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went over the sequence of events. The questioning officer’s voice grew more and more strident each time she denied any knowledge of the dead man found near the cabin. His eyes bored holes into hers as he studied her every facial expression, every muscle twitch and eye blink. The tone of his voice never softened, even after another officer came into the room to tell him the dead man had been identified as a hunter from Idaho who’d been reported missing by relatives in Taos the day before Tim’s death. That, along with the Coroner’s preliminary report, indicated the man had been suffering from exposure several hours before Frankie and her brother left Albuquerque. His death was looking more and more like a hunting accident. Someone made a call to the pet boarding establishment, which supported Frankie’s claim regarding the timeline.
    “Interview terminated at fifteen hundred hours,” the questioner said. Eyes narrowed to slits, he ordered Frankie not to leave the state. Insinuating that she was being allowed to go home only because no weapon or other evidence against her had been found, he held the door open. His body positioned so that she had to turn sideways to avoid rubbing against him, his eyes followed her through the door. She fled into the hall, where deputy Rollins stood from a chair where he’d apparently been waiting.
    “Do you have a way home?”
    Frankie shook her head. “No.” She had no way home, no one waiting, and no living family. Other than her old nanny Alma, not one living person loved or even cared what happened to her. The lyrics of a golden oldie scraped across her memory like nails on a blackboard, something about one being the loneliest of all numbers.
    “I have to go to Albuquerque for training tomorrow,” the deputy was saying. “But I was thinking of going in this afternoon to visit friends. I’ll take you home, if you like.”
    “Thanks.” Frankie wanted to scream into his face to go eat pig balls and die—he and his suspicious police friends. She wanted to yell that she’d rather hitch a ride with the first friendly trucker who stopped. But exhaustion and a continuing sense of unreality held her back. She just wanted to go home, even if it meant riding with the enemy and sleeping on the floor of her empty house.
    Deputy Rollins pushed a music CD into the player in his vehicle as Frankie buckled up. Music from the seventies and eighties poured into the otherwise dead airspace. Rollins tried several times to open up polite conversation, but Frankie didn’t respond. Instead, she sat with her body pressed up against the passenger door, her spine so rigid she quickly worked up a headache.
    In some circles her behavior would have been considered impolite. In others it could be defined as dripping with attitude. Either of those was fine by her. Her little brother had been shot before her eyes, and she’d basically been accused of murdering a man she didn’t even know for some reason she couldn’t fathom. So yeah, she was feeling pretty pushed out of shape right about then.
    The officer who interrogated her, although he’d called it an interview, had left no doubt as to what he thought of her story. He and his protect-and-serve buddies would undoubtedly be expending lots of energy in digging up evidence against her, trying to find some connection between her and the dead hunter. So, securing an attorney would probably be a wise move. But taking into account the state of her finances, she wondered at her chances of finding one willing to work for homemade strawberry or raspberry jam.
    Like harbingers of things to come, words about staying alive floated from the CD player and into the charged air. Frankie swallowed hard against what felt like giant hands kneading and twisting her stomach.

Chapter Five
    Larry’s stomach tightened as he dialed Bellamy’s number. A body would think that after a couple of years working for the old guy Larry could at least talk to him on the phone