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  “Necessary?” Kendra repeated in disbelief as she stared at the man. Was he serious? “Since when is murder necessary?”

  “Since it had to look as if Ryan killed his girlfriend and then, overwhelmed and afraid of the consequences of what he did, fled the country.”

  Matt closed in on the man. “Burnett didn’t kill her, did he?” When Tyler didn’t answer, he repeated more sternly, “Did he?”

  Tyler stared down at his fingertips. “No,” he said in a quiet whisper.

  “But Burnett is dead, isn’t he?” Matt pressed. Tyler continued to avoid looking at either one of them and just stared vacantly at the top of the table before him. “Isn’t he?” Matt repeated, raising his voice harshly. He was losing patience.

  Suddenly, the actor’s head jerked up, a naked, desperate look in his eyes.

  “I didn’t want to kill him. You’ve got to believe me,” he cried. “But I had to. They were going to kill me if I didn’t come up with the money and Burnett was the only one I knew—besides my fiancée—who had any real money in the bank.”

  “Back up,” Kendra interrupted. “Who was going to kill you and what money?” she asked Tyler.

  The sigh came out more like a shudder. The actor’s shoulders seemed to cave in on him. He looked every bit the broken man.

  “The money I owed this loan shark. He called himself a ‘money facilitator,’ but he’s a freakin’ loan shark, all right.” Misery filled his eyes as they began to tear up. “I never gambled before. Suddenly, I couldn’t stop. It was like this rush, this high. At first, I couldn’t lose—and then, I couldn’t win.”

  The story was so stereotypical, Kendra found it hard to listen. How could people just throw their lives away like that?

  “It’s all I thought about,” Tyler was saying, wringing his hands now. “I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to act. I just wanted to win.”

  “But you just kept losing,” Matt guessed. The gambling bug had bitten him once or twice while he and his mother had lived in Vegas, but he knew enough to steer clear and not start what he might not be able to finish.

  “Yeah,” Tyler said wistfully. “That winning hand, the one that was going to turn everything around for me, that was out there, just out of reach and no matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t wrap my hands around it.” He looked up at Matt. “I bet everything I had—and everything I didn’t have—until I was in just too deep to get out.”

  “Why didn’t you just try to borrow the money through regular channels?” Matt asked.

  Tyler laughed. “If you were a bank, would you lend me money? Besides, it was too big a sum to even apply for. I owed almost half a million dollars. I couldn’t ask anyone for that kind of money.”

  “So you killed him for it instead?” Kendra asked incredulously.

  Tyler didn’t answer. It was as if he just couldn’t bring himself to form the words.

  “Where’s the body now?” Matt asked.

  “At a construction site. That big mall where the physical fitness chain is going to be building their latest franchise. I buried him there.” An extremely sad, ironic smile played on his lips. “He was always into physical fitness. I thought it would be a good final resting place for him. They’re going to be pouring cement tomorrow morning.”

  “No, they’re not. Their work plans just got delayed,” Kendra said, picking up the telephone handset. She intended to call the chief of Ds. If anyone could get a temporary stop-work order issued, it was the chief.

  “Look, I get why you might have killed Ryan. You were desperate and he looked like your only way out,” Matt said, trying to get answers while the actor was still volunteering them. “But why kill his girlfriend? Was she there in the apartment at the time? Did she walk in on you when you were killing Burnett?”

  He shook his head. “No, she came in later, looking for him. I had to make it look as if he had a reason to just disappear. I wanted to make it look logical. If he killed Summer, he wasn’t going to hang around until someone put two and two together.”

  Matt shook his head. It took all kinds to make a world, but it still never ceased to amaze him how very different people could be.

  “Maybe you should have followed that advice yourself,” Matt suggested as he took out his handcuffs. “Stand up.” When the actor did, Matt cuffed him. “Tyler Blake, you’re under arrest for the murders of Summer Miller and Ryan Burnett...” he began, reading the out-of-work and definitely out-of-luck actor his rights.

  Glancing over, he saw Kendra hanging up the phone. “The chief’s going to get the construction company to back off until we can locate Ryan Burnett’s body.” She looked at Tyler. “Any helpful hints to follow?”

  The actor appeared to be slipping into a world of his own. Before he made the transition, he said, “Look for suitcases.”

  Terrific, Kendra thought grimly. The body was in pieces.

  Chapter 16

  “God, this is one day I just want to put behind me,” Kendra said late the next day.

  Not only was she struggling to get her exhaustion under control, but her sense of revulsion as well. That morning, armed with a temporary stop-work order and with the help of two cadaver dogs, Kendra, Matt and two other detectives working with them, plus several patrolmen recruited to do the initial digging, were able to go over the grounds and locate the suitcases. In all there were four—four suitcases each stuffed with some part of Ryan Burnett’s decomposing body.

  All four suitcases were photographed in the exact place where they were found, carefully documented, and then sent over to the medical examiner. The body of the missing accountant then became one giant jigsaw puzzle until it could be verified that they did indeed find all of him.

  They had.

  The horrible stench, when she and Matt had witnessed the opening of the first suitcase, was still with her, despite the fact that the last of the suitcases had been opened over five hours ago.

  “I don’t think I’m ever going to be rid of that smell,” she told Matt wearily. It seemed to hover around her no matter which way she turned.

  Matt wasn’t experiencing the same reaction, but he could understand hers. “Right now, it’s just all in your head,” he assured her.

  “It feels more like it’s all in my nostrils,” she complained.

  Matt smiled at her across the desks. “That’s because you have a vivid imagination. It’ll pass,” he promised her with a certainty that was meant to comfort her. “In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find some vanilla candles for you when we leave here. What?” he asked, when he saw the bemused expression on her face.

  Kendra shook her head. “I just can’t picture you picking up scented candles, that’s all.” He’d struck her as way too macho to even know that vanilla-scented candles existed.

  “Is that your way of saying you think I’m insensitive?” His voice gave nothing away. She had no idea if she’d insulted him or he was just baiting her.

  Kendra winged it. “No, that’s my way of saying I can’t picture you doing typical ‘girlie’ things. Hell, I don’t do typical ‘girlie’ things,” she admitted. She’d never even lit one scented candle in her life, thinking of it more in terms of a fire hazard than something needed to create a romantic mood.

  “Then maybe you need lessons,” Matt teased. And then he shrugged. “It was just something I read in a magazine article while trapped in a dental office, waiting for a root canal.” Stretching, Matt pushed back from his desk. “You ready to call it a night?”

  Oh, so ready, she thought. Instead of answering his question directly, Kendra pretended to take him literally and announced, “Night,” then rose to her feet.

  “I guess you are,” he murmured under his breath. Pushing his chair in against his desk, Matt was all set to walk out of the squad room when his cell phone began to ring. With a sigh, he looked down at it to check the caller ID.

  Kendra saw his eyebrows rise in a silent question, as if he was surprised to be on the receiving end of a
call from whoever was on the other end.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  He looked at her as he opened the phone and raised it to his ear. His expression told her that he had no idea what this was about. “Your father.”

  “We didn’t find Burnett?”

  It was the first thing that occurred to her. She couldn’t think of another reason why her father would call Abilene—but then, he knew she was acting as primary on the case. Why wasn’t her father calling her if there was some news? It didn’t make any sense.

  Listening closely to the limited exchange between Matt and her father gave her no further clues.

  “Yes, sir,” Matt said, ending the call. He closed his phone and slipped it back onto his belt. Seeing the unanswered question in her eyes, he said, “He wants to see us.”

  But the case was all but wrapped up, wasn’t it? Why the eleventh-hour call?

  “What’s wrong? Wasn’t that Burnett in the suitcases?” she asked as they headed out toward the bank of elevators.

  Matt shook his head. “He didn’t say. Just that he wanted to see us. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  She sighed as she pressed the Down button beside the elevator. Within less than a minute, the elevator doors were opening on their floor, ready to take them to the basement and the CSI lab.

  She got on and pressed B. “I don’t think I can stand one more twist in this case, at least not tonight. I don’t remember when I’ve felt so drained.” Did that sound as whiny to him as it did to her?

  The half smile that curved Matt’s sensual mouth told her that he could remember a time.

  She knew immediately what he was thinking of. “Not a word,” she warned.

  She didn’t trust the utterly innocent look on his face one bit.

  Getting off the elevator, she marched ahead of him to the lab.

  “Well, we’re here,” Kendra announced to her father as she pushed the door open. From the looks of it, the day shift had all left and the night shift hadn’t arrived to take their place. Either that, or they were all out on a call. In any case, that didn’t concern her. Her father’s summons, however, did. “Okay, tell me. What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Her question took Sean by surprise. “Since when have you become such a pessimist?”

  That was easy. Kendra could document the exact time and place for this last wave of uncharacteristic dark outlook on her part.

  “Since a seemingly perfectly affable man took it upon himself to hack his trusting neighbor into four pieces in order to keep a loan shark from possibly doing the same to him.”

  “If you put it that way, it’s understandable, I suppose. I’m just not used to your being so bleak in your outlook.” Sean moved aside what he was working on and came around the steel table to join the pair he had sent for. “But this isn’t about the case,” he told her.

  It was her turn to be caught by surprise. “Then what is it about?” Kendra asked uncertainly.

  Rather than answer her, Sean Cavanaugh directed his words to her partner. “I thought that you should be the first to know—” And then he stopped. For the first time in a long time, he felt somewhat uncomfortable. Shaking his head, Kendra’s father laughed to himself. “I’m really out of practice here,” he confessed almost sheepishly to them.

  Though Matt looked puzzled, it took Kendra less than a second to put all it together. Ordinarily, her father was quiet confidence personified. She could only think of one thing that would strip him of that confidence.

  She stared at her father, stunned. “Are you trying to ask Abilene’s permission to date his mother?”

  “No,” Sean answered honestly, then explained, “We’re already doing that.” Taking a deep breath, he started again. “I just wanted you to know that it’s becoming serious.”

  “How serious?” Matt asked. There was no indication in his low, monotone voice how he felt about the matter.

  Sean’s eyes looked directly into Matt’s. “Serious,” he repeated, as if the word was enough to convey it all. And then he ratcheted it up several notches. “If it continues this way, I’m thinking of asking your mother to marry me.”

  Kendra’s mouth dropped open. For a moment, she didn’t know whether to congratulate her father or hint that he was out of his mind. Wasn’t this going too fast?

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not,” he assured her solemnly.

  She knew he had as much of a right to happiness as anyone. More. But he was a novice here, as far as she was concerned. “Don’t you think you’re rushing things a little?”

  Her choice of words made her father laugh softly. “At your age, I’d be rushing it. At mine, time is what’s rushing. I don’t have as much of it left as I once did. And as you do,” he told them, looking from his daughter to Sabrina’s son. “I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t have any major objections,” he told Matt.

  “And if I did?” Matt asked.

  Sean gave him an honest answer. “I’d hear you out and then we’d discuss them.”

  At least the man wasn’t trying to snow him—and he wasn’t backing off, either. Apparently, his partner’s father had the courage of his convictions. He liked that.

  “Can’t ask for anything more than that,” he told Sean with an understanding smile. “I just want my mother to be happy.”

  Then they were on the same page, Sean thought, relieved to have this over with.

  “So do I, Matt. So do I. Well, that’s all I had to say,” Sean told them, rounding the table again to his original side. He began locking down his station. “I didn’t mean to keep you,” he apologized. Sean glanced at his watch. “Hey, I’ve got to get going myself. I told your mother I’d meet her for dinner tonight at that little Italian restaurant she likes.” Sean smiled broadly at them as he shed his lab coat and hung it up on the back of the door. “See you both at the next family gathering.”

  Kendra suddenly came to. “And you don’t have anything new to tell us about the man subdivided in the suitcases?” she called after her father as he started to walk out.

  “Only that it’s the man you were looking for,” he said just before the door closed in his wake.

  Her father was serious about Abilene’s mother. The words swirled about her head like a news headline.

  She was vaguely aware that her partner was wordlessly ushering her out of the lab.

  Was this relationship between their parents going to change things between them? she wondered. Matt seemed to like her father, but there was a world of difference between liking the head of the day shift CSI unit and liking the man who was dating his mother.

  It occurred to her—not for the first time—that she didn’t want things to change between them. Not for any reason. She didn’t want this interlude they found themselves in to end, even though she’d been preparing herself for just that eventuality since the moment it had begun. Status quo had suddenly become very important to her.

  The silence between them was deafening. They’d been driving in it for the past five minutes. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. “Are you angry?”

  Matt continued watching the road. “No, why would you think that?”

  Wasn’t it obvious? “Well, you’re not saying anything.”

  Her logic escaped him. “That doesn’t automatically mean I’m angry.”

  She was willing to accept that, as long as he explained the silence. Why wasn’t he talking to her? “Okay, then what are you?”

  “Thinking,” he answered.

  About the case? About their parents? He had to give her more of a hint than that. “About?” she asked impatiently.

  She was definitely not prepared for what Matt said next. “Us.”

  “Us?” she echoed. Was she right? Was he looking for a way to end this? Her mouth felt sandpaper-dry as she asked, “What about ‘us’?”

  “What your father said back there started me thinking,” he began, then glanced at her. “I realized that I still don’t know
where ‘this’ is going,” he confessed, referring to what was happening between them, “but I’m beginning to think I know where I want it to go.”

  Why did that spark such a sense of panic within her? Panic no matter how this played itself out. If Matt told her he wanted to take their relationship to the next level, she was terrified of being disappointed in the end, the way that Jason had disappointed her. But if Matt told her he wanted his space, then the disappointment she lived in fear of would be right there.

  There was no winning in this.

  “Oh?” Kendra did her best to sound cavalier. “Care to share?”

  This time the look Matt spared her was longer. And penetrating. “Do I have to?”

  She took his words at face value. “Well, it’d be nice to know what you have in mind.”

  Matt shook his head as he turned left at the light. She didn’t understand. “No, I meant I don’t think I have to say it out loud—because I think that you already know where I want this to go.”

  It didn’t change a thing. Either way made her nervous. She didn’t want to pin down what was going on between them, didn’t want to give it a name—because things with names tended to disappoint you in the long run. And she’d already had her heart ripped out once.

  “Let’s just table this for now, okay? Please?” she asked.

  He knew she was going to say that. It still didn’t make it any easier for him to hear. He kept his disappointment to himself. “You don’t have to run from this, you know.”

  Oh, yes, I do. Because you’re only going to hurt me. Big-time. She’d never thought she’d ever fall in love again, but she had. It had snuck up on her and knocked her knees out from under her.

  Because she loved him, because she didn’t want either of them to be hurt, she did her best to try to make him understand. “Look, I’ve already been there once, had it blow up in my face once—”