“And your husband? Was he here as well?”

  “That time of night? Yes, of course.”

  “Ma’am, we’re going to need a DNA sample from you,” Isaac stated. “We don’t have a warrant for it. But we can come back with one if you insist.”

  “But I didn’t do this. I love her! I didn’t even know she was the one blackmailing me. I thought it was someone from the church.”

  Isaac nodded. “Again, a DNA sample will help us eliminate you as a suspect. It’s just a simple cheek swab.”

  She stared at him and finally nodded. “Fine. Just do it.”

  Isaac removed a buccal swab from his inside jacket pocket and went about swabbing the woman’s cheek. As he was putting the test away he took a breath and steeled himself for the next order of business.

  “It would also help us out to have a DNA sample from your husband as well.”

  Janette’s eyes grew big and round. She shook her head. “No, please. Don’t involve my husband in this, I’m begging you. Please don’t.”

  Once again, Isaac and Pete exchanged another look. A silent conversation happening in an instant. Finally, Isaac turned back to her.

  “If you can give us a viable DNA sample from your husband, that might be sufficient.”

  Janette gave him a puzzled look. “A viable sample?”

  “Hair from his hair brush?” Isaac suggested. “A toothbrush? A utensil he used this morning at breakfast that you haven’t washed yet, like a fork or a spoon? Something like that.”

  Janette nodded and stood. She rushed from the room and was back in a flash with a blue toothbrush. She fished a baggie out of the kitchen cabinet and dropped the toothbrush into it. Then she handed it over.

  “It was time to change our toothbrushes anyway. Now that you have Wiley’s DNA you won’t need to speak with him, right?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

  Isaac drew in a deep breath. He didn’t want to lie to the woman. “That all depends on the DNA results, ma’am. I can promise you that we will try to keep this to ourselves if we can.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, if your husband’s DNA matches the DNA we’ve already collected from the crime scene, then we will have no choice but to speak with him.”

  “But he didn’t do this,” Janette insisted. “He doesn’t even know Lauren existed.”

  “With all due respect, Mrs. Lawson, you were not aware that your lover knew you were married and was blackmailing you for it. How can you be so certain that your husband wasn’t aware of your affair? For all you know, he and Lauren Franelli knew all about each other.”

  Isaac got to his feet as Janette Lawson buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Pete placed one of their business cards on the table in front of her. “Please don’t leave town, Mrs. Lawson.”

  They let themselves out of the house and headed back to the unmarked cruiser as the sky began to grow dark. It would be shift change soon.

  “That’s some messed up shit, Ike,” Pete said, securing his seatbelt.

  “You know it,” Isaac agreed pointing the car toward the precinct.

  “What to you think the odds are that the husband is our killer?”

  “Who knows, Pete.” He turned on the defroster and the wipers to melt the wet snow on the windshield. “I mean, it is one hell of a motive. But a preacher?”

  “Rare, yes. But I’m sure it happens.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure it probably does.”

  Back at the station, Isaac hand delivered the Lawsons’ two DNA samples up to the lab, all the while wondering where the evidence would end up steering this strange, twisted case.

  By the time they updated Lt. Hayes on their progress and updated their case board with all the new players, the night shift detectives were coming on duty.

  “Let’s go home, partner. I’m hungry.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Pete replied.

  12

  The light snow that had fallen throughout the day had finally stopped, but the temperatures continued to drop. Isaac left the station and spent ten full minutes scraping the snow and ice from the front and back windshields of his Mustang before he ever left the parking lot.

  “Remind me again. Why do people like the snow?” Pete asked from his spot two spaces over where he scraped the snow and ice from the windows of his Chevy Silverado.

  Isaac grinned. “Right now, I couldn’t say, partner.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Pete said, climbing into his truck.

  “Yep.”

  Once Isaac finally slid behind the wheel, the heat pumping cozy vibes throughout the inside of the car instantly made him sleepy. He yawned and concentrated on staying awake as he drove.

  His mind naturally drifted to his Sidney and he wondered how her day had been. He knew that she was having some trouble adjusting to the whole motherhood thing. Not that taking care of Greer hadn’t helped prepare them both. But there was something about infants.

  Infants were completely and totally dependent on you for absolutely everything. Greer could at least feed himself, tell you where it hurt, and he was great at following basic instructions. But two needy, dependent infants on top of Greer were a lot for one woman to handle. And Isaac knew that Irene was a big help to her. But he also knew that Sid had the brunt of things.

  During his paternity leave, he and Sidney had been a team. One set of hands for each twin. And he had enjoyed doing his part. He had gotten pretty good at diaper changing. He had even become a master of anticipating and dodging the surprise tinkle spout that Atticus was so good at.

  The thought of getting shot in the eye by his infant son’s pee brought on a chuckle.

  But seriously… Isaac was feeling the struggle between work and being present for Sidney and the kids. He now had a full understanding of how difficult it was to give his all to the job he loved — especially when he was called out super early to a crime scene — when he’d had so little sleep.

  Each evening though, he tried his best to be there to help Sidney with Greer and the twins as much as he could. It was honestly his favorite part of the day. Being with his family was the best thing in the world.

  And to think that just two short years ago, he never imagined that he would have a family of his own.

  Sidney had changed everything for him.

  She made his life so much better in a million different ways. Just like his grandad had said she would.

  He couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like for Sidney when her maternity leave was finally over in four more weeks. He doubted that she would ever be one of those women who ultimately chose to walk away from her job in order to stay at home with the children, but only time would tell. All he really knew for certain was that he would support whatever decision she made.

  When he finally made it home and stepped through the door of the mud room, he was met by a bouncing three-year-old boy and a huge ball of fur.

  Joy erupted in his chest.

  “Daddy!”

  “Meow!”

  “Well hello, boys!”

  Yep. Best part of his day.

  Isaac bent and scooped up Greer in one arm and Alfred Hitchcock the cat in the other.

  “How was your day? Did you two have fun? Were you good for Mommy?” he asked as he carried them both from the room, across the hall, and into the master bedroom.

  “Yeah,” Greer replied, as the cat purred and stuck his tiny wet nose in Isaac’s ear.

  “Yeah? Did you help Mommy with the babies today?”

  Greer nodded. “I hold the bottle to feed Annie.”

  “Yeah? You fed your sister, Andie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well that probably helped Mommy a lot. Good job, buddy.”

  Isaac set the cat down on the bed and then proceeded to toss Greer into the air over and over, as was their nightly routine. He loved the boy’s big hearty belly laughs at their game. Finally he gently tossed Greer backwards onto the bed and watched with in delight as the boy rolled from side to side and laughed some more.

  “You sit tight,” Isaac said before walking into the closet and putting his gun away in the lockbox on the top closet shelf. Then he went about getting out of his work clothes and into a pair of sweatpants and a WNBA Cleveland Rockers t-shirt.

  Once he was changed he walked back over to the bed and held out his hands, allowing his little daredevil to leap from the bed and into his arms. Isaac laughed as he caught the boy.

  “You are becoming fearless, little man,” he told Greer. “I probably shouldn’t be encouraging that, huh? Where’s Mommy?”

  Greer pointed toward the great room and Isaac headed that way.

  He found Sidney sitting on the huge ottoman facing the sectional sofa. She was leaned over, feeding the twins via bottles while they sat snuggled in the twin nursing pillow. He noticed that she was also hooked up to the nursing pump, expressing her milk for future feedings.

  “Well, aren’t you being efficient?” Isaac said, his tone registering the genuine sense of awe he felt. She was amazing and impressive as hell.

  Sidney looked up at him and grinned. “I’m just trying to stay ahead of the game.”

  “And is that dinner I smell?” Isaac asked, glancing toward the kitchen where he saw Irene wiping down the counter.

  “It’s nothing fancy,” Sidney replied. “I just threw some smoked sausage, potatoes and green beans into the crockpot this afternoon while the twins were sleeping. I thought you might be getting tired of all the frozen casseroles your mom and Bree stocked our freezer with, so⁠—”

  “It smells great to me,” Isaac interrupted. “I’m starving.”

  “Well, it will be ready in just a few minutes,” Irene called out as she put a baking sheet of homemade biscuits into the oven. Then she grabbed some plates to set the table.

  “How can I help?” Isaac asked, setting Greer down.

  “You can burp the babies while I put away the expressed milk?” Sidney asked, unhooking herself from the pump.

  “I can do that.”

  Isaac moved in happily, eager to get his hands on his twins. It was amazing to him how much he missed them throughout the day after being home with them every day for two whole weeks.

  He burped first Andrea and then Atticus, taking the time to play with each of them. By the time he finished, dinner was on the table, so he got the twins settled into their swings and then strapped Greer into his high chair.

  “So, how was your day, baby?” Sidney asked him.

  “My day was long and twisty. This new case Pete and I caught has taken a weird turn,” Isaac replied.

  “Weird how?” Sidney asked.

  “Well, someone was apparently sending our victim threatening notes. We presume that someone was her killer. But today we discovered that our victim was also sending threatening notes to her lover. Blackmailing her because she discovered that the woman was married.”

  Sidney frowned and shook her head. “So the blackmailer was being blackmailed? Okay, that is sort of twisted.”

  “I don’t know how you manage to keep all the details of any case straight, Isaac,” Irene said. “I think that would drive me batty.”

  “Sometimes I do feel a little batty, Irene. And typically, we’re working on multiple cases at the same time, so you can imagine just how batty I feel,” Isaac grinned. Then he turned to Sidney. “How was your day, darlin’?”

  Sidney sighed. “Well, after bath time this morning I propped the twins up in the pillow for some play time.”

  “Yeah?” Isaac smiled and took a bite of his dinner.

  “Andie reached over and took her brother’s hand, like she was comforting him after his horrifying ordeal.”

  Isaac laughed. “He still screaming his head off at bath time, huh?”

  “Crying bloody murder is more like it. And this one came into the room with an attitude to tell me the baby was crying,” Sidney gestured to Greer with a potato speared on her fork. “Like I didn’t already know that.”

  “Oh, did he now?”

  Sidney pulled out her cellphone and brought up a picture. “Here. They held hands for quite a while. I snapped a pic for you.”

  “Aww, would you look at that,” Isaac chuckled. “We should frame that one. My mama would love a copy of that.”

  “Good idea,” Sidney agreed. “Might make a nice Christmas gift for her and your dad. And maybe my Aunt Bobbie.”

  “And how was your day, Irene?” Isaac asked.

  “Oh, uneventful. After making breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen, I colored with Greer, did some crochet work. Lots of fun stuff” Irene replied. “Oh, and I took the liberty of making and freezing several breakfast sandwiches that you can grab and microwave before you have to run out of the house on those mornings when you don’t have time to wait and eat with us.”

  “Oh. Why thank you, Irene. That was very thoughtful.”

  “It was your wife’s idea, not mine. I just executed it for her. Eggs, sausage, and cheese. Some have Canadian bacon instead of sausage. Just keep them in the paper towel and heat them up for ninety seconds.”

  “Well, whoever’s idea it was, I’m grateful,” Isaac said. “That might help me to get to work on time again.”

  “Well if it does, we will try to keep you fully stocked,” Sidney said. Then she turned to Irene. “And thank you for the assist, Irene. You have been such a big help since the babies came home.”

  “I’m happy to do what I can,” Irene replied. “You know, that also includes holiday decorating. I’ve noticed we’re a little behind in that area.”

  Sidney smiled at her. “Yes. I’m sure the arrival of the new Christmas tree helped draw your attention to that.”

  “Maybe,” Irene smiled.

  “New Christmas tree?” Isaac asked.

  “It’s in a box, Daddy,” Greer explained.

  “A box?” Isaac repeated, feeling his brow fold in on itself.

  Sidney sighed. “Well, I had to do something. I mean, look at this place. You would never know it’s Christmastime by us, and that is not acceptable. So I ordered some things today online. Supplies for Greer and I to make cookies. An artificial tree that I thought we could set up tonight. A few other things.”

  Isaac nodded. “Well, I certainly can’t argue with your sad assessment of the place. We do need to do some decking of the halls, so to speak. We don’t want our new neighbors thinking we’re the Scrooge family or a bunch of Grinches.”

  “Well, after we finish dinner why don’t you two get started on setting up the tree and I’ll take care of the dishes,” Irene said.

  “And me an Misser Hish-hock watch the babies,” Greer said, not to be left out.

  Isaac and Sidney both looked at him in surprise. He was adorable when he was being so serious. But luckily for all concerned, both babies had fallen asleep in their swings.

  With a plan in place, they finished their dinner and then put it into action.

  Sidney transferred the twins to their bassinets while Isaac took Greer upstairs for his bath. Once the boy was in his pajamas they went back downstairs to start setting up the artificial Christmas tree.

  It came pre-lit with tiny multi-colored lights, giving them one less thing to have to worry about. And with the small remote that came with it, Isaac set the lights to slowly twinkle.

  “You know, darlin’, we no longer have a way of keeping Mr. Hitchcock from climbing the tree here like we did in the old house,” Isaac said.

  “I thought of that, baby. That’s why I ordered an artificial tree instead of calling a tree lot to have a real one delivered. Hopefully, he won’t find this one so easy or pleasing to climb since the base is metal.”

  “Yeah, but what about all of your breakable ornaments?”

  “Well, that’s why I also ordered a bunch of new, non-breakable ornaments. And I got some craft supplies so that Greer and I can make a few new ones too. We’re going to tackle that tomorrow, right Baby Greer?”

  “Yeah,” the boy nodded and handed Isaac another ornament.

  “Bree is bringing the kids over tomorrow afternoon and we’re going to have craft time for Greer and Isla. Make a few Christmas ornaments.”

  “I see,” Isaac said. “Well, that sounds like fun.”

  Greer bounced excitedly beside him, nodding his agreement.

  “It’s going to be a busy day since I also promised someone we’d make cookies tomorrow,” Sidney added.

  Isaac looked at Greer and made an excited face. “Are you making Christmas cookies with Mommy tomorrow?”

  Greer nodded enthusiastically.

  “Will you save me some?”

  “Yes!”

  Isaac high-fived the little boy.

  “Oh, and I’ve got to make a couple of calls for Zoe too since I promised her I would and neglected to do that today,” Sidney said, talking mostly to herself and making a slightly annoyed face.

  Almost like she was trying to remind herself of a task she wasn’t looking forward to.

  Whether she was or not, Isaac was instantly irritated.

  “You’re doing what?” he asked, then rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”

  Sidney sighed. A loud, unpleasant sound that warned I’m-already-annoyed-don’t-make-me-angry.

  But Isaac couldn’t help himself. “Why are you still working during your maternity leave, Sidney?”

  “I’m not working, Ike. I’m⁠—”

  “You’re doing things for Zoe, for Hope House. Things that can and should wait until after your maternity leave is over,” Isaac said, cutting her off. “Things that, if Zoe needs them done right now she needs to either do them herself or find someone who is not on maternity leave to do them!”

  “Isaac, can you please lower your voice before you wake the babies?” Sidney said, her tone clearly aggravated.

  Isaac sighed and shook his head. It was an argument they had been tip-toeing around a lot since the twins came home. Especially since it seemed that her boss, Zoe Ridley, had no problem disrespecting Sid’s maternity leave.

  Isaac took a deep breath and tried very hard to get his tone under control.

  “I apologize, darlin’. It just pisses me off that you continue to allow Zoe take advantage of you like this.”

 

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