The Heartbreak Sheriff. Elle Kennedy

turned down your option of having a lawyer present.”

      Her eyes widened. “Do I really need one?”

      “You might.” Reluctance clamped over him. “This doesn’t look good for you. Evidence places you at the crime scene, and there are witnesses claiming you threatened the victim.”

      “I didn’t threaten her!”

      Finn sighed. “No?”

      “Well, okay, maybe a little, but I didn’t actually mean it,” she stammered. “She provoked me.”

      “Tell me how.”

      “I already—”

      “Then tell me again,” he cut in. Leaning back in the uncomfortable plastic chair, he raked both hands through his hair and fixed a tired look across the table. “Please. I need to know every last detail if I’m going to make sense of this.”

      “Fine.” Looking very prim and proper, Sarah clasped her delicate hands together. “Teresa cornered me outside the grocery store the day after I got back to town. I had Lucy with me, and Teresa made some less-than-pleasant comments about how I had to adopt a baby because no man would ever want me. She then claimed that she’d slept with you, mocked me about how I wasn’t woman enough to hold on to you, and finished off with a lovely threat about calling social services to take Lucy away—because a mental case like me shouldn’t be raising a baby.”

      She recited the speech in a calm, emotionless voice, but Finn suspected the encounter had affected her more than she was letting on. He knew firsthand how cruel Teresa could be, and being taunted by that woman would have driven anyone crazy. It drove him crazy, just hearing that Teresa was going around town telling people she’d slept with him.

      Uh-uh, no way would that have ever happened. For him to have touched that loathsome female, the sky would need to be filled with flying pigs, there’d be a skating rink down in hell, and the Easter Bunny would be coming over for Sunday breakfasts.

      But that was Teresa Donovan for you. A pathological liar. A woman intent on unleashing as much pain as she could on the world.

      “Two people heard you threaten her,” he pointed out.

      “Not my best moment,” Sarah admitted. “But she was completely out of line. And it’s not like I said I’m gonna kill you, you awful shrew.”

      He winced, acutely aware of the mini-recorder whirring away on the center of the table, recording every word being uttered. I’m gonna kill you, you awful shrew. Good thing Finn wasn’t corrupt, or an artfully edited version of that tape could’ve landed in court, marked Exhibit A, Connelly’s confession.

      “What did you say exactly?” he prompted.

      “I told her if she didn’t leave me and my daughter alone, she would regret it.”

      The threat hung in the air, an ominous black cloud that had motive written all over it.

      “It was just talk,” Sarah insisted. “Obviously I wasn’t going to hurt her. I just wanted her to go away.” Her face went ashen as she realized what she’d said. “Leave the grocery store,” she quickly amended. “I wanted her to walk away. Alive. But just go somewhere else.”

      Silence stretched between them. Finn valiantly tried not to stare into her bottomless brown eyes, for fear that he’d get lost in them. Just being in the same room as her, just smelling the sweet fragrance of her lilac perfume was pure torture. He’d been fantasizing about this woman for four years, dreaming of holding her in his arms again, longing to see forgiveness—the forgiveness he surely didn’t deserve—etched into her classically elegant features.

      As far as reunions went, this was not what he’d imagined. But what choice did he have? The mayor was breathing down his neck, demanding that Finn close this case so that the citizens of Serenade could sleep easy. Get the murderer off our streets, Mayor Williams had snapped during their last phone conversation.

      Finn agreed with Williams—he wanted to catch this killer, too.

      But he knew, without a doubt, that the killer he was searching for was not Sarah.

      “So what’s going to happen now?” Sarah’s soft voice pulled him back to grim reality. “I told you what happened and you’re going to let me go now, right?”

      Uneasiness circled his gut like a school of sharks. “I can’t let you go.”

      Her gasp echoed in the suddenly cold air. “What do you mean, you can’t? Am I under arrest?”

      “No.” Despite the lump in his throat, he had to add, “Not yet.”

      Incredulity flashed across her face. “I didn’t do this, Finn! Someone is obviously trying to frame me.”

      Yep, he’d heard those words before, hadn’t he? Cole Donovan had insisted the same thing, only a week ago, when the murder weapon was discovered in the town dump. Although the gun had been wiped clean of prints, Cole had been at the dump a few days after his ex-wife’s murder, which had raised Finn’s suspicions. But Cole’s fancy big-city lawyer had made it clear to Finn that he had no case, no leg to stand on in court, and Serenade’s district attorney had been inclined to agree.

      The D.A., however, did not agree with Finn regarding this particular suspect.

      “I suggested the same thing to Gregory,” Finn told her, referring to Jonas Gregory, the D.A. “But he thinks the framing angle is far-fetched.”

      “Far-fetched?” she grumbled. “Well, it’s true. I’m not a killer!”

      “Sarah …” His voice drifted, the growing unease plaguing his body.

      Her brown eyes narrowed. “What? Just spit it out, Patrick.”

      She only called him Patrick when she was angry with him, and right now, he didn’t blame her, especially considering the bomb he was about to drop on her. “Gregory is concerned about your, ah, history of mental instability.”

      Silence. Sheer deafening silence, though he could swear he heard her heart thudding against the front of her royal-blue turtleneck sweater.

      “I can’t believe this,” she finally burst out. “God, Finn, out of anyone, you know what I went through. Not that you cared—” her voice cracked, and so did his heart “—but you know why it happened. I battled depression, damn it! Four years ago! And now, what? You’re going to use that to say I’m mentally ill? That I killed Teresa because I’m insane?”

      “I’m not saying anything,” he said hoarsely. “I’m just telling you what Gregory said.”

      “Well, screw Gregory!” Her entire face collapsed. “And screw you, too, Finn.” A breath shuddered out of her mouth. “I think I want that lawyer now.”

      With a bleak nod, Finn scraped his chair back against the linoleum floor. “I’ll bring you a phone.”

      As he exited the room and closed the door behind him, his legs shook and his chest ached as though someone had pummeled it repeatedly. Maybe not the most macho reaction, but right now, he didn’t feel big and tough. He felt completely powerless.

      He strode through the bull pen toward his office, ignoring the sympathetic look his deputy Anna Holt cast his way. He loved Anna to death, but right now, he didn’t want the younger woman’s sympathy. He just wanted to help Sarah. He couldn’t stand seeing her like this.

      She hadn’t killed Teresa. He refused to believe that Sarah had murdered anyone, that she’d snapped under Teresa’s callous taunts and taken her life.

      She snapped before.

      The unwelcome thought slipped into his head like a damn cat burglar. His hands instantly curled into fists and then anger and shame jolted through him. Like she’d said, he knew better than anyone why she’d broken