Lie To Her (Bree Taggert #6)(7)

“He called me last night to confirm our date and tell me to wear something warm. He wanted to light his firepit and watch the snow. I thought it was a really romantic idea. That’s the last time I spoke with him.” Avery swiped the back of her hand across her face.
“Thank you for your help. We may need to ask you additional questions.” With no reason to doubt her story, Bree collected Avery’s contact information and summoned a deputy. “See that she gets home safely.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the deputy said.
Bree found Todd standing behind the open trunk of his patrol vehicle, cell phone held between his chin and shoulder. As she approached, he lowered his phone and shoved it into the clip on his duty belt. “I called in four more uniforms to help search the crime scene.”
Bree brushed a snowflake from her sleeve. The flurries were thickening. “We have no time to waste.”

CHAPTER FIVE

An hour later, Matt scanned the rear of the property. A generator hummed, and portable lights blazed across the yard, brightening it like a football stadium. Spread out every ten feet or so, deputies walked in a line across the yard. At the end of that line, Matt pointed his flashlight at the ground. Flurries drifted through the cold air. Despite the falling temps, the ground had not yet frozen. The snowflakes melted as they landed, and his boots squished in a thin layer of mud.
The cold-bloodedness of the murder set off all his instincts. Matt had plenty of experience working crime scenes. He’d worked as both an investigator and a K-9 handler for the sheriff’s department until a shooting—and the previous corrupt sheriff—had ended his career as a deputy. But the details of this killing made all the hairs on the back of his neck not only stand up but wave a flag as well. Only a psychopath could wind plastic wrap around a man’s head and watch him suffocate. Matt wanted this sick bastard in a cell before anyone else appeared in his crosshairs.
He moved slowly, carefully scanning his section of the ground for evidence. In the area next to Spencer’s driveway, Matt’s beam fell on a footprint. Had the killer walked around the house? Maybe casing the place? Matt squatted and examined the print closer. The grass was too thick to see much more than vague impressions. No tread was visible, and he doubted they’d even be able to determine the size of the shoe. Still, the prints needed to be documented.
He called out to the closest deputy. “We need to block off this area.”
Another deputy jogged over with stakes and crime scene tape. They cordoned off the footstep impression.
Matt didn’t find anything else of interest. At the overhead garage door, he shined his flashlight through the high window. A pickup truck and lawn mower sat side by side.
Matt went looking for Bree. He found her on the back patio, examining the doorknob. Her duty belt and bulky sheriff’s jacket camouflaged a lean, athletic body. She was shining her flashlight on the patio door handle, no doubt looking for scratch marks or other indication that the lock had been picked or the door forcibly opened.
Snow dusted the shoulders of her jacket. A canopy had been erected over the body to protect it from the precipitation. The medical examiner had not yet arrived, so the body remained in situ. Deputies and forensics techs moved around the sprawled victim, photographing and sketching the scene, setting up evidence markers. It felt clinical, almost obscene, to work around the corpse as if it weren’t there.
“Any sign of forced entry?” Matt asked.
“No.” She straightened and clicked off the light. “And the other doors and windows are secure. Spencer didn’t have a security system. He didn’t even have a doorbell camera.”
“Spencer is dressed for a run. Maybe he left the back door unlocked.” Matt knew plenty of people who lived out in the country didn’t bother locking their doors, particularly in the daytime. He told her about the footprint. “There’s no tread to cast.”
“Damn.” Bree shook her head. “Ready to take the search inside?”
“Let’s do it.”
They donned shoe covers and gloves before they went inside. The kitchen was sleek and modern. The adjoining living room took clutter-free to new heights. A leather couch faced a fireplace with a TV mounted above it. Every surface shone.
“No photos. No knickknacks. No fingerprints or smudges.” Matt’s gaze swept the bare space. “Except for the dinner prep, it doesn’t look like anyone lives here.”
“When I lived in my apartment in Philly, I hardly ever made a mess that needed to be cleaned up. I ate over the sink.”
“That’s sad.” Matt had watched her change since she’d moved to Grey’s Hollow. The Bree of the past had been alone, even in a roomful of people. But to help the kids process their mother’s death, Bree had been forced to give up her aloof loner ways. Matt was profoundly grateful.
She lifted a shoulder. “It didn’t seem so at the time, but now that I’m used to general chaos, I think a little mess is homey.”
“I’m a bachelor too, but my house looks lived in.”
“You have a big dog.”
Surveying the operating-room sterility of Spencer LaForge’s house, Matt was grateful for the clumps of dog fur and drool trails on his own tile.
Bree took a photo of a steak marinating in a dish on the counter. “Avery said Spencer had planned to grill steaks for them for dinner.”
A laptop sat on the kitchen island. Matt lifted the lid with one gloved finger and touched the space bar. The computer woke. The screen brightened to show a dating site called Cool Beans. The tagline at the top of the screen described it as a low-key app for no-pressure dating.