She saw the hard edge to his jaw, the narrowing eyes. She could feel the distance between them growing as it always did when he switched into work mode.
Just great. Here it comes.
“Gotta go,” he said, snapping the phone closed and rising. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
They began the descent, Matt moving faster than she thought safe.
“Be careful,” she warned, hopping from rock to rock. “Don’t slip.”
“As soon as we’re in the car, call your mother. Ask her to pick you up at Eternal View Cemetery. I’ll be busy for the rest of the night.”
Stones gave way under his feet.
“Slow down,” she warned again.
Amateurs! They thought the hardest part of a mountain climb was the ascent, but beginners suffered more injuries on the way back down by becoming too relaxed, too careless. Gretchen took a final moment to look out over the Sonoran Desert, at the city of Phoenix spread out below. She slowed to take it in and to consider lost possibilities and opportunities.
If only she’d destroyed his phone.
“Hurry up, please.” Matt kept going.
“All right. I’m coming. Tell me what happened.”
“A homicide.”
“In Eternal View Cemetery?”
“Yes.”
Gretchen glanced at Matt, taking in his broad shoulders and lean, muscled back. How could he do this job? And could she deal with the hours and the internal baggage that had to come with his work? Was this really what she wanted? A guy who seemed to crave danger, who mingled with drug addicts and pedophiles and killers and who knew what else?
Gretchen didn’t know what the distant future held for them, but here in the present she knew she wanted Matt Albright.
Slow down, she reminded herself as they reached the trailhead, step cautiously in this relationship in the same way you’ve learned to traverse rocky terrain.
Once in his car, Gretchen attempted to reach her mother. Caroline didn’t answer the home phone or her cell. Gretchen left voice messages at both locations.
Matt was on his cell phone, immersed in a world of human atrocities and blight that Gretchen hadn’t been able to understand or imagine. Tonight, she would get her first chance.
Should she try to find Nina for a ride home? As soon as she thought of her aunt, she rejected the idea. Nina would flip out if she had to enter a cemetery at night, let alone one where there’d been a recent murder. Aunt Nina avoided places where negative energy lurked. One of her many quirks, right up there with her claims of colored auras and psychic messages.
Matt sped along Twenty-fourth Street and turned onto Camelback Road, heading toward the cemetery. He reached over and squeezed her shoulder, sending an electrical charge down her spine.
“I really am sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay.”
“We were having such a great time.”
“Wonderful,” she agreed. “And I have a faynodoodad to add to my life list.”
Matt laughed, but with an edge that told her he was paying only slight attention. His mind was elsewhere. “You’re going to have to learn to pronounce its name properly. That’s one of the most important birding rules.”
“You made that up.”
“On the spot.”
Ahead Gretchen saw lights flashing. Matt rolled down the window when a police officer walked up to the car. Matt flipped out identification, so impatient to get to the scene that the wheels still inched forward. “Let Caroline Birch through when she arrives,” he said once the cop recognized him and waved them through.
“You’re taking me inside the cemetery with you?” Gretchen had hoped he would, but hadn’t expected it. He could have dropped her at the entrance to wait for her mother. Instead, she really would have the opportunity to observe him in the field.
How romantic!
“A gorgeous woman like you? The cops would be all over you. No way am I taking that chance.” He flashed a quick smile. “And you know how vulnerable a woman alone is. I want you to wait in the car. Keep the doors locked until your mom gets here.”
Another cop waved them through a second checkpoint.
“It happened in the old section,” Matt said, driving toward the back of the cemetery. He parked behind a line of cars. A van was already positioned between the headstones, its back doors wide open. Gretchen could see a gurney inside. She looked away.
“The medical examiner beat us,” he said, swinging out of the car. “Be good. Stay in the car.”
He walked rapidly away before Gretchen could reply.
How was she supposed to completely understand him and his work when she was ordered to wait in the car?
Through the car’s windows, Gretchen watched a flurry of activity, as much as she could make out in the darkness. People stood in a group a distance away. Two officers were with them, their heavy-duty flashlights and gleaming badges visible. Who were the others? Witnesses to the crime? Passersby who had stumbled upon a corpse? Or were they suspects?
Her cell phone rang. “I got your message,” her mother said. “I’m on the way, but it’s going to take about twenty minutes. Where will I find you?”
“At the crime scene.”
“What! I don’t like that at all.”
“We didn’t have a choice. When you get to the cemetery entrance, give your name to the officer. He’ll let you through. I’m waiting in Matt’s car.”
“Gotcha. Oh, and Gretchen? Stay in the car.”
The same thing Matt had told her.
After disconnecting, she leaned back and tried to concentrate on life rather than on death. She and her mother hadn’t been particularly close until Caroline had been diagnosed with breast cancer several years previously. After that, their different views on life seemed like petty reasons to continue their discord. They had established a real friendship. Caroline was a six-year cancer survivor, going on seven, and she had changed significantly. Now she pursued her dreams instead of talking about them. One of those had been writing a comprehensive doll book and seeing it published.
Alive and vibrant. Unlike the poor, dead person here tonight. Was the victim male or female? She hadn’t asked.
Gretchen raised her head and peered out searching for Matt. She saw a small circle of people looking at something on the ground. A woman squatted over what must be a body. The medical examiner?
Matt wasn’t in the circle. He was about thirty feet from the spot where the team worked on the body, and he was aiming a flashlight at a grave marking.
What was he looking at? Should she take one little peek to find out? She had twenty minutes before her mother would arrive. After all, she wasn’t a child. Why should she wait in the car?
Gretchen slid out, closed the door as quietly as possible, and stopped behind a gravestone for a few moments. Shadows played through the cemetery, and wind stirred the evergreen leaves at the top of a palm tree. She moved to the tall tree, treading quietly over the red clay earth.
The old part of the cemetery was tucked way at the back and didn’t have the uniformity of the newer section. Graves weren’t lined up in neatly spaced rows. Even the headstones were more varied.
She heard the murmur of voices. They reminded her of the hush of a funeral visitation, low and respectful tones. Several people bent over the deceased. No one noticed Gretchen. She crept closer to Matt, sliding along the side of the crime scene at an angle. He hadn’t moved from the headstone. From her position slightly behind the detective, she could see what held his attention.
Thick writing on rough granite, the words Die, Dolly, Die.
All as red as the color of blood. Please no, don’t be blood, Gretchen thought, even as she realized that it looked thicker, brighter. Lipstick? It had to be. Gretchen knew lipstick.