Scene of the Crime: Return to Bachelor Moon by Carla Cassidy Page B

her lap but continued to fidget in junkie fashion.
    “I can tell you that Ryan was here with me all night on Thursday. In fact, he’s here most nights, although he has an apartment of his own.”
    “Is it possible he was here for a while and then maybe left while you were sleeping?” Jackson asked.
    She flashed a quick smile, displaying a missing front tooth. “I don’t do a lot of sleeping. So, no, that wouldn’t be possible. I’ll be perfectly honest. I’ve got a little problem with meth and Ryan is trying to help me stay on the straight and narrow.” She giggled like a young girl, although she had to be in her mid-thirties. “He tells me I’m a full-time job for him.”
    “Have you thought about rehab?” Andrew asked.
    “Been three times, and it didn’t take. Ryan is the best rehab I’ve ever had.”
    The men questioned her for several minutes longer but got no more information out of her that would absolutely confirm Ryan’s alibi.
    “I don’t think Ryan is fixing her problem, either,” Jackson muttered as they left Tammy’s apartment.
    “No, she was definitely tweaking, but aside from that, she’s crazy and dependent enough on him to provide him with an alibi for any day or time he’d need one,” Gabriel said as he tightened his hands on the steering wheel.
    It was dinnertime, and he headed back toward the bed-and-breakfast feeling as if their entire day had been wasted.
    “I say we put Ryan Sherman on a persons of interest list,” Jackson said.
    “And tomorrow you can check around town and see if anyone can specify the last interaction Ryan might have had with Sam.” Gabriel turned down the lane that led to the bed-and-breakfast.
    “I’m just hoping Marlena has something great for dinner. I’m starving,” Andrew exclaimed.
    Both Jackson and Gabriel laughed. “What else is new?” Jackson replied.
    As Gabriel walked up the stairs to the porch, a fist of tension knotted in his stomach as he thought of seeing Marlena.
    “Hmm, something smells good,” Andrew said as they entered the house.
    Marlena appeared in the doorway to the dining room and Gabriel was shocked by how the mere sight of her shot pleasure through him.
    “Pot roast,” she said. “And it’s ready whenever you men want to eat.”
    “Now,” Andrew said. “We’re definitely ready now. They forced me to eat a sandwich from a convenience store for lunch.”
    Marlena laughed. “Oh, my gosh, that’s a fate worse than death.”
    The sound of her laughter stirred a well of warmth inside Gabriel’s stomach. She was a vision in pink, clad in a sundress that exposed slightly freckled slender shoulders and long bare legs.
    “Give us fifteen minutes,” he said and instantly turned to go upstairs. He’d scarcely gotten in the door and already felt as if he needed to distance himself from her.
    Something must have been in that pond water he’d swallowed last night when he’d pulled her from its depths, for he’d had trouble keeping her out of his head all day long.
    He dropped his laptop on the bed, went directly into the bathroom and sluiced cool water on his face. He had to remember that he didn’t know Marlena, except that she had a slamming-hot body and the face of an angel.
    But he had to stay focused on the fact that she might have something to do with what had happened to the family. He didn’t know if she’d somehow manufactured a fall into the pond to complicate what was already a difficult case with few leads.
    Finally, he wasn’t sure that he believed that anyone could have slept through whatever had happened on the night the Connelly family disappeared. That overturned chair indicated that they hadn’t left the kitchen in utter silence.
    Minutes later he joined his partners at the dining room table, where Marlena served them pot roast and vegetables, hot rolls and a salad. He was grateful that she didn’t sit with them, but instead she disappeared back into the kitchen.
    After dinner, Gabriel returned to