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Hale slowly nodded. It was the last thing he wanted, he realized, and that made him feel guilty as hell.

“I need to have sex with my husband,” she said as if she could read his thoughts.

The elevator bell dinged, and Hale heard the doors whisper open. A moment later Declan stood in the office doorway, looking a bit confused. “Can’t find my damn keys.”

Hale got up from his desk and hurried to help him. Anything to get away from Kristina and her strangely desperate need to put things “right” in their marriage.

A few moments later Declan declared, “In my pocket! I swear, I searched there.”

Hale said, “I’ll head down with you,” and waited while Declan worked his way into the elevator car again. As the doors closed, he saw Kristina throw him a look as she grabbed her coat, and he couldn’t decipher what was on her face. The closest emotion he could come up with was fear.

CHAPTER 10

Savannah drove away from Bancroft Development, shifting in her seat, as her Braxton Hicks contractions kept right on coming. She had lied about them going away and had done her best to ignore them through the rest of the interview. But maybe these contractions were something more, although every other time she’d felt that way, the contractions had disappeared, so she wasn’t about to make that prediction yet. It was almost as if her eagerness to think they were real scared them away. Screw that. She wasn’t going to think about them too hard unless they settled down into rhythmic waves.

She sighed. On her way to Hale’s offices her mind had been full of thoughts of the women of Siren Song and what she’d learned from Herman Smythe’s account, A Short History of the Colony. Mostly she’d focused on the “gifts” that had apparently been bestowed upon the young women who still resided there, the fact that they’d been passed down from generation to generation. She’d also gotten a further insight into Mary Rutledge Beeman’s days of uninhibited sex and why Catherine Rutledge had drawn a halt to all of them. Savvy had concluded that she should learn more about the offspring—the girls and the boys—whom Mary had given birth to, find out their names at the very least. Since Catherine wasn’t eager to pass out that information, she would contact Herman Smythe, and even though he’d been much younger when he’d written the account of the Colony, there was nothing like going to the source.

But after meeting with Hale and running up against Kristina, Declan, and everyone else at Bancroft Development—that was what it had felt like, a battle more than an interview—she’d dropped thoughts of Catherine and the Colony in favor of the department’s ongoing investigation into the Donatellas’ deaths.

The good thing about that meeting was that Hale St. Cloud had been easy to get along with and more than helpful. In fact, the whole staff had followed his lead and had bent over backward to give her anything she needed. In her experience, everyone—everyone—resented the police looking into their business, no matter if they had something to hide or not, so it was a pleasure being treated with respect and an eagerness to help. She’d never seen that side of Hale before. Was it because she was carrying Baby St. Cloud? Undoubtedly, that was a factor, but was there something else there, too? Maybe he thought he could dissuade her from delving deeper into his company books if he was extra nice?

“Cynical,” she said aloud, driving along the curving cliff-side highway.

Still, it seemed like he’d handed over everything she could have asked for. Was it really that he had nothing to hide, or was he merely killing her with kindness?

Her abdominal muscles suddenly seized, and she sucked air between her teeth. That was a particularly hard contraction. Could this be it? Could it? Nope . . . nope . . . she wasn’t going to be fooled this time. She would just wait.

Fleetingly she wondered if she should change her plans about driving to Portland in the morning. Maybe it was a foolish decision to go, but could she just stand by, waiting and waiting and waiting, while Stone and Clausen and everyone else kept moving forward on the case? Was her interest in being involved less about results and more about her just being obsessive, anxious, and competitive?

She growled in her throat, annoyed at herself. She should probably stay on this side of the mountains and make some phone calls. It wasn’t the same as in person, but it was still just follow-up information. On the other hand, it was all she had.

Her cell phone rang, and she recognized the ring tone she’d assigned to her sister. She answered through Bluetooth. “Hey, there.”

“Savvy, what the hell? Don’t go all ‘Just the facts, ma’am’ on us. You don’t know Hale as well as you think you do. He’s really, really volatile, and the Donatellas’ murders have nothing to do with the Bancrofts, anyway.”

“Hale was nothing but nice.”

“I’m telling you, that’s an act. Don’t mix up the Bancrofts with the Donatellas. I don’t know what the hell that was about, but you’re all wrong.”

“I’m looking for the killer of your friends.”

“Of course. And I want you to find the sick bastard, but just . . . give it up. Go on maternity leave. Please, please, please. For me. Take a break until after the baby gets here.”

Savannah stared through the windshield at the driving rain. Maybe Kristina was right. She gritted her teeth, unable to explain to her sister all the reasons why she wanted to keep going.

“And it sounds like it was a lovers’ quarrel that went bad, anyway. It has nothing to do with us,” Kristina noted.

“What did you say? How’d you know that?”

“I heard on the news that Marcus was having an affair with Hillary Enders and her boyfriend was the one who shot them. It was on at noon. Channel Seven, with that Kirby bitch.”

“Pauline Kirby said that they were killed by Kyle Furstenberg?” Savannah asked as she braked for a hairpin curve, the SUV sliding a bit before straightening out.

“That sounds like the name. She said it was the prevailing theory,” Kristina added, “but then he got on and said he didn’t shoot them, but, of course, they all say that.”

“You mean Furstenberg was actually interviewed on television?”

“That’s what I said.” Kristina was getting perturbed. “But did you hear me? About giving up the investigation?”

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