Her next thought was—
Oh, God! What did this say for their lives together? What kind of an omen— “Tripped?” Logan Raintree suggested, studying the dead man and the stairs.
Logan was the leader of the Texas Krewe of Hunters—the mini-division within their special unit of the FBI. Many of their fellow agents liked to attach the word “special” with a mocking innuendo, but for the most part the Bureau looked upon them with a fair amount of respect. They were known for coming up with results. Jane had known Logan a long time. They were both Texans and had worked with Texas law enforcement before they’d joined on with the Krewe.
Kelsey had come into it as a U.S. Marshal. She’d been working in Key West, her home stomping grounds, until she’d been called to Texas on a serial murder case. She and Logan had been a twosome ever since. One weekend they’d slipped away and quietly married. They told no one and it had become a pool in the home office, had they or hadn’t they? If so, when?
Sloan had profited $120 with his guess. Sloan wasn’t a Texan, though he, too, had worked there. Jane had met Sloan in Arizona during the curious case of the deaths at the Gilded Lily. He’d been acting-sheriff there at the time. Six-foot-four, broad-shouldered, wearing a badge and a Stetson, he’d been pretty appealing. That case put some distance and resentment between them, until solving it drew them together in a way that would never end.
“Tripped?” Logan said again, and she caught the question in his voice.
Logan and Sloan, and all of the members of the Krewe, worked well together. Logan and Sloan both had Native American mixes in their backgrounds, which brought a sense and respect for all beliefs and all possibilities.
Jane loved that about both men.
Of course, she loved Kelsey, too. She’d known Kelsey her whole life. Having grown up in the Florida Keys, Kelsey also had a keen interest in everyone and everything. She was bright, blonde, and beautiful, ready to tackle anything.
“So it appears,” Kelsey murmured.
“Did you see anyone?” Sloan asked the maid, whose horrified scream had alerted them all.
The maid shook her head.
“I’m trying to picture,” Sloan said, “how he tripped and ended up here, as he is.”
“He had to have come down from far up,” Kelsey noted.
Sloan rose and started up the winding stone stairway. “He’d have had to have tripped at the top of the stairs, rolled, and actually tumbled down to this position.”
“Anyone can trip,” Kelsey said, laying a hand on Jane’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”
Jane closed her eyes for a minute. She wanted to believe it. Tripped. A sad accident. Marty MacDonald had been a loner, a bachelor without any exes to mourn him and no children or grandchildren to miss their dad or grandpa. But did that mitigate a human life?
The housekeeper who’d screamed was still standing, staring down at the corpse through glazed eyes, her mouth locked into a circle of horror.
Jane felt frozen herself.
They were used to finding the dead. That was their job. Called in when unexplained deaths and circumstances came about. But this was her minister—the man who was to have married her and Sloan. She didn’t move. The others still seemed to have their wits about them. She heard Sloan dialing 911 and speaking in low, even tones to the dispatch officer. Soon, there would be sirens. A medical examiner would arrive. The police would question them all. Naturally, it looked like an accidental death. But Jane always doubted accidental death.
But that was in her nature.
Would the police doubt so, too?
She felt a sense of hysteria rising inside her. She could wind up in an interrogation room on the other side of the table. Did you do this? I think I know what happened,” a hard-boiled detective right out of some dime novel would demand. He’d be wearing a Dick Tracey hat and trench coat. “What was it? You were afraid of commitment. Afraid of marriage. You don’t really love that poor bastard, Sloan, do you? You didn’t think you’d get away with killing the rugged cowboy type of man he is. Tall, strong, always impossibly right. So you killed the minister. Pushed a poor innocent man of God right down the stairs!”
Whoa.
Double whoa.
She didn’t feel that way. She’d never felt for anyone like she did for Sloan. She was in love with his mind, his smile, his voice. The way he was with her, and the way he was with the world. They shared that weirdness of their special ability to speak with the dead. They also shared a need to use their gift in the best way. She definitely loved him physically. He was rugged and weathered, a cowboy, tall and broad-shouldered, everything a Texas girl might have dreamed about. He had dark hair, light eyes, sun-bronzed features, and a smile that could change the world.
Except that he wasn’t smiling now.
“You just now found him?” Sloan asked the maid.
The woman didn’t respond.