was designated as her executor.”
“Yeah, Barton’s okay with me. He asked me if I wanted anything of hers, but everything I need of Cindy’s, I have.”
I couldn’t help myself. I asked, “What exactly would that be? A sterling silver chain with a cow pendant, perhaps?”
“No, I mean personal things that were between the two of us, like cards she’s given me over the years, and the silliest hat you’ve ever seen. Things like that.”
“Then you don’t know where the necklace might be?”
Samantha frowned. “Barton asked me the same thing. No, I haven’t seen it. Why, is it important?”
“It’s hard to say at this point,” Zach said. “I’m still gathering information.” Zach studied his notebook for a second, and then he asked her, “What exactly was her relationship with her employer?”
I looked oddly at Zach, trying to figure out where that question had come from. He hadn’t even met Barton Lane. Was he really a suspect? I tried to catch his gaze, but he was staring hard at Samantha.
“She loved him.”
“Was there anything romantic about their relationship?” Zach asked.
I started to say something, but Zach offered me a split-second glare that was enough to shut me up.
“Of course not,” Samantha said. “He was like a father to her, in just about every respect. Cindy’s dad took off when she was a kid, and she focused on Barton, but there wasn’t anything creepy about it. He’s a good guy, and he always looked out for her.”
“Fine,” Zach said as he jotted that down. “Then who was she romantically involved with? Would she tell you?”
“Trust me, Chief, if there was a man in her life, I knew about him from the start.”
“Anyone lately?”
Samantha frowned. “That’s a hard question.”
“It shouldn’t be; not if you two were as close as you claim.”
I didn’t like my husband’s tone of voice at all, but I couldn’t say anything to him at the moment. That didn’t mean I couldn’t rip into him once we were alone again.
“We were close, but there was someone she’d been seeing over the past month that she wouldn’t talk about. He was older, and Cindy didn’t want to admit it to me.”
“How much older?”
“I couldn’t say. The age wasn’t the only thing, though. The guy had a high profile in Charlotte, I know that much.”
“But you don’t know anything more than that?”
Samantha looked as though she wanted to cry, and I wanted to step in and stop my husband from what looked like bullying to me, but I knew if I did, Zach would never let me tag along with him again.
“Hang on a second,” she said, and Samantha got up and went into the other room.
Here was my chance.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed at him.
“I’m conducting an official police investigation,” he said. “What does it look like?”
“Do you have to be so mean?”
He looked genuinely shocked by the question. “I have to be gruff and abrupt to let them know that I’m not kidding around here. Two people have been murdered, and for all we know, someone else is next on this murderer’s list. I don’t have time for niceties.”
“Does it really take all that much more time to be civil?”
“Savannah, let me handle this my way.”
I didn’t say anything in response, and we sat in silence until Samantha walked back into the room carrying a newspaper with her. She held it as if it were the Holy Grail.
“What’s that?” Zach asked, and I noticed his tone was just a little nicer. Truthfully, maybe it was just my imagination, but I liked to think I was making a difference.
“Nine days before she died, I was over at Cindy’s, and I saw her staring at a newspaper.”
“That one in particular?” Zach asked as he leaned forward.
“Let me tell this, okay?” Good for her. I was proud that she had some snap to her words.
“Sorry,” Zach said, though it was pretty clear the apology was tepid at best.
“Anyway, we were having breakfast in her kitchen, and I saw her looking at a photo in the
“Which one, I asked her, since there were two photographs on that particular page. In one of them, two men were standing on some kind of platform shaking hands. The other was a headshot of a businessman, at least that’s what he looked like to me from the suit he was wearing. Cindy suddenly looked at me as though she’d said too much, and before I could get a better look, she folded the paper, and threw it in the trash. Cindy is a . . . was a demon at recycling, and she never would have thrown that away if she hadn’t been hiding something.”
