Pushed Too Far: A Thriller Read Free Page B

last night?”
    “At the fire station late. Then I stopped at the Doghouse for a beer.”
    “After that?”
    “Home alone, in bed. No witnesses. Not unless you count the Playboy channel.”
    Her expression didn’t change.
    He’d thrown in the Playboy channel to unnerve her, but it hadn’t been a lie. Cable was as close as he’d gotten to a date in the two and a half years since Kelly declared she needed a break from their marriage. Except for work, it was the closest he’d gotten to a life.
    “You didn’t see or hear from Kelly?”
    “No.” He thought about last night. Coming home late, tired, maybe a little buzzed. The door swinging open before he’d inserted the key. “But someone might have been in my house.”
    Her eyebrows arched. “Did you report the break in?”
    “I don’t know if it was a break in. I’m pretty sure I locked the door, but I might have forgotten.”
    “Was anything missing?”
    “Not that I could tell.”
    “I’ll send someone over.”
    He shouldn’t have mentioned it. Now he’d given the chief an excuse to poke around in his house. “Since nothing is missing, I don’t think that’s necessary, do you?”
    Another arch of the brows. “It will only take a few minutes.”
    He’d been right. It was happening again. Kelly was dead, and he was the number one suspect. Everything he’d thought he’d put behind him was replaying like a recurring nightmare.
    “It doesn’t have to be so hard, you know.”
    He frowned. Now she really was reading his mind. “What are you suggesting? That I turn myself in?”
    “Should you?”
    “I didn’t do anything.”
    “Then help me.”
    Out of all the things he expected Val Ryker to say, that wasn’t one. “Help you with what?”
    “The other body, the woman we believed was Kelly; we have to figure out who she really was.”
    He narrowed his eyes. She seemed serious. “I don’t think I can do a better job of identifying her than DNA can.”
    “The type of DNA that was used for identification has some limitations.”
    At the time of the trial, the prosecutor, Monica Forbes, had explained to him the ins and outs of mitochondrial DNA. He’d only half listened, never dreaming the body could be anyone but Kelly. “I gave her a funeral. I buried her in my wife’s grave. That’s all I can tell you.”
    She took a controlled breath. “I think you can tell me more than that.”
    “I didn’t kill her.”
    “Then cooperate. The body we found wasn’t Kelly, but mito DNA and the bones themselves indicate it does belong to a female in her family.”
    “You looked at her family the first time around. I sat through the trial. Everyone it could have been was already dead.”
    “We obviously missed someone.” She searched his eyes, as if the answer might be there.
    Suddenly he was aware of every twitch of his face muscles, every shift of his gaze, every movement of his body. He had nothing to hide, yet at the same time, he couldn’t help wondering what she was seeing. “If you’re counting on me to solve this for you, you’re shit out of luck.”
    She nodded, although whether that meant she accepted his answer or had plans to approach him in another way remained to be seen.
    “We need to exhume the body we thought was Kelly’s. It would be quickest if I could get your permission.”
    Digging up those bones shouldn’t bother him. After all, he didn’t even know who they belonged to. But a dull ache seized his chest, and he couldn’t help feeling exhuming those bones was the last detail that made the whole mess real.
    Kelly had died all over again.
    And once again, he hadn’t been able to save her.
    “I know this is tough.”
    He shook his head. He didn’t expect her concern, and he didn’t want it. “Where do I sign?”
    “I’ll take you to the police station.”
    He shook his head. There wasn’t a chance he was getting into a cop car with her. “I have my own ride.” He gestured to Unit One.
    “Suit yourself. But I need