she was solidly cleared he had to be extra careful in how he treated everything pertaining to her. Not only did every i have to be dotted, but he had to look at her longer and harder than he normally would have done, just to remove the possible taint of preferential treatment.

He couldn’t even call her and say, “Hey, I don’t think you did it, but I have to do this by the book and treat you like any other suspect.” That in itself would be stepping over the line.

This wasn’t the way he wanted it, but it was the way things had to be. After this case was closed, he’d try again with her. Maybe she wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. Maybe she could be logical and not have drama all over the damn place. She didn’t seem like the drama queen type, though; she was pretty cool and controlled. That gave him hope. It also gave him incentive to get this mess cleared up as fast as he could.

Out of sheer curiosity, he did a computer search on kabob skewers. There were bamboo skewers, stainless-steel skewers, decorative skewers, plain-jane skewers. This had to be a woman thing, because no man in his right mind would give a damn about cooking chunks of meat and vegetables on a stick. Okay, maybe a professional chef would, but as far as he was concerned it was damn silly.

He pushed away the report he was writing, leaned back in his chair, and propped his feet on top of the desk. Lacing his fingers behind his neck, he let his shoulder muscles relax as he closed his eyes and mentally processed everything he’d seen and heard tonight, putting things in order.

First and foremost, the homicide was almost certainly classified as second-degree murder rather than capital murder or even murder one. The choice of murder weapon—kabob skewers—suggested a lack of premeditation. Whoever had killed Carrie hadn’t gone there with the intent to kill, because who could count on having kabob skewers conveniently at hand?

Any of the vendors who had been there, plus Jaclyn, plus Melissa DeWitt. They had all known the skewers were there. On the other hand, it would take someone conversant with homicide laws to make a crime look unpremeditated when it was actually capital murder, and generally a killer didn’t think about lowering the level of the crime he’d be charged with so much as he thought about getting away with it, period. No, Carrie Edwards had been killed in the heat of the moment, with a weapon at hand, which in this case was kabob skewers. A skillful defense attorney might even make a credible argument that kabob skewers wouldn’t normally be considered a deadly weapon, that it was an unfortunate accident that one of the skewers had slipped between Carrie’s ribs and pierced her heart.

Carrie had been stabbed multiple times, with multiple skewers, as if the killer had simply started grabbing skewers and stabbing away. When one got stuck, or dropped, another one was at hand. That in turn suggested a frenzied rage. She hadn’t been killed coldly, or calmly. And afterward her wedding veil had been draped over her face, a clear indication that the perp didn’t want to see what had happened.