“And Todd Wolff left early Friday.”

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“Ask Baldwin about the pregnancy psychosis,”

Sam said.

“I need to run it down for him first—I haven’t talked about the case with him yet. He was in Virginia until yesterday.” A current ran through the room as if they’d hit a fuse box. Aiden. God, she’d forgotten he was out there. She didn’t elaborate, and neither did Baldwin. Sam picked up on the uncomfortable silence, but was wise enough not to ask.

Taylor turned to Baldwin. “Let me give you a quick précis of the case. Corinne Wolff, twenty-six, seven months pregnant with a son, her second child. Husband allegedly out of town. She was found Monday morning, beaten to death with a tennis racquet in her bedroom. She’d been dead two days.” She looked at Sam, and saw the shadows in her eyes. The Wolff crime scene still bothered both of them. Taylor continued.

“Dead two days with her eighteen-month-old daughter wandering around the house, tracking blood everywhere. The husband left Friday, didn’t talk to her all weekend. Temp shows she was killed early Saturday morning.

“Second round of look-sees into the house uncovers a sex basement where the Wolffs were making amateur porn. The reports I’ve gotten indicate that Corinne was a relative latecomer to participating, she’d always run the cameras. I just found out the girls on the video are underage, part of a pretty twisted secret society that’s running through the private schools around town.

“Corinne had high levels of lorazepam in her system, and now the news comes that she had viable semen in her. Wolff left her blood on his truck and in the basement, so we arrested him. Her sister is on the news Judas Kiss

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screaming about our idiocy in investigating the case. Thanks to Miss Sam here, DNA is being run as we speak.”

Sam took a bow from her chair.

“I interviewed Corinne’s OB and her psychologist, and had a chat with her mother. The mom thinks she was having an affair, the docs claim she was having a hard time with the pregnancy, was suffering from a sort of claustrophobia about having the baby inside her. It was so bad that they needed to prescribe benzos to keep her calmed down. It’s an incongruity in the case. By all accounts, this woman was a health nut. She was seven months pregnant and still competing in her local tennis tournaments. The house was filled with all-natural foods and cleaning products. The basement, on the other hand, was this crazy sex den, full of camera equipment and sex toys. Corinne was leading two lives, no question about it.”

“Do you think her husband committed the murder?”

Baldwin asked.

“It seems like the most logical place to turn. At least in the beginning. Now there are all these complicating factors. He got back from his trip a little too quick for my taste, and he’s been awfully nonchalant about things so far. Now that we can charge him with a couple of additional sex crimes, I’m thinking that might loosen his tongue. He insists he didn’t kill his wife, but there’s some pretty decent evidence to the contrary.”

“The baby isn’t his,” Baldwin said.

Taylor looked at him. “What?”

“The baby. It wasn’t her husband’s. I’d bet anything that she was pregnant by someone else. That explains the erratic behavior, the sudden dependence on psycho-326

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tropic medications, the psychosis-based claustrophobia. It all fits. And if I’m right, her husband might have caught her, either in the act with her lover or just after, and killed her in a fit of fury. Pretty classic scenario, actually.”

Taylor smiled. “That’s exactly where we’ve been going with our theories. When I interviewed Corinne’s psychiatrist, she mentioned that Corinne may have had a lover. For all I know, we might have two bodies. Wolff might have caught her in the act with another man, beat her, killed the lover, then transported his body somewhere. It would explain Corinne’s blood in his truck, that’s for sure.”

Baldwin was nodding his agreement. “You’re on to something, Taylor. Did the crime scene techs find more than one type of blood?”

Taylor looked at Sam. “The DNA won’t be back on that immediately, I assume?”

Sam shook her head. “Only threw in the autopsy slides, not the evidence collected at the scene. Sorry.”

Taylor shrugged. “So no idea. I’ve been out of the case for over twenty-four hours. Fitz might have solved it already.”

“You’d have heard,” Sam said kindly. Taylor shot her a dirty look.

Sam’s intercom buzzed. Kris’s disembodied voice filled the room.

“Dr. Loughley, the Chief of Police is looking for Lieutenant Jackson. Can I put him through to your line?”

Shooting Taylor an I told you so look, Sam said,

“Sure thing.”

The phone beeped twice, then rang. Sam picked it up and handed Taylor the handset.

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“Lieutenant Jackson,” she answered. She was greeted by the deep, heavily Southern voice of the chief. In a few short words, she had her life back. He’d even thrown in an apology. She hung up the phone with a smile, winked at Sam and turned to Baldwin.

“Let’s go. I’ve got work to catch up on.”

Thirty-Three

Taylor didn’t expect a hero’s welcome. She didn’t want one. She just wanted to slip into the CJC and bust open the Wolff murder. And she wanted Aiden to disappear from their lives. Instead, news vans lined the streets. Reporters jostled with cameramen looking for the best angle. The national news trucks were parked nose to tail along 2nd Avenue, their remote satellites like a string of herons, balanced on one leg and pushing their crests into the noonday sky.

“Well, at least we know you’ve got the sympathy of the people,” Baldwin said.

“Yeah, that’s great. I want the media on my side. This is just going to piss Delores off more. And when the Oompa gets mad, she gets even. I’m sure she’s in there plotting all the ways she can make my life miserable. I think we’re going to have to circle around, sneak in through the parking lot next door.”

“No. I think you should walk the gauntlet.”

“Are you kidding?”

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“No. Walk through there like a queen, smile, wave, and say ‘no comment’ in your most gracious Southern style. It’s a nice PR move on your part.”

“I don’t particularly want to be on the air anymore. And it will give Aiden a target. Surely you don’t want that.”

“You’ve been maligned, and they want to make it right for you. Let them. He’s not going to do anything in the middle of this crowd. Trust me.”

“The media wants to make it right for me? Are you high? They’d just as soon cut off my leg as paint me in a favorable light.”

But she parked in the gravel by the back door. The scrum grew, microphones growing out of the crowd like black mushrooms. They stepped from the car and she was blinded by the flashbulbs. For one insane moment, she thought of what a celebrity’s life must be like, and decided that all this constant attention would suck.

She waved, smiled, ignored the shouted questions, and Baldwin held the door for her. The inside was pleasantly quiet. They followed the green arrows in the linoleum floor to the homicide office. Fitz, Marcus and Lincoln were all there. Hugs and claps on the back were exchanged, then Fitz pointed toward her office.

“The Oompa was here a few minutes ago. She wants you. Hurry up, wouldja? We’ve got loads to go over with you. Lincoln’s about to blow this wide open.”

“Okay, okay.” With a smile, she ducked into her office. On her desk was a handwritten note on a Postit, the writing surprisingly crabbed. Please see me immediately. Captain Norris. 330

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Taylor raised an eyebrow at Baldwin. “Let’s go see what the wicked witch wants.”