Delia smiled cagily. “I think that can be arranged.”

“Does it have an alarm?”

“I suppose not.” Delia looked unhappy. “No, it doesn’t have an alarm.”

Alex frowned, thinking of Vartanian’s caution before she’d left the morgue viewing room. She wasn’t a big fan of guns, but fear was a great motivator. She’d tried to buy a gun in the sporting goods department of the store where she’d bought all the toys for Hope’s play therapy, but the clerk told her that she couldn’t buy a gun in Georgia if she wasn’t a resident. She could prove residency with a Georgia driver’s license. She could get a driver’s license with a rental contract. So let’s get this done.

Still, she was practical. “If it doesn’t have an alarm, then can I have a dog?” A dog was a better deterrent to an attacker. She lifted a brow. “An alarm will cost the owners money. I’d pay an extra security deposit if I got a dog.”

Delia bit at her lip. “Maybe a little dog. I’ll check with the owners.”

Alex swallowed her smile. “You do that. If I can have a dog, I’ll sign right now.”

Delia took her cell phone outside and two minutes later she was back, as was her cagey smile. “Darlin’, we have a deal and you have a house.”

Dutton, Monday, January 29, 4:15 p.m.

Daniel felt like he was channeling Clint Eastwood as he walked Dutton’s Main Street. As he passed, conversations stilled and people stared. All he was missing was the poncho and the eerie music. Last week he’d been to the funeral home, the cemetery, and his parents’ home out past the city limits. With the exception of the funeral and the graveside, he’d managed to stay out of the public eye.

But not now. He met the eyes of each staring person. Most of them he knew. All of them had aged. It had been a long time since he’d been back. Eleven years since he’d fought with his father over the pictures and left Dutton for good, but he’d left in spirit the day he’d left for college, seven years before that. He’d changed a lot in those years.

Dutton’s Main Street, however, had not. He walked past the curious eyes peering from the windows of the bakery, the florist, the barbershop. Three old men sat outside the barbershop on a bench. Three old men had always sat outside on that bench, ever since Daniel could remember. When one went on to the Great Beyond, another took his place. Daniel had always wondered if there was some kind of formal waiting list for the bench, as there was for box seats at Braves’ games.

He was surprised when one of the old men stood up. He couldn’t recall ever having seen any of the old men stand up before. But this one stood and leaned on his cane, watching Daniel approach. “Daniel Vartanian.”

Daniel recognized the voice instantly and was a little amused to find himself standing straighter as he stopped in front of his old high school English teacher. “Mr. Grant.”

One side of the old man’s bushy white mustache lifted. “So you do remember.”

Daniel met the old man’s eyes. “ ‘Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.’ ” Odd that that would be the first quotation to enter his mind. Daniel thought about the woman lying in the morgue, unidentified and as yet unreported as missing. Or maybe not so odd.

The other side of Grant’s mustache lifted and he bobbed his white head in salute. “John Donne. One of your favorites, as I recall.”

“Not so much anymore. I guess I’ve seen too much death.”

“I suspect you have at that, Daniel. We’re all sorry about your parents.”

“Thank you. It’s been a difficult time for all of us.”

“I was at the funeral and the grave. Susannah looked pale.”

Daniel swallowed. That his sister had. She’d had good reason. “She’ll hold up.”

“Of course she will. Your parents raised good stock.” Grant winced when he realized what he’d said. “Hell. You know what I meant.”

To his surprise, Daniel found his lips curving. “I know what you meant, sir.”

“That Simon was always bad news.” Grant leaned forward and dropped his voice, although Daniel knew every eye in town was watching them. “I read what you did, Daniel. It took courage. Good for you, son. I was proud of you.”

Daniel’s smile faded and he swallowed again, this time as his eyes stung. “Thank you.” He cleared his voice. “You got a seat on the barbershop bench, I see.”

Grant nodded. “Only had to wait for old Jeff Orwell to pass.” He scowled. “Old man held on for two long years, just because he knew I was waiting.”

Daniel shook his head. “The nerve of some people.”

Grant smiled. “It’s good to see you, Daniel. You were one of my best students.”

“You were always one of my favorite teachers. You and Miss Agreen.” He lifted his brows. “You two still an item?”

Grant coughed until Daniel thought he’d have to do CPR. “You knew about that?”

“Everybody did, Mr. Grant. I always thought you knew we knew and didn’t care.”

Grant drew a deep breath. “People think their secrets are so damn safe,” he murmured, so quietly Daniel almost didn’t hear. “People are fools.” Then he whispered under his breath, “Don’t be a fool, son.” Then he looked up, his smile reappearing, and he rocked back on his cane. “Good to see you. Don’t be a stranger, Daniel Vartanian.”

Daniel studied his old teacher’s eyes, but there was no hint of what had seemed a dire warning just a few seconds before. “I’ll try. Take care, Mr. Grant. Give the next guy on the waiting list for the barbershop bench a very long wait.”

“That I will.”

Daniel walked on to the office of the Dutton Review, the real reason for his visit. The Review sat across the street from the police station, which would be Daniel’s next stop. The inside of the newspaper office was stuffy and packed floor to ceiling with boxes. A small space had been carved out for a desk, a computer, and a phone. At the desk sat a plump man with a pair of glasses resting on his balding head.

Four large bandages covered his left forearm, looking like sergeant’s stripes, and an angry red welt peeked from his shirt collar. It looked as if the man had tangled with something and lost. Perhaps a tree. Hello, Daniel thought.

The man looked up and Daniel recognized the boy who’d sat behind him from kindergarten through high school. Jim Woolf’s mouth curved in something just shy of a sneer. “Well. If it isn’t the man himself. Special Agent Daniel Vartanian. In the flesh.”

“Jim. How are you?”

“Better today than you are, I suspect, although I have to say I’m flattered. I thought you’d send a flunkie to do your dirty work, but here you are, back in little old Dutton.”

Daniel sat on the edge of Woolf’s desk. “You didn’t return my phone calls, Jim.”

Jim’s fingers resting lightly on his rounded stomach. “I didn’t have anything to say.”

“A newspaperman with nothing to say. That has to be a first.”

“I’m not telling you what you want to know, Daniel.”

Daniel abandoned the polite path. “Then I’ll arrest you for impeding an investigation.”

Jim flinched. “Wow. You pulled off the gloves there, real fast.”

“I spent the morning in the morgue watching that woman autopsied. Tends to suck the joy right out of a man’s day. Ever seen an autopsy, Jim?”

Jim’s jaw squared. “No. But I’m still not telling you what you want to know.”

“Okay. Get your coat.”

Jim sat up straight. “You’re bluffing.”

“No, I’m not. Someone clued you in to that crime scene before the cops arrived. No telling how long you had to poke around that body. No telling what you touched. What you took.” Daniel met Jim’s eyes. “Maybe you even put her there.”

Jim turned red. “I had nothing to do with that and you know it.”

“I know nothing. I wasn’t there. You, on the other hand, were.”

“You don’t know that I was. Maybe I got the pictures from somebody else.”