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“Who hit him?” I asked, afraid I already knew the answer.

“Denise Jones.”

I gripped my stomach. The past hour had been like a roller-coaster ride, with Lizzie calling three times, first to tell me that Cliff was dead, then to tell me that she wasn’t sure, and finally, just now, to say that he was alive. Honestly, I didn’t know whether to throw a party, have a drink, or pray. The good news was that whatever had happened to Cliff Hogarth, I didn’t have anything to do with it, thank heavens. But now I was worried about Denise. She’d admitted to me that she’d hated Cliff, but I wasn’t about to mention that to Lizzie or anyone else. Not yet, anyway.

“Tell Hal to toss that police sca

“I’ve begged him to get rid of it,” Lizzie said. “But he enjoys listening to it. He works so hard, I want him to have his hobbies. I just hope he’s not living vicariously through it.”

“I’m sure he’s not.” I sighed. Hal Logan was the most sensible man I knew. He balanced out Lizzie perfectly. “He probably just likes to keep his finger on the pulse of things around here.” I took a last gulp of coffee and refilled my cup with more. Not that I needed more of a jolt than I’d already received from Lizzie’s numerous phone calls.

“Lately, the town has been hopping with action,” Lizzie said. “Hal feels like he’s right in the middle of it all, thanks to the sca

I could picture Hal getting excited about the latest buzz over the sca

But I digressed.

“Tell me every detail, Lizzie.”

“Okay, but I don’t want you blaming Hal for thinking Cliff was dead. It’s the EMT’s fault for reporting that news in the first place.”

“Okay, but—”

“It took a while for them to report that they were able to revive Cliff. And now they say he’s clinging to life.”

Clinging to lifeis a heck of a lot better thandead, my guilty conscience assured me. Because, yes, I felt horribly guilty. Call me a hypocrite, but I was praying that Cliff Hogarth would survive. I’d ranted and raged in his face yesterday at lunch—in front of witnesses—and then later on to Denise. And over the past month to anyone who would listen, really. Even Chief Jensen had been subjected to my fuming tirades about Cliff.

I frowned at the thought. I was usually so even-tempered, but now I was tempted to sign up for anger-management classes.

“I’ve got to get Callie to school,” I told Lizzie, after taking a look at the clock. We hung up and I grabbed my stuff and went ru

I was surprised to see a sleepy-headed Mac waiting with his niece. “Do I have news for you,” I said as he pushed open the gate and we walked to my truck.

He pulled open the passenger’s door. Callie settled inside the truck and immediately started texting her friends.

Mac glanced at me from across the truck bed. “I think I might have bigger news.”

“So you heard that Cliff Hogarth almost died?”

“Yes. How’d you hear about it?”

“Lizzie called me.” I told him about Hal hearing it on the police sca

Mac nodded. “Yeah. He’ll probably make it.”

“I’m glad, I guess.”

“You guess?” he said with amusement.

“Sorry. Yes, sure, I’m glad.”

He studied me. “What’s going on, Irish?”

I fiddled with the zipper of my down vest, feeling foolish. “I . . . I sort of threatened him yesterday. In public.” I waved the incident away. “But I wouldn’t. I mean, I didn’t follow through. I’m not a violent person, despite my occasional rant.”

“Of course you’re not.”



I smiled at him. “Thanks. So, how did you hear about Cliff?”

He circled around the truck to stand closer to me so we could speak more quietly. It was still early enough to wake up some of our neighbors. “You know I’ve been doing ride-alongs with the police to research my next book, right?”

My eyebrows perked up. “Oh, of course. So, you were with Eric? You must know everything. What happened?”

Mac looked pleased by my enthusiasm. “We were just about to head back to the police station when we got the call that Cliff Hogarth had been hurt.”

“Where was he?”

“He was out at that nursery you took me to.”

“I wonder what he was doing out there.”

“He went to talk to Denise Jones.”

“Why?”

“Brace yourself.”

“Oh no. Please don’t tell me they were having an affair.”

“No.” Mac looked over his shoulder, clearly making sure that Callie was paying no attention to us. Of course, she wasn’t. A teenager with a phone couldn’t care less what adults were doing. “He was trying to blackmail her.”

“Wh-what?” I felt my jaw drop. I knew Cliff was a horrible human being, but blackmailing Denise? “Are you kidding?”

“Nope.”

“Oh my God. Poor Denise!” I paced in front of the truck. What could he possibly have on Denise? Not the point right now, Sha

“Denise was working late,” Mac said, setting the scene. “She had just dug out some old flower beds and was rolling the trash barrels out to the parking lot to be emptied in the morning. She was about to lock up the place when Hogarth showed up to talk. Apparently she didn’t like what he had to say, because she ended up bashing him in the head with her shovel.”

I had to lean against my truck to keep from falling over. This was all so hard to believe. Even though Denise and I had both voiced our sincere disgust with Cliff Hogarth, and even though I’d noticed how viciously she’d been pounding that shovel against the ground that time I’d been at the nursery with Mac, I still couldn’t picture Denise being so angry that she’d attack someone badly enough that they were now clinging to life. “I can’t believe it. I’d just visited her a few hours earlier.”

“Did she have her shovel with her when you were there? Because that thing is lethal.”

Immediately I felt obliged to defend my friend. “Any shovel is lethal, not just Denise’s. And if Cliff was trying to blackmail her, she must’ve hit him in self-defense.” I frowned, imagining it, then tried to brush it off. “Besides, she didn’t kill him. He’s still alive. So, really, he’s lucky, because he clearly had it coming.”

Mac’s eyebrows went up. “I think I like this tough-girl streak, Irish.”

I could feel my cheeks heating up at my bloodthirsty tone. “Is Denise okay?”

“She was hysterical,” Mac said. “I’ll try to remember everything she said, but it got complicated.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Denise told Eric that Hogarth kept goading her about paying him money to keep quiet—she never would say what it was exactly—and she finally got so angry, she started to swing at him with whatever she had. It happened to be the shovel. Hogarth was able to grab it and they tussled.” He shook his head and lowered his voice. “He pushed her down and lifted the shovel to hit her. She thought she was about to die, but at the last second she was able to roll out of the way and scramble to her feet. He got distracted by that and it gave her time to grab the shovel back and bash him over the head.”

“Wow. She’s really strong.”

“I know. I saw those arms of hers, remember? Anyway, she said she finally managed to swing the shovel blindly and nailed him in the head. He dropped like a big tree.”

I pressed my fingers against my mouth. I was shocked, of course, but also horrified for several different reasons. “Poor Denise. Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to say poor Cliff. I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the nearly dead, but it’s hard to pretend I feel bad for him.”