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“Ouch yourself.”
“Shush, you two,” Maisy scolded.
They watched with naked interest as the husband and wife regarded one another. Sasha wondered if they’d agree to put aside their bitter disagreement and leave their entrenched positions to share a bed. She didn’t have to wonder for long.
Bethany stared hard at her husband and shook her head with a slow, deliberate motion. “Not happening,” she told him.
She snatched up her bag and clomped out of the room. Chance watched her leave, his mouth ajar and his shoulders slumped. After a long moment, he exhaled heavily and shuffled toward the shrinking pile of bags to claim his.
The scanner came to life, and Officer Duncan’s voice filled the nearly empty room. “Leo Connelly has advised me that the weapon used to kill Rex Stoddard—a fireplace poker—has been located. I’ve taken custody of the murder weapon and will turn it over to the crime scene investigators when they arrive.”
Halfway through the transmission, Chance’s face turned white. He dropped his bag to the floor and sprinted out of the room.
Sasha blinked in surprise at his abrupt departure. Then she recalled Joy’s story about how Chance had been staring at the fireplace tools. Several pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, and she swore under her breath. She chased after him while Maisy and Naya shouted after her.
CHAPTER30
Of course,Chance bolted out the front door, she thought as she ran through the open door after him. A wall of cold hit her in the face, and she shrieked. She wasnotdressed for this. She wrapped her sweater around her torso as she leaped off the porch and into the snowy yard. Snow cascaded into her high-heeled shoes and over her feet when she landed.
“Ah!” Her squeal echoed eerily.
The fact that Chance had taken off was irritating enough. But to run out into a literal snowstorm? That was simply rude. She channeled her anger into a red-hot fuel source and sprinted as fast as she could through the hard-packed snow that came halfway up her shins. Up ahead, Chance staggered through the snow like a clumsy, stumbling drunk. He listed from side to side with his arms outstretched in a fruitless attempt to maintain his balance.
The sight of Chance struggling spurred her on. As ill-equipped as she was for a cross-country run during a blizzard, he was even more so. She pumped her arms and poured on the speed. Her lungs burned, her legs shook, and she closed the gap, gaining on him. As they dashed through the snow, a warm glow appeared in the distance, and she realized he was headed for the farm manager’s house.
He’s not running away from the police. He’s runningtothe police.
The thought nearly stopped her in her tracks, but her brain ignored the impulse and ordered her legs to keep driving forward. She was almost close enough to grab the back of his sweater. She stretched out her hand. Almost, but not quite.
She poured on a final burst of speed and reached out again. This time, her fingers closed around the chunky cable knit of his fisherman’s sweater. She caught a fistful of the fabric and yanked it toward her. She slowed his pace, but he kept plowing forward.
She jumped and landed on his back, exchanging the handful of sweater for two handfuls of his hair. She clung to him, pulling him back by his hair. He bellowed like an angry bull, stumbled, and fell to his knees. She drove an elbow into the small of his back and forced him facedown into the snow. He fell with a grunt.
A figure materialized out of the swirling snow and called her name. She pinned Chance to the ground with her knee and looked up, blinking through the snowflakes that coated her eyelashes.
“Connelly?” She squinted at her husband, nearly unrecognizable through the thick snow that fell.
He ran to her with heavy footsteps and lifted her to her feet. He dusted her off, then wrapped his arms around her shivering shoulders.
“What are you doing out here?”
She pointed to Chance, prone in a snowbank. “Ask him.”
He rolled over with another grunt and wiped the snow from his mouth. “I want to confess.”
* * *
While the Carlisles and Dr. Graham tended to Sasha in the kitchen of the stone farmhouse, Leo hauled Chance into the small sitting room. He deposited him into a chair—perhaps more roughly than was strictly necessary. Chance shook his hair like a wet dog, flinging droplets of melting snow all over the room.
“Stop that,” Hank told him sternly.
Chance slumped sullenly but stopped. Aroostine entered the room and tossed a towel at him.
“Dry yourself off.”
While Chance mopped his face with the towel, Leo turned to Officer Duncan. “My wife said that when Chance heard the transmission about the fireplace poker being taken into evidence, he ran from the house. So she chased him.”
“Caught him, too,” Aroostine said with amusement. “Wearing high heels and a cocktail dress, she ran him down in a blizzard.”
