Free Dead Certain by Mariah Stewart Page B

range on the outskirts of town. She’d written about the experience in one of her newspaper columns several months ago.
    “When was the last time you fired it?”
    She paused, and it came back to her. The gun club . . .
    Uh-oh.
    Her eyes met his, and before she could remind herself not to answer the question, he said, “I was just wondering, because the GSR results are back.”
    “And?” She went cold inside. Her stomach flipped, then sank. She knew exactly what he was going to say and why he was there.
    “You want to tell me the last time you fired that gun, or are you going to wait until I tell you what I found on the sleeves of the sweatshirt you gave us?”
    Amanda sighed. She’d forgotten. Completely forgotten . . .
    “I was at the range two Mondays ago. You can check with the gun club. They’ll confirm that. You have to sign in—”
    “What kind of a gun do you have?”
    “A .38. Everyone in the county knows about it. I’m surprised you don’t.” Her hands were on her hips now, defiant. Derek had been killed with a bullet fired from a .38. Everyone in the county knew that, too. “I wrote all about learning to shoot the damned thing for the County Express back in March.”
    “Where’s your gun now?”
    “It’s in the drawer in the table next to my bed.”
    “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you for it.”
    Amanda sighed. “I can make you get a warrant, can’t I?”
    “Sure. But what would that do besides delay the investigation? If the bullet that killed your partner wasn’t fired from that gun, we’ll be able to confirm that right away. Like you said before, the sooner we eliminate you, the sooner the investigation can move ahead. I’d think you’d want to clear that up as soon as possible. I mean, with the finding of the GSR on your sweatshirt . . .”
    “I wore the shirt to the range two weeks ago. I didn’t happen to wash it between wearings, so I imagine there would be residue on the sleeves.”
    “Why didn’t you mention this to me before?”
    “Because I wasn’t thinking . . . I wasn’t thinking about having shot off my handgun at the range as having to have anything to do, however remote, with Derek being killed.”
    “You knew though that he’d been shot with a .38?”
    “Of course I did. It was on the news. But he wasn’t shot with my .38.”
    “Let’s prove it.”
    They stared at each other. She was the first to blink.
    “All right. Evan will scream bloody murder when I tell him I did this, but you’re right. You can prove that Derek wasn’t killed by my gun.” She started toward the front steps.
    She was almost to the front door when she saw it.
    She stopped abruptly and uttered a quiet little, “Oh.”
    Mercer followed her gaze to the porch. On the decking, just outside the door, lay a long-stemmed red rose.
    “Looks like someone left a token of their sympathy,” he said.
    Amanda’s face had drained of color and her eyes had grown wary.
    “Ms. Crosby? Are you all right?” He touched her arm, and she recoiled as if she’d been burned.
    He went up to the door and picked up the rose. “There’s no card.”
    “There never is.” She remained on the step.
    “There have been others?”
    She nodded.
    “Any idea who they’re from?”
    She shook her head.
    He held the rose out to her, but knew she’d decline to take it.
    She shook her head a second time, then walked past him and unlocked the front door with a key she’d withdrawn from her back pocket.
    “Nice house,” he said as she closed the door behind them.
    “You’ve seen it before. You were here before.”
    “Yes, but things were a little hectic then. We’d just found your partner that morning, we were trying to get statements—”
    “So what you’re saying is that in all the confusion, you failed to notice how nice my house is.” Before he could respond, she added, “So maybe you can understand how, in the midst of that same confusion—and considering that it was my partner and best