Marianna glanced at Catelyn, then looked back at him. She said, “I’m Marianna Santino. I teach at the Palmetto State School for the Deaf across the street.”
The deaf school. He’d refused to acknowledge it as they’d passed it on their way to this subdivision. His sister had gone to school there for many years. It held a mixture of bittersweet and painful memories for him.
Looking straight at her, he said, “I hate to tell you this, Ms. Santino, but it looks like your roommate either surprised the perp…or he was after her and caught her.” He looked around, then motioned to Catelyn. “We need to get out of here. This scene’s been contaminated enough. Call it in and secure the area, will you?”
Catelyn went to do as he requested. Ethan held his hand out to the woman.
“But everyone loves Suzanne,” Marianna protested even as she accepted his helping hand. Twister stayed right beside his mistress. “She teaches kindergarten at Pine Wood Elementary School.”
“Well, it looks like she made someone really mad about something.”
* * *
Marianna missed that last part; he’d turned his head and she’d not been able to read his lips. Something about someone being mad. But who?
She followed him from the room, down the hall and out the door. What had Suzanne stumbled upon? Had she been up there all day, or had she come home early from work?
A hand on her arm brought her attention back to the man before her. His concerned blue-gray gaze narrowed, zoomed in on her. For some reason she noticed the touch of gray at his temples. “Oh, I’m sorry. You said something. I was thinking, picturing poor Suzanne…” She bit her lip. He didn’t need her to break down again. He needed her help.
“Are you with me here?”
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry.” She really needed to stop apologizing. None of this was her fault. “I’m almost deaf and need you to face me when you talk to me so I can read your lips, all right?”
Understanding flashed across his rugged features. The flicker of pain she glimpsed on his face confused her, but then it was gone and he was all business. “I need to ask you some questions, all right?”
Marianna nodded. Probably the same questions she had running through her mind. They walked to the curb, Twister trotting beside her.
Ethan asked, “Does Suzanne have any enemies?”
“No, like I said, she teaches…taught…kindergarten.”
“A fight with a boyfriend?”
“She doesn’t have a boyfriend right now. She recently broke up with a guy named Bryson James, but it was amicable.”
He jotted something in the small notebook he had pulled out. When he looked up, his electric gray-blue gaze connected with hers again and she felt a pull, sensed comfort, strength…a hidden pain?
She jolted, not wanting to feel anything right now or notice the good-looking cop sitting on her couch. Suzanne was dead, and the police needed her full attention to help solve her murder.
“Family?”
Marianna rubbed her hand across her forehead, swallowing another wave of grief. She whispered, “Her parents live here in town. They’ll be devastated.” He shifted next to her. She stared helplessly at him. “What can I do? How do I help?”
His big calloused hand reached over to take hers, his gaze intense as he said, “You’re helping in just answering the questions. Don’t leave anything out, tell me everything you know about her. The smallest detail could wind up being the biggest clue, okay? Then we’re going to have to find you a place to stay for a couple of days until we can release the scene—” he cleared his throat “—um, your house, back to you.”
Marianna nodded and sucked in a fortifying breath, and for the next hour and a half, while officers, a CSI unit, the medical examiner and the coroner paraded through her home and Suzanne’s privacy, she did her best to give Ethan O’Hara something to work with to enable him to find Suzanne’s killer.
* * *
Ethan waited while Marianna sent a text message to her parents that she would be coming to stay for a couple of nights. He was glad texting was such an in thing these days, since it made communication so much easier for the deaf. His sister would have loved the technology. Instead of dwelling on the past, however, he focused on what the crime scene investigator was saying.
“The medical examiner ruled out suicide. Ms. Miller was killed when she cracked her head on the corner of the bedside table. Blunt force trauma, if you want the official term. The M.E. said she’d do an autopsy to be sure, but she doubted she’d find anything else.”
“I’ll talk to her later. Thanks for the help and let me know if you find anything else, will you?”
“You bet, Ethan.”
Marianna walked toward him, her beauty not one bit diminished by her puffy eyes, red nose and blotchy cheeks. The grief stamped on her face pierced him. Why was it always the good ones? The ones who didn’t deserve to have their lives shattered this way? Not that anyone deserved to come face-to-face with murder, but…
Melancholy thoughts would haunt his after-hours work tonight. He smirked at that thought. What after-hours? As a homicide detective, he lived his job twenty-four/seven. Maybe if he had a family, someone to go home to at night, he’d make more of an effort to work less and spend time at home.
He smiled at her and noted the well-trained Twister at her side. Ethan commented, “He reminds me of the dogs on the K-9 squad.”
Tilting her head, she grinned. His heart slammed against his chest, and his breath whooshed from suddenly constricted lungs. Wow. Twin dimples flashed at him as her eyes crinkled at the corners. “Twister is a special dog, specially trained to be my ears. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
Then the dimples disappeared, the brief moment of levity gone. It shocked him to realize how much he wanted her to smile again. “Do you need a ride to your parents’ house?”
“No, but thank you. My brother, Joseph, is on the way to pick me up. He’s home, visiting. My mother let him know I needed a ride, but she didn’t tell him why.” Her hands clasped in front of her, she kept her eyes on his face. She looked lost, shell-shocked.
The urge to gather her in his arms singed him. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Why didn’t she tell him?”
Well-shaped shoulders lifted in a shrug. “A lot of reasons. The main one being the safety of the other drivers on the road between her house and mine.”
“Right. Okay, well, there’s nothing else we can do here.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder, felt a tremble run through her.
Don’t do something dumb, O’Hara, like hug her.
He pulled her to him for a brief moment, patted her back, then stepped back. The surprise on her face matched the disbelief he felt. He’d hugged her. Now why did he go and do that? What was it about her that had him tossing his professional detachment to the wind? She offered him a small smile filled with gratitude.
Swallowing his rampant thoughts and emotions, he realized he’d only just met the woman and was getting in deep, reacting with his heart, instead of his head. Clearing his throat, he said, “Hey, it’ll be all right. Everything will work out, okay?”
Unblinking identical vats of chocolate stared up at him.
Her eyes made him think of Hershey’s—and