Partners In Crime. Alicia Scott

the wind buffeting her practical economy car, the rain slapping her windshield. Her long blond hair had been ripped free from its knot and was now plastered against her cheeks. Her favorite black cocktail suit, drenched and ruined, clung to her skin.

      She drove, the road lights out, the streets flooded, the storm fierce and merciless.

      Olivia, Olivia, Olivia. She had to find Olivia.

      She reached Olivia’s street. She turned into the darkened drive. The wind howled.

      No lights appeared on in the house. Not even the reassuring flicker of a candle. Black, black house. Dark, dark night.

      For a moment, Josie was frozen by her own fear.

      I know what’s in that house. I know what I’m going to find.

      Her dream lurched, twisted, then turned on itself like a cannibal.

      The storm was gone. The sky was clear, blue, gentle with spring. She was twelve years old, pushing open the gate of the white picket fence, walking up the drive of their suburban home. Cutoff jeans left her long legs bare and nut brown. Her simple white T-shirt billowed comfortably around her arms. She was barefoot. She was humming.

      “Mom, I’m home!”

      Her dream lurched again, and the whipping wind made her stagger back.

      Josie fought her way to Olivia’s back door. She peered through the window as the lightning cracked.

      Twist.

      Flipping her blond ponytail out of her way, she skipped through the back door, eager to tell her mother about her day—Twist.

      Olivia, sprawled on the elegant black-and-white kitchen floor, prostrate in a sea of teal-colored silk.

      Josie fumbled with the knob. She cried out her friend’s name. She raised her fist and prepared to smash the window.

      The door opened in her hand, unlocked all along, and she rushed into the house.

      Twist.

      The scent of fresh-baked cookies and spring tulips. The warm, familiar undertones of vanilla and nutmeg. She walked through the kitchen, wondering why her mother wasn’t sitting at the simple block wood table the way she usually did, then passed through the kitchen into the entryway. Stopping. Freezing. Crying.

      “Mom? Mom? Mommy!”

      Twist.

      “Olivia! Dear God, Olivia!”

      Her friend was motionless on the floor and the scent of gardenias was cloying and thick.

      Josie fell to her knees, shaking her best friend’s shoulders. Olivia didn’t move.

      Dear God, Josie couldn’t find a pulse.

      “Don’t die on me,” she whispered. “Please, please, don’t die on me. You’re the only person I’ve trusted. The only person who’s believed in me. Olivia…”

      Twist.

      The feel of the old hardwood floors against her tender knees. The scent of the lemon beeswax her mother used to polish what life she could into the old floors. Little Josie touched her mother’s beautiful gold hair and felt the chill on her cooling skin.

      Keening, sobbing, crying. Rocking back and forth, not knowing what to do. Her mom looked so beautiful, her golden hair pooled around her, her white cotton dress draped around her twisted limbs. Her blue eyes, so much like Josie’s, were open. But they stared sightlessly at the ceiling, and would never blink again.

      “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

      Twist.

      “Think, Josie, think—911. Call 911!”

      She grabbed the cordless phone from the kitchen counter. No dial tone. The power outage had rendered it useless. She threw it across the room. Another bolt of lightning seared the kitchen. She spotted Olivia’s purse on the kitchen table. The cell phone.

      Josie grabbed the purse. She pawed through it then turned it over and dumped out the smart phone. Dial, dial, dial.

      “Please, I need an ambulance. I think she’s dead.”

      The dispatcher asked questions. Josie fumbled through answers. She checked for noticeable injuries. She began to administer CPR. She hunched over her best friend’s body, massaged her chest and tried to will the life back into her.

      Live, live, live.

      Sirens cut through the roaring night. Then the jangle of EMTs sounded down the sidewalk. Dimly, she heard herself cry, “In here, in here. Breathe, Olivia! Damn you, breathe!”

      The EMTs rushed into the kitchen. They pushed her aside, then hunched over Olivia, muttering to each other, continuing with CPR.

      “Let’s move.”

      Suddenly they had Olivia strapped to the stretcher. They were rolling away, back into the horrible night. Josie wanted to go in the ambulance. She wanted to hold Olivia’s hand and beg her to live.

      The EMTs left Josie behind. She stood in the rain, watching the ambulance disappear, reaching out her hands. The storm continued. She didn’t notice it anymore.

      Live. Live. Live.

      Twist.

      I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

      * * *

      Josie jerked awake at her desk. She rubbed her temples furiously, then scrubbed at the moisture now staining her cheeks. It didn’t help. The images remained behind her eyelids, the past and present too intertwined to be separated.

      And all the work in the world, all the nightmares in the world, didn’t change the outcome of either night.

      Olivia had died at the hospital. A heart attack was the initial ruling. But days later, Detective Stone Richardson raised some questions, and further investigation revealed that she’d been poisoned—someone had thrust a hypodermic full of undiluted potassium into her leg, causing nearly instant cardiac arrest.

      Olivia had been murdered, and nothing in Grand Springs had been the same.

      Death. Pain. Betrayal.

      I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, Josie reminded herself. Sitting alone in her shadowed office, however, she still couldn’t escape her next thought.

      Not this time.

      Chapter One

      September 22

      “Uh-oh. Here comes trouble.”

      “Hmm?” Detective Jack Stryker lifted his scrunched eyes from the coroner’s report and belatedly followed his partner’s gaze. “Damn.”

      “Just what we need,” Detective Stone Richardson agreed, “like a hound dog needs a flea.”

      “At least fleas don’t campaign for your vote—they know they’re a nuisance.” Jack sighed. He tucked the coroner’s report back into the Olivia Stuart file with a last glance of frustration and longing. The answers were in there somewhere, he just knew it. He’d missed something the first time around, made a mistake. He didn’t screw up often, but he must have this time, because it had been more than three months and they still had no leads on the Olivia Stuart case.

      And now Hal Stuart, acting mayor of Grand Springs and one of the most annoying men God had ever created, had entered the police station. He wove through the corridor like a tin soldier, his arms held tightly against his double-breasted suit as if he didn’t want to touch anything—the dirt might rub off.

      Hal Stuart didn’t come to the police station often—Jack figured it was too long on chaos and too short on decoration for his taste. The plain corridor poured into the main room, comprised of a beat-up wood floor, numerous metal desks and one wall of windows. In the corner, the