Free Deadly Stakes by J. A. Jance Page A

for him. Now that he’s gone, maybe I’ll be able to get around to some sightseeing.” Realizing she was talking too much, Lynn paused and took a breath before asking, “Is that where the dead woman was found—in Sedona?”
    “Near Sedona,” Cutter corrected, “but closer to Camp Verde.”
    “We need to find whoever it was who took the phone,” Lynn said.
    “Yes, we do,” Cutter said. “In the meantime, you say you were with your boyfriend last night?”
    “Yes.”
    “All last night?”
    “From ten-fifteen on.” She didn’t want to admit to the detectivethat she had timed her arrival for an hour when she could be confident Chip’s mother had gone to bed.
    “What time did you get back home?”
    “I was here by six or so. I stopped for gas on the way and got a car wash while I was at it, so I must have left Paradise Valley around five-fifteen or so.”
    “Your boyfriend will verify that?”
    “Of course.”
    “Good, then,” Detective Cutter said. “Thank you for your help.”
    Lynn fully expected the detective to take his leave. Instead, Cutter reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a notebook and a stubby pencil. He opened it to a blank page and then sat there with his pencil poised to write. “I’ll need your boyfriend’s name, then,” he said, “and his number.”
    Lynn hated to think that her having stupidly lost her phone was about to drag Chip into some kind of unpleasantness, but there was no dodging it. “His name is Ralston,” she answered. “Dr. Charles Ralston, although everyone calls him Chip.”
    That was a silly thing to say , Lynn thought self-consciously. A cop wouldn’t call him Chip. A cop would call him Dr. Ralston.
    “He’s a psychiatrist specializing in Alzheimer’s patients and their families,” she added. “That’s how we met. He was caring for my father—for both my parents, really.”
    “His phone number?”
    Lynn was torn. She didn’t want to reel off Chip’s cell number to a visiting cop. That didn’t seem right. “His office is just off Highway 60 in Sun City,” she said. “I don’t know the office phone number off the top of my head, but I’m sure you can find it.”
    “I’m sure I can, too,” Detective Cutter said, pocketing the notebook and rising. “I can let myself out.”
    Lynn followed him to the door anyway. “I hope you find out who she was,” she said. “More than that, I hope you find out who did it.”
    “That makes two of us,” he said.
    “What about my phone?” she asked.
    “What about it?”
    “When will I get it back?”
    “It’s evidence in a homicide, ma’am,” Detective Cutter said. “It could take months or years for it to be released, if ever. I’d suggest that you do what you said you were planning to do earlier—go to the store and get yourself a new one.”
    Lynn stood in the doorway and watched Detective Cutter walk back to his unmarked car. As soon as he drove away, she returned to the house and sank down into the same chair in the living room where she’d been sitting during the interview. It was a little late for her to come to that conclusion, but she understood that was what it had been—a homicide interview, only without the two-way mirrors and the video camera that they were always showing on those true-crime cop shows.
    She couldn’t believe what had happened. How was it possible that her cell phone was considered evidence in a murder investigation? Moments later, she pulled herself together. Reaching for the landline, she dialed Chip’s cell. She found herself holding her breath while the phone rang. When he answered and she heard the sound of his reassuring voice, she burst into tears.
    “Lynn, what’s the matter? Is something wrong? Are you all right?”
    “You’re not going to believe it,” she said. “A cop just left here.”
    “A cop? Why? What’s going on?”
    “It’s my phone,” she blubbered. “Someone’s been murdered up by Sedona, and they found my phone at the