Betrayal with Murder (A Rilynne Evans Mystery, Book Three) by Jenn Vakey Page B

shared with Christopher.
    She parked the car on the street and passed the real estate sign as she walked toward the front door. Rilynne reached out to unlock it, but stopped just before her key touched the lock. Instead, she dropped her keys back into her purse and walked along the front deck to the gently swaying porch swing. Stopping it with her leg, she turned around and lowered herself carefully down.
    As her feet left the ground, she let her mind drift away as the chilled breeze brushed her cheeks.
    “It’s perfect,” she heard herself say from just inside the front door. She looked down the deck just in time to see Christopher stepping out of the door, herself following close behind.
    “You would even finally have that porch swing you’ve always wanted,” he chuckled, watching her as she almost bounced toward it.
    She felt a surge of excitement as she dropped down onto the seat. “There’s no better place to grow old together than sitting on a porch swing.”
    “Are you sure you want to buy a house now?” he asked as he sat down beside her. “We could wait until after we get married to buy.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t want to wait. It’s perfect, and I want to spend everyday of the rest of our lives in it.”
    As the cold air filled her lungs, a tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it off with the back of her gloved hand and pushed herself up, walking straight to her car without another look at the house.
    *
    She had just closed the hotel room door behind her when her phone rang.
    “I hope it’s not too late.” She could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “I didn’t check the time until after the phone had already started ringing.”
    “No, I went over to a friends house for a drink after dinner, so I’m actually just now walking in,” she explained. “You sound like you haven’t slept in days.”
    She put the phone on speaker and sat it down before pulling off her shirt and throwing it onto the desk chair. As she did, she heard him let out a low yawn.
    “It took a little longer to get everything processed that I expected,” he said. “So, you spent the night drinking with a friend? That sounds fun.” Behind the exhaustion in his voice, she could hear a note of searching.
    “It was,” she replied, trying to decide how long to leave him wondering. “She thinks you’re pretty cute,” she finished after just a few seconds.
    She pulled on an old t-shirt and sat down in the middle of her bed.
    “Ah,” he replied. “Well, that’s because I am. So how was your girls night?”
    “Pretty good. We went to my favorite restaurant up here. We had Kim with us, so we went back to her place pretty early.”
    “So you were talking about me, huh?”
    She could hear the grin on his voice.
    “You may have popped up in the conversation,” she replied. “So have you found anything?”
    “Quite a bit, actually.” He paused and she could hear papers shuffling.
    “Are you still at the station?” she asked, glancing at the clock. It was just after two.
    He mumbled a confirmation, followed by another long yawn. “Okay, the results on the DNA came back, and there were two profiles on the shirt. The blood did come back as a match for Christopher.”
    Rilynne felt her chest tighten, though it wasn’t a surprise.
    “The level of chemicals in the soil show that he was buried right around the known time of death,” he continued. “I heard back from one of my friends and he found a match for the trace that I pulled. The first was Acer gladrum, which is commonly known as Rocky Mountain Maple. As I’m sure you can guess, they’re found mainly along the Rocky Mountains.”
    “Well, that doesn’t limit the search area by much,” she said sullenly. “What about the other one?”
    “Now, that one actually does help to narrow it down a little. It was Penland beardtongue, which is only found in Colorado.”
    “So we at least have it limited to one state. Are you sure it wasn’t left there some