RIVER RIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD, NEW ORLEANS

Nathan killed the car ignition and glanced up at the two-story New Orleans-style Camelback house. It was painted a vibrant pink with purple trim on the windows. Children’s toys littered the small front yard and a white SUV sat parked in the driveway.

It was a family’s home.

Miranda Smiley’s home.

From the passenger’s seat, Jade softly asked him, “Do you think she’ll recognize me from the restaurant?”

“Probably not. So much has happened in her life the last few weeks that I highly doubt it.”

He’d visited the house only once, when the connection had finally been made clear between Miranda Smiley and Charlie Zeker a few days after Shawn’s release from jail. Nathan had a bad habit of being annoyingly persistent, and Ms. Smiley had finally caved and agreed to talk.

What he’d learned hadn’t been all that surprising. Miranda Smiley was Zeker’s mistress, lover, whatever you wanted to call it. He’d set her up in this house a year or two back.

When Nathan had questioned her possible involvement in Zeker’s murder, she’d vehemently rejected the idea. But that photo from Ms. Bev’s house still sat front and center in his mind’s eye, and he’d decided that returning here would probably be a good start to restructuring the Zeker investigation. Especially after the information he’d gathered from Shawna just yesterday . . .

Jade quieted for a moment, biting down on her lower lip in thought, before she said, “I feel like she may have done it.”

“Anything’s possible,” he muttered, “but I think she might be able to point us in the right direction at least.”

With that, he shoved open his door and unfolded his big frame from the front seat.

He waited for Jade to round the front of the car.

It hadn’t taken much convincing to persuade Mike Davis, head of crime lab, to put Jade temporarily on the Zeker case. Maybe it had something to do with the way Nathan’s stepfather stormed about Headquarters these days, threatening to fire everyone in his sight if the case wasn’t solved by the end of the week.

Could have been the way P.I.B., the Public Integrity Bureau, had sent out an alert to all law enforcement personnel that the next time a civilian showed up on their doormat with another fake Zeker story, they’d all be hand-delivered suspension days.

Or maybe it was the way that, in the last week, local media had hooked their claws into the Central Evidence Processing, or crime lab, claiming that they’d failed in their line of duty to bring the murderer to task.

Whatever the reason, Davis had granted Jade leave to team up with homicide as they started the investigation from scratch. In the two days since they’d joined forces, something had become very clear to them both: they were missing something major.

Hopefully Miranda Smiley would unlock the last bit for them.

“Do you think the kids are home?” Jade asked from his right as they took the paved path side by side. “Summer vacation just let out.”

“Probably.”

The possibility of Ms. Smiley’s kids running about the house wasn’t ideal. While Miranda had lost her lover, the kids had lost their father. Nathan wasn’t enough of a prick to speak ill about a deceased man in front of his children, even if Nathan himself didn’t agree with Zeker’s life decisions. And even if there might be something else underfoot here.

He rang the doorbell and stepped back, knowing that his size was often intimidating. From what he recalled of their brief meeting, Ms. Smiley was petite.

The door swung open, and Nathan’s gaze swung down to stare at a brown-haired toddler with her thumb stuck in her mouth. “Who’re you’s?” she demanded.

To his surprise, Jade crouched down to look the little girl in the eye. “We’re friends of your mommy . . . Is she home?”

The little girl’s thumb left her mouth with an audible pop! “Maybe.”

“Could you get her for us?” Jade offered the girl a patient smile, and why in the hell did that sweet curve of her lips warm him? Nathan shook off the thought, ignoring pop-up visions of Jade smiling just like that at dark-haired toddlers with dark, flashing eyes and golden skin.

Toddlers that looked just like her.

And, if Nathan were being honest with himself, toddlers that looked just like him too.

He managed to banish the images just as the little girl trotted off into the house, singing at the top of her lungs. “I LOVE YOU’S,” she hollered like a three-year-old banshee, “YOU LOVES ME’S! WE’RE A HAPPY FAMILIES.”

“I think she’s a fan of Barney,” Jade said, laughing.

Nathan winced. “I think my eardrums just died.”

She bumped her hip playfully with his, and it was all Nathan could do to keep his hands professionally by his sides. Since teaming up for work, they hadn’t teamed up on a personal level.

No spontaneous hookups.

No soul-wrenching kisses.

For all sense and purpose, he and Jade had progressed backward in their relationship.

“Mommy!” the little girl shriek from inside the house. “Mommy! You have friends.”

He and Jade shared a grin.

Their grins died the moment Miranda Smiley stepped in the doorway, a kitchen towel in her hands and no smile in sight.

Time to get down to business.

“Ms. Smiley,” he said, voice low and unassuming. He motioned to Jade, who offered a small tilt of her lips when he added, “This is Jade Harper, my partner.”

They’d agreed to keep it plain and simple. Partners. No mention that the NOPD was now scrambling to keep the media in its place. Homicides were, unfortunately, a dime a dozen in New Orleans, like in any big city, but the Zeker case had spiraled out of control, with the media feeding the flames of citizen outcry.

Zeker’s murder needed to be put to bed yesterday, for the sake of his mourning family, who weren’t given the privacy to grieve, and for Nathan’s own piece of mind.

“Ms. Smiley, I’m sorry to stop by unannounced. We’d like to speak with you for a moment.”

Ms. Smiley did not smile. “I’m not sure what else you could possibly ask me that you haven’t already.”

Before he had the chance to open his mouth, Jade stepped forward. “We don’t want the children to overhear,” she murmured, sweet as can be. “Would you be willing to step outside for just a few minutes?”

With a hard glance between them, Ms. Smiley held out an arm and they trooped over to the small patch of grass with a decapitated Barney toy and a scooter toppled over in the grass.

As soon as they were out of earshot from the front door, Ms. Smiley turned to them with no preliminary chitchat. “Detective, I’m sure you can understand my frustration at seeing you here again.”

Clearly there was no love lost between them. “We’ll be out of your hair as soon as possible, ma’am. The thing is, we’ve come to a bit of a crossroads.”

“And you’re back to thinking that I murdered my husband?”

“Husband?” Jade asked, echoing the same thought sprinting through Nathan’s brain. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude, but I was under the impression that—”

“That I was the other woman?” Ms. Smiley said snidely, her expression one of pure disgust. “Yes, you’re not alone. All of New Orleans thinks I have less morals than a whore.”

Nathan mentally scanned through every file he’d pored over in the last three weeks. Nowhere did he remember stumbling across any kind of marriage document linking the woman before him to Charlie Zeker. Hell, she wasn’t even listed as being married. But if what she claimed was correct, then . . .

“I need you to backtrack for me,” he said, trying beyond everything to keep his cool. “You never mentioned marrying Zeker.”

“No,” she replied testily, “I didn’t mention it.”

Ever the calm presence within the storm, Jade said, “Can we ask you why?”

For a moment, it didn’t seem likely that Zeker’s widow would speak at all. She stared resolutely down at the headless Barney, her fingers digging into her arms. Finally, she spoke, though her gaze remained pinned to the kid’s toy nestled in the grass.

“Charlie divorced Shawna three, no, maybe four years ago now. We’d known each other beforehand. Worked together, at this restaurant in the Quarter. I still work there. We never did get together until after their divorce was finalized.” Her gaze lifted and the turmoil in her light-colored eyes was potent. “I’m not that sort of woman, Detective.”

“All right.”

Seemingly satisfied by his non-answer, she went on. “We eloped about a year after their divorce, at one of those walk-in chapel-type deals two blocks from the restaurant. Until we married, I’d never met Shawna. But boy did I get to know her face real well after our marriage.”

Beside him, Jade stirred. “Can you give us more details?”

Ms. Smiley—or was she Mrs. Zeker?—shrugged. “She showed up frequently at the restaurant, screaming at Charlie for leaving her. Slashed my car tires, that sort of thing.”

“Anything else?” Nathan pushed. “Did you ever file a restraining order?”

“No.” The woman turned to look at something behind Nathan. “I never did. Charlie said she was harmless.”

“Was she?” Jade murmured. “Harmless, I mean.”

With a bark of laughter, Ms. Smiley shook her head. “No. It got worse after our first daughter was born. Shawna started showing up here, first just once every few weeks and then more frequently after that. I don’t know how many times I had to go to Sears to get new tires because she slashed them all.”

Nathan made a mental note to look into that further. In reviewing Shawna’s past, he’d never come across the violent behavior Ms. Smiley was suggesting. Sure, friends and family had mentioned Shawna having a small temper. Who didn’t, though? Her rap sheet was clean. No misdemeanors. No felony charges. For all intents and purposes, until the death of her husband, Shawna Zeker was described as an unassuming woman with a knack for poetry and a sweet spot for stray cats.

Car slashing hadn’t been one of her hobbies.

It was a struggle to marry the image of Shawna Zeker that Ms. Smiley provided, and the version of Shawna known by her loved ones. Then again, hadn’t Ms. Bev mentioned that she’d led her daughter down the wrong path by not baptizing her?

This case was one big mess. He felt like he was running in circles.

Nathan scrubbed a frustrated hand over his face. “What exactly would she be seeking revenge for?”

He was rewarded with a blank look. “I don’t know, Detective,” Ms. Smiley said blandly. “How about for taking her husband?”

Gotcha. “But you just said that you didn’t take her husband away. That the two of them had been done at least a year before y’all got together.”

“Well, yes.”

“And in that year, do you recall Zeker dating anyone else?”

Out of his periphery, he saw Jade ease her duffel down to the ground. There was the zzzzppp of a zipper easing open.

“He may have,” Ms. Smiley said, her gaze bouncing from him down to Jade. “I don’t know.”

“But you would know, wouldn’t you,” he murmured, keeping his tone light. “You would know because Shawna mentioned something to me just yesterday when she was released from prison.”

Light-colored eyes shot to his face. “And?”

“Y’all have known each other for years.” He paused, waiting for his comment to sink in. He saw the moment that it did. Her pretty features twisted, her mouth becoming nothing more than a slash across her face. “I never gave it much thought, not until now, anyway, but you dated one of Shawna’s ex-boyfriends . . . from high school, wasn’t it? And then again while in college.”

Her teeth clamping together in fury, Ms. Smiley wrung the kitchen towel between her hands and then snapped it against her leg. “So, what, I’m not allowed to date who I want? It’s a free country.”

“It is,” Nathan said slowly, carefully. “But I suspect that you knew how Shawna might react if she heard about you dating yet another one of her exes—this time her husband.”

Subtly, so subtly he almost didn’t notice at all, Jade excused herself from the conversation, muttering something about having to take a call. Ms. Smiley barely spared her a single glance, her entire focus was fixed on Nathan.

“Listen here, Detective. You’ve got a job to do. You’re questioning me because I’m an easy target. The supposed ‘other woman.’ But I’m no other woman.” The last words were spat out. “Charlie and I were married. You can come here another ten times if you want, but you’re not going to get anything from me. I did not murder my husband.”

Hard as it was, Nathan ignored her anger in an effort to keep his own composure. “I’d like the name of that wedding chapel you went to when you married Zeker.” He drew in a heavy breath. “Please.”

Ms. Smiley didn’t like that answer any more than she’d like any of the others he’d given her in his last two visits. “What,” she said, voice raising a hair past shouting, “so you can go and look me up? No, thank you.”

Time to go about this another way, then. “Ma’am,” he said in a placating tone, the kind of tone that worked wonders on calming down drunks, “I can go about this two ways. You can just give me the information I need, and I’ll go right along on my way, or I can do the research myself and still go down to that chapel.” He paused, then added, “I can tell you which one will look better in the court of law, however, should it come to that.”

The glare she leveled on him was positively cuddly. “You’re an asshole, Detective Danvers. As much of a prick as the newspapers are saying.”

Nathan tapped the black body camera pinned to his chest. “Should I remind you what the newspapers are saying about you?” he said in a low voice. “I think you’d be the first to agree that not everything we read about in the papers has a lick of truth to it.”

“Screw you, Detective.”

Well, guess she didn’t give a rat’s ass about the fact that this meeting had been recorded.

“Mommy!” called the little girl from the porch. “Where’s Barney?”

Ms. Smiley bent down to grab the headless toy from the grass. “Right here, honey. Where’s his head?”

“IN THE TOILET,” screamed the banshee, “IN THE TOILET. I LOVE YOU’S, YOU LOVES ME-E-E’S—”

Ms. Smiley turned to him, the headless Barney gripped in one hand like a lifesaver. “I have to go.”

Not until he had the pertinent information. “The chapel?”

“WE’RE A HAPPY FAMILIES-S-S-S-S-S-S—MOMMY!”

Forget his ears, Nathan was pretty damn sure his entire skeletal system had just shut down from the little girl’s screaming.

The universe must have heard his prayers because right before Ms. Smiley ran up the porch steps to her shrieking toddler, she tossed over her shoulder, “Heavenly Met. On Dauphine Street.”

Bingo.