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Expectant.
    “Jeb does his best to beat Scott to an emergency,” I conceded. “He added Sea Rescue during a slow season only two years ago.”
    The C hief was still waiting, his rather nice mouth and fine eyes quirked askance. “Okay, so Jeb’s an octopus,” I admitted. “He’s made a few moves I had to put down, and not just in high school.”
    “Umm.” The fingers of the C hief’s right hand drummed against the table. There I was, the poor little costume designer, skewered like a butterfly on a pin. He leaned forward, placing both hands flat on the small table, the gold-fringed white satin square covering Crystal’s ball the only barrier between us. “Do you know Vanessa Kellerman?”
    “I’ve never met her.”
    He ran a long index finger over the white satin. “Heard any rumors?”
    “Not until this morning.” Again, he waited, his silence drawing words from me as easily as I drew thread from a spool.
    The rants of my two earlier customers were too ephemeral to bear repeating, but Deb Ellis’s remarks might have held a crumb of truth. “The mayor’s wife,” I said, “seems to think Mrs. Kellerman was seeing Jeb Brannigan on the side. To be honest, it doesn’t sound right. For all he’s a hunk, I can’t see Vanessa Kellerman interested in Jeb for anything more than his boating skills.”
    “Some women are into slumming. And major abs.”
    “Jeb may be a redneck, but if the rumor’s true, he’s the one who’d be slumming.” I wanted to think the mee-ow I heard came from Artemis, but I’m afraid it was my conscience calling. No doubt about it, I should stick to costume design and leave criminal analysis and ethics to others.
    If only I’d listened to my own advice.

 
    Chapter 4
     
    “Gwyn?”
    Oops. I’d been standing at the front door, mesmerized by the sight of Boone Talbot climbing into a perfectly ordinary dark blue Taurus, reversing, and driving up the slight slope to the Bypass. Five years celibate, and I’d been struck by lightning. A freaky out-of-the-blue bolt that had fried my common sense like an egg on a Florida summer sidewalk. I hadn’t felt this stunned since I first saw Chad Yarnell in swim trunks when I was eleven. Dear Lord, what was wrong with me? Martin’s death seemed to have cracked the wall I’d put around my emotions, letting newly aroused interest and childhood memories flood my mind in a mix that was almost painful.
    Little Gypsy Laura Wallace gazing in awe from afar as the prince of Golden Beach captained the football team, broke home run and swim records, and still managed a 3.8 average. Cow-eyed and worshipful, I’d embarrassed myself through age twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen . . . and beyond.
    Futile then, futile now. Through all those years of hero worship, Chad—a lofty three years older than I—had occasionally rewarded my devotion with a wink and a pat on the head. I doubt he ever knew my name. He’d gone off to college and been swallowed up by some kind of government service long before I’d finished my stint at Rhode Island School of Design and dashed off to the big city to what I knew was going to be a meteoric career. Bye-bye, Laura Wallace, Nerd. Hello, Gwyn Halliday, Designer Extraordinaire.
    Now here I was, with my nose pressed to the glass of my little costume shop, sighing over six feet of cornpone cop from Nebraska. Obviously, my biological clock was trying to tell me something. But, believe me, there isn’t anything on that subject my mother hasn’t already said. Time to stop this nonsense, Gwyn. Get a life before you wither on the vine. Date! Or whatever they call it now. Trust somebody.  There’s nothing like a husband and children . . .
    Never mind that the grandchildren wouldn’t be blood relatives. I had to give Mom credit. Never had she treated me any differently from Scott. I was as truly hers as if we actually shared the same DNA.
    “Good choice,” Crystal said from just behind me. “That man’s aura is stellar.