Once Craved (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #3) by Blake Pierce

Author:Blake Pierce [Pierce, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Published: 2016-05-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty Three

Riley couldn’t imagine how she was going to explain Gretchen Lovick’s unnatural death to her family. The neighborhood where she had lived was made up of pristine rows of modern ranch houses with small but immaculate lawns and manicured shrubbery. Occasional tall, skinny palm trees stuck up along the street like giant feather dusters.

She said to Bill, “I thought this was a desert. But look at all the grass. And there are palms of all kinds all over Phoenix.”

“People are willing to spend for whatever they think is important,” Bill replied. “Looks like the folks around here can all afford some extras. I bet there’s a pool in back of every one of these places.”

Riley pulled up at the address they’d been given. The house and yard were scrupulously neat and well cared for.

Why? Riley wondered.

Why did a woman who lived here choose such a deviant path? How could she even go to a seedy place like the Kinetic Custom Gym? How could she tolerate a pimp like Jaybird?

As they walked up to the front door, she had to wonder if she and Bill were bringing this awful news to the wrong man. But Cyrus Lovick was expecting them and he opened the door as soon as she pressed the bell. He was wearing a polo shirt and casual slacks that could be golfing attire, but he looked somewhat rumpled and anxious.

“Are you from the FBI?” he asked. “They said someone was coming.”

Riley and Bill showed their badges and introduced themselves. They stepped into the air-conditioned interior.

“What has happened?” Lovick cried.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Riley said, “but your wife, Gretchen, has been found dead.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Bill added.

“Oh, God,” Lovick said. He sat down abruptly in an armchair. For a moment he looked around the room, as if expecting to see something that wasn’t there. When he spoke again, his voice sounded numb. “I was afraid that something … she … yesterday when the kids came home, she wasn’t here. Lexie—my oldest—she called me, worried. I came home from work right away. After a while I called the police and reported her missing. Then this afternoon the FBI called. I knew there must be something awful.”

He looked back and forth from Riley to Bill, “But how did she …?”

Riley said as gently as she could put it, “I’m afraid she was murdered. Her body was found this morning in Lake Gaffney.”

Lovick seemed stunned. After a few moments he asked, “Gretchen drowned?”

Riley glanced at Bill and he took over the explanations. Riley watched Lovick’s expressions as he learned that his wife had been suffocated, and that her body had been stuffed into a weighted body bag. She thought that the bereaved husband’s reactions looked real, but that he wasn’t as shocked as she might have expected him to be.

After a while Lovick asked, “Do you know who did it? Do you know why?”

Bill explained that the FBI was at work on those questions. That’s why he and Riley were here.

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