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going,” Leah said, suddenly eager to disappear. She turned and headed across the dining area toward the living room, practically dragging the pup at the end of the leash.
    Savannah followed right behind her, watching to see that she didn’t touch or disturb anything.
    At the door, Leah paused and glanced over her shoulder at Savannah. “Are you coming, too?”
    “Yes,” Savannah said. “I need to speak to Officer Bosco about letting anyone else inside the house before CSU clears it.”
    “Oh.” She cleared her throat and shuffled her feet.
    “I wouldn’t be too hard on him. Like I said, he was busy and I sort of insisted, being a close friend of the family and all.”
    Savannah gave her a too-sweet smile. “Still,” she said. “I really should have a word with him.”
    Leah shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
    She opened the front door, bolted through it, and hurried down the sidewalk, stepping over the temporary barricade. Briefly, she tangled the dog’s leash in the yellow tape, and before she could loosen it, the tall, good-looking cop in his smart blue uniform strode from his unit over to her.
    “Are you okay?” he asked her as she frantically fumbled with the lead. “I’m sure sorry about your sister,” he added sweetly.
    “Ah, yeah. Thanks,” she mumbled as she finally freed the leash. In only two or three seconds, she was scurrying off down the road, a blur of red pantsuit and clicking heels.
    Savannah watched, a wry smile on her face, as the woman practically tossed the cocker puppy into a Porsche convertible that was parked half a block away and sped off.
    “Evening walk, my hind end,” Savannah muttered.
    “I beg your pardon?” Officer Bosco asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “Too bad about her sister.”
    “Yeah, too bad. But she’s not her sister. She lied to ya, Mike.”
    Officer Michael Bosco looked like somebody had zapped him with a stun gun. “Really?”
    ‘Yes, really.” She draped one arm across his broad shoulders, briefly enjoying the closeness to youth and virility, before reminding herself that Officer Mike was about the same age as her baby brother, Macon.
    So she ended the moment and slapped him on the
    back. “As my Granny Reid would say, Mike, don’t believe nothin’ you hear and only half of what you see, ’cause the rest is nothin’ but bull pucky.”
    “Bull pucky ?” Officer Bosco looked confused. “I thought the rest was bull shit. ”
    “Nope, Mike. It’s bull pucky: Granny Reid lives in Georgia, and she’s a fine, upstanding Southern lady.” Savannah sighed and gazed out across the water at the last shimmering bit of setting sun. “Besides that... Gran’s a Baptist.”
    “Oh. right.”
     

Chapter
    4
     
    B y the surreal light of the yellow halogen lamps that illuminated the beachfront streets, Savannah and Dirk watched as Dr. Liu’s white coroner’s wagon pulled away from the glass house, heading for the city morgue. The CSU technicians were packing up their van, and Officer Bosco was removing the yellow tape from around the perimeter of the property.
    At least for the moment, the on-scene investigation into the untimely demise of supermodel Cait Connor was completed.
    Listening to the waves crashing on the nearby sand and smelling the salty sea air would normally have given j Savannah a peaceful, mellow feeling. But for some reason she felt restless, prickled by a sense of foreboding.
    She also felt sad, which she understood, but why she felt uneasy in her own skin, she wasn’t sure.
    “You going home?” Dirk asked her.
    ‘Yes,” she said. “You?”
    ‘Yeah, I think I got everything I need out of the scene and the husband. I think I’ll head back to the station to write it up.”
    ‘Just what you wanted on your day off. More paperwork.”
    “Yeah, well. What are you gonna do? When I’m done, I think I’ll go get a burger. Wanna come? My treat.”
    As much as Savannah wanted to take advantage of the rare offer of a “Dirk treat,” she wasn’t