Free Sea of Suspicion by Toni Anderson Page A

wiping her palm across her knee in a repetitive gesture that made Nick queasy.
    A sliver of sympathy worked its way free.
    Finding a body would haunt them for a long time. No need to point out doing drugs was stupid. They’d either figure it out or they’d become another statistic. The sobs started again and Nick looked up, relieved as a rumpled, sleepy-looking Ewan rushed to his side.
    “We need an official statement.” Nick raised his brows in query, but Tinkerbell, who looked more like a prop forward than a fairy, was gathering her stuff before hauling the other girl to her feet. “If you go with this detective—” he pointed to Ewan, “—he’ll take care of you.”
    Ewan smiled like a benevolent uncle.
    “Anything else you think of…” Nick was already backing away, leaving Ewan to deal with the technicalities of the two young women and their awful needy emotions.
    “I know we weren’t very nice to her, but I didn’t want to see her dead.” Cynthia’s knees buckled. Tinkerbell hung on determinedly before giving up and slumping onto the bench in defeat. Nick’s eyes latched onto Tinkerbell’s.
    “You knew her?” He stopped backing away. “How did you recognize her? Did you touch the body?”
    Tinkerbell’s eyes flooded with tears, which she tried to wipe away. “She shared a flat with us.” She held his gaze, angled her chin toward Albany Park. “We didn’t touch her, but I recognize her jacket and hair.” She sniffed. “Her name is Tracy Good. She was doing a Ph.D. at the Gatty.”
    A bolt of excitement seared his nerves and made every sense flare to life.
    “With who?” Nick’s voice was harsher than he intended, and the girl’s eyes widened under the sodium vapor.
    “I don’t remember his name.” The whiny pitch was back. “But he’s the head of department.”
    “Sizemore? Professor Jake Sizemore?”
    Tinkerbell nodded, her lip trembling.
    Exhilaration dragged shame in its wake. A young woman was dead and he was still obsessed with revenge.
    He met Ewan’s gaze over the girls’ heads and his colleague mouthed exactly what he was thinking. “Fuck.”

Chapter Six
    A hangover raged quietly behind Susie’s eyes as she sat at Emily Heathcote’s kitchen table pretending not to suffer. The old woman’s hands shook under the weight of the teapot but she didn’t spill a drop. Susie had been about to go for a walk along the beach to clear her head when she found Emily on her doorstep. Her neighbor had insisted she come over for tea and biscuits.
    “Milk and sugar?” Emily’s accent was English rather than Scottish, easier to understand than the local dialect.
    “Just milk, please.” Susie clasped her hands tight in her lap like a little girl visiting royalty. “Have you lived in Scotland long?”
    “It seems like we’ve lived here forever.” Emily’s eyes lost focus. “Peter and I moved up from Essex when Christina started as an undergraduate. We came for a visit and fell in love with the place.” She poured milk from a small jug painted with blue flowers made at a local pottery in Crail. “It saved money on rent by her living at home.” Memories clung to her smile. “And then she met Nick and they were so happy. It seemed like a fairytale romance.”
    That had ended in tragedy.
    Added guilt weighed like lead across her shoulders. Christina Heathcote had died long ago, but kissing Nick last night felt like adultery.
    “It must have been awful when you lost her.” Susie lowered her head and stared into her lap. She could relate to that loss even though her own child wasn’t dead.
    “Peter helped, but then he died.” Emily stirred sugar into her tea, the spoon circling faster and faster. “For the longest time I didn’t know what to do…” She blinked away what looked like heartbreak. “Anyway, enough of that.”
    She got up, her skirt swishing against her nylons, and fetched a cookie jar back to the table. She frowned when she opened the lid and pulled out a