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I pushed myself up from the sofa and winced as the baby landed a kick in what felt like my lowest rib on the right-hand side.
Feels like I’ve got a future David Beckham in there, I thought, and allowed myself a smile that wasn’t much more than a grimace.
However, since by then I was used to the unending soccer match in my midsection, I ignored the discomfort and went down the short hall to the kitchen. However, I’d only just opened the freezer to inspect the carefully labeled Ziplock bags inside when my phone rang from my purse.
I’d left it on the counter, so I only had to move about a foot to reach into it and pull out the phone. The number wasn’t one I recognized, but since it had an 818 area code like Chloe’s, I assumed the caller must be one of her parents.
“Hello?”
Heather’s voice, sounding rushed, urgent. “Selena, we need you and Calvin to come over. Jack’s parents just turned up out of the blue.”
Chapter 9
STRAINED RELATIONS
Jack Speros’s parents looked as though they were maybe a few years younger than Jordan and Heather Fairfield, although right then, they were emanating such a muddled mixture of anger and grief that it was hard to get a good read on them, except to note that they were both tall and athletic-looking, with his mother sporting a blonde longish bob and her husband dark in contrast, his skin a deep tan that I guessed was a year-round kind of thing.
I’d called Calvin and told him to meet me at the Best Western, then had rushed out…well, waddled quickly…to my Jeep so I could hurry over here.
To say my arrival wasn’t exactly welcomed by the Speroses might have been a slight understatement.
“Who the hell are you?” Jack’s father demanded almost as soon as Jordan opened the door.
“I’m Selena Marx,” I said, doing my best to keep my tone even. “I’m Chloe’s half-sister.”
“And she’s helping us figure out who killed Jack,” Chloe added. She was sitting on the farther of the two queen beds in the room, face pinched with worry, as she and her mother held hands.
Jack’s father gave me a disbelieving look. “You’re a cop?”
“No,” I said. “But I’ve solved quite a few murders, Mr….?”
I let the words trail off and gave him a direct look, since no one in the room seemed too inclined to make introductions.
“Max Speros,” he said, his tone curt. “And this is my wife Leslie.”
Saying it was very nice to meet them didn’t seem like the right thing to do, so I settled for giving him a nod of acknowledgment.
“Anyway,” he went on, “I don’t think we need to look any further than this room to see who killed my son.”
At once, Chloe sat up a little straighter, hot color burning high on her cheekbones, bright in her otherwise pale face. “I didn’t kill Jack. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Well, of course you would say that,” Leslie Speros put in, her voice just as tightly wound as her husband’s. “And I’m sure you’ll get a jury to believe you, with that innocent face of yours.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up a hand. “I know tempers are high, and rightly so. But let’s look at this logically. Why in the world would Chloe have a motive to murder your son?”
Leslie’s chin lifted. “Because he dumped her, and she couldn’t take it.”
My eyes widened, and Chloe wore a similarly owl-eyed look.
“I dumped him,” she snapped.
Rather than look offended, the Speroses shared a glance that bordered on smug. “Well, of course that’s the story you spread to everyone,” Max said. “But we know what our son told us.”
“Which wasn’t the truth,” Jordan shot back. “He obviously wanted to misrepresent what really happened because he didn’t want to admit that Chloe broke up with him.”
“That is not — ” Leslie began, but didn’t get any farther than that, as someone knocked at the door right then.
Jordan, who was the one who’d let me in the hotel room and who’d remained standing near the door, went ahead and opened it. Outside stood Calvin, wearing his tan San Ramon tribal police uniform.
