the subject. “When did you decide you preferred working in front of the camera versus behind it?”
“I didn’t decide. The journalist I assisted during my first assignment was in a car accident. Everyone was on the scene except her and the cameraman told me to get in front of the camera and do the job. The audience responded well to me, so that’s where the powers that be decided I should be—on-screen.”
“But you had aspirations?”
Amber nodded. “I had my heart set on hosting one of the big entertainment news shows.” She laughed, remembering the horror on her parents’ faces when she’d told them. “It wasn’t exactly the career my family had hoped for.”
He smiled. It was nice. Really nice. Too nice, damn it. “Your parents and your sister are all doctors.”
“Yes. I’m the black sheep.” The realization that her words had never been truer stole the air from her lungs. Now she was a potential suspect in a homicide.
The doorbell saved her from going down that pity path. She stood to go to the door, but Douglas moved ahead of her and checked the security viewfinder.
“It’s Mr. Teller.”
Douglas opened the door, and Teller came inside. He’d already been introduced to the man who would be keeping watch over her. There was just something wrong with calling him a bodyguard. Particularly since she continued to have a bit of trouble keeping her attention off his body. The foolish reaction had to be about sex. She hadn’t been intimate with anyone since she and Josh had ended their relationship.
Her gaze drifted to the man assigned to protect her. Don’t even go there.
“We should speak privately,” Frank Teller announced before saying hello. He looked from Amber to Douglas and back.
“I’d like him to stay,” Amber countered. Douglas and his boss would need to be kept up to speed anyway.
When Teller relented, Douglas insisted on serving the coffee. Amber was happy to let him do the honors. Her knees were feeling a little weak as she sank back into a chair. Maybe it was the grim expression Teller wore.
He placed his briefcase on the coffee table and opened it. “The news is not good.”
Amber’s stomach did the sinking now. “What sort of evidence could they possibly have? I don’t even know this man! He...he made deliveries to my house and the station a couple of times.” Maybe more than a couple of times. Still, the whole thing was incredible.
“Amber.” Teller closed his briefcase and placed the folder he’d removed atop it. “I’ve known your family for most of my life. Your father is my father’s personal physician. Your mother was my pediatrician. I, of all people, know this is wrong. You couldn’t possibly have harmed this man. Yet the evidence is enough to make even me have second thoughts.”
The trembling she had experienced that morning after the initial shock that no one was playing a joke on her started anew. The police had mentioned evidence without providing the details. “What evidence? I don’t know how they could find evidence that leads back to me in a home where I’ve never been...on a body I’ve never touched.”
“They found a teacup with your prints on it.”
“What?” The situation had just gone from unbelievable to incomprehensible. “If there is anything in that poor man’s house that either belonged to me or bore my prints, someone—besides me—put it there.”
Before Teller could respond, Douglas returned with the coffee. He’d gone to the trouble to find her grandmother’s serving tray and to dig out the china cups and saucers rather than the stoneware mugs. He’d even prepared the creamer and sugar servers. Her disbelief was temporarily sidelined by the idea that he would think to go to so much trouble.
Douglas placed the tray on the coffee table, and she noted there were only two cups. “If you need me for anything—” he hitched his thumb toward the rear of the house “—I’ll be outside checking the perimeter.”
“Thank you.” Amber suddenly didn’t want anyone else to hear these incredible lies—at least not until she had heard them.
When Douglas was gone, Teller said, “Amber, I realize this is shocking.”
He’d certainly nailed her feelings with that statement. “I don’t understand how any of this happened.” She shook her head, overwhelmed and confused and, honestly, terrified. “You see it on television or in the movies, but this is real life. My life.”
“Do you drink a tea called Paradise Peach?”
Something cold and dark welled inside her. She moistened her lips and cleared her throat. “Yes. It’s my favorite. There’s a specialty shop downtown that stocks it.”
“A can of Paradise Peach tea was found in the victim’s home. Your prints were on the can.”
Worry furrowed her brow and bumped her pulse rate to a faster rhythm. “Maybe he shopped there, too. He may have picked up a can after I did.” Hope knotted in her chest, but it was short-lived. How did a person prove a theory as full of circumstantial holes as the one she’d just suggested?
“Certainly,” he agreed. “Bear in mind that the burden of proof is not ours. It will be up to the BPD to make their case. For that they need evidence, which brings us to the cup that also bore your prints.”
The rationale she had attempted to use earlier vanished. Dear Lord she felt as if she had just awakened in the middle of a horror film and she was the next victim. All she had to do now was scream.
“Take a look at these crime scene photos.” He opened the folder and removed two eight-by-ten photographs. He scooted his briefcase and the serving platter to the far side of the table and placed the photographs in front of her. “These are copies, so they’re not the best quality.”
The first one showed the victim lying on the floor next to the dining table in what she presumed was his kitchen. Blood had soaked his shirt. He appeared to have multiple stab wounds to the chest. Poor man. She swallowed back the lump of emotion that rose in her throat and moved on to the second one. The second was a wider-angle view showing more of the room. Definitely the kitchen. Her attention zeroed in on the table. The table was set for two. Teacups sat in matching saucers, each flanked by a spoon and linen napkin. She squinted at the pattern on the cups. A floral pattern for sure, but difficult to distinguish.
“He was having tea with someone.” She lifted her gaze to Teller’s. “Whoever that person was, he or she is likely the one who killed him. Based on the prints found at the scene, the police believe that person was you.”
Hands shaking, she pressed her fingers to her mouth to hold back the cry of outrage. “The medical examiner is certain about the time of death?”
Teller nodded. “Last Friday night, around eight. It’ll be a while before we have the autopsy results, which will tell us what he had for dinner and various other details that may or may not help our case.”
Amber made a face.
“Knowing what and where he ate might help us,” Teller explained. “The police might be able to track down the restaurant—if he ate out—and someone there might remember if he was alone.”
