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you’re involved.”
    Samantha drew a breath, for the first time showing visible restraint, and said, “Believe me, Sheriff, if I have to have them at all, I’d just as soon my visions were restricted to simple things like where somebody lost their grandmother’s ring or whether they’ll meet their perfect mate. But I didn’t get to choose. As much as I’d rather it were otherwise, sometimes I see crimes being committed. Before they’re committed. And my bothersome conscience and inability to ignore what I see drives me to report the visions. To hostile and suspicious people like you.”
    “Don’t expect me to apologize,” Metcalf told her.
    “Like you, I don’t believe in impossible things.”
    Lindsay decided it was past time to intercede. “Okay, Ms. Burke—”
    “Samantha. Or Sam.” She shrugged.
    “Samantha, then. I’m Lindsay.” It wouldn’t hurt, she thought, to try to establish a less combative relationship; it was just a pity Wyatt couldn’t see that. “Tell us something we don’t know about Mitch Callahan’s kidnapping and murder. Something that might help us catch the person responsible.”
    “I wish I could.”
    The sheriff said, “But your visions don’t work that way. Damned convenient.”
    “Not at all convenient,” she retorted.
    “Then how am I supposed to believe—”
    Lindsay got up and headed for the door. “Sheriff, can I talk to you outside for a minute, please? Excuse us, everyone.”
    There really wasn’t much Metcalf could do but follow her, scowling, from the room.
    Jaylene said, “Well, that was fun.”
    Samantha turned her head and stared at Lucas. “Thank you so much for your support,” she said.
     
    Lindsay didn’t exactly drag her boss into his office, but she got him there quickly and shut the door behind them. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” she demanded.
    “Hey, watch the tone,” he snapped right back. “We’re in the office, not at your place or mine, and I damned well outrank you.”
    “Then fire my ass if you want to, but stop acting like an idiot,” she told him. “Wyatt, she’s not involved. You know that, and I know that. We wasted a hell of a lot of time yesterday trying to break her alibi, and we couldn’t do it.”
    “That doesn’t mean—”
    “What? That she isn’t involved?” Lindsay counted off facts on her fingers. “She didn’t know Mitch Callahan. She’s been in Golden barely two weeks. She has absolutely no criminal record. There is no trace anywhere around Samantha Burke or that carnival of the ransom money. Absolutely no forensic evidence ties her to the place where Callahan was grabbed or to his body and where it was dumped. And lastly, in case you hadn’t noticed, she’s not exactly a bodybuilder, and Callahan was a martial-arts expert twice her size. We didn’t find a sign of a gun or other weapon in her possession, remember?”
    “She did not see the future,” he said grimly.
    “I don’t know what she saw. But I do know she didn’t kidnap or murder Mitch Callahan.”
    “You can’t know that, Lindsay.”
    “Yeah, Wyatt, I can know that. Fifteen years as a police officer tells me that. And nearly twenty years as a cop would be telling you the same goddamned thing if you’d just get past this rampant hatred of anybody you perceive as a con artist and look at the facts .”
    The sheriff stared at her.
    Lindsay calmed down, but her voice was still flat and certain when she went on. “It’d be easier and a lot less painful to blame something like this on an outsider, and she’s certainly that. She’s an easy target, Wyatt. But, just for the sake of argument, what if you’re wrong? What if she had nothing to do with it?”
    “She’s a viable suspect.”
    “No, she isn’t. Maybe she was Saturday or yesterday, but we know now she couldn’t have done it. She flat-out couldn’t have. Yet you still had her brought in to answer more questions. And how many reporters are lounging around keeping an